KickStarter SKALD: Against the Black Priory - retro RPG inspired by Ultima

[n0wh3r3]

The combat is far from mindless and is more complex than any 80s or 90s games

I'm actually comparing it to Rad Codex games. Kingsvein blows this away. Also Caves of Lore had more useful abilities and spells for all party members, though it's much easier.

Kingsvein's top down graphics are less appealing than the style of this game but they are more readable and easier to parse, esp. in battle. Skald often looks stylish but needing to constantly hit the 'highlight items' button is a sign of art design overtaking playability. Ultima never needed that shit.

*edit* also, really? Play any gold box game. Shit, play Wizards Crown.

So is that better than a clear-cut tactics game like Kingsvein?

It's not. Kingsvein has actual challenging battles but doesn't focus too much on resource accumulation. Much more build freedom. Skald is more about managing health and mana over the long haul, though because there's no random encounters in dungeons you can always walk back to a bed to rest. Skald also gives you a free heal every level up, I'm level 8 in my game and I've been milking this to almost never rest at all.

What Skald has is 'muh grimdark' and story. It's fine, nothing amazing, but some people weight those factors higher (*cough* game journos *cough* *cough*)

It seems like you are extremely biased against the game. And for fuck's sake, don’t tell me to play a Gold Box game or Wizard’s Crown—I’ve played them all. You are exhibiting the common syndrome of the Codexer, praising the ancient perfect game that never existed. Skald clearly has a lot of features that weren’t in those Gold Box games, which were filled with random encounters with little strategic depth. As for the grimdark aspect, yes, it’s a huge advantage. It has a good plot and is something that would stand on its own at a true RPG table. The young isekai hero saving the world from the demon king in a JRPG-style plot doesn’t do it for me. So, Skald’s darker and more coherent universe, with resource management and deeper gameplay than usual, is considerably superior in my eyes compared to the 'rad' Codex darlings.One thing I would agree with is the cluttering on screen, forcing you to use Shift to highlight things. But again, the games from the '80s and '90s were not as detailed.

Mortmal praising a game with such unreadable fonts is all the recommendation I could need!

Well, I certainly have some experience with RPGs that are not so easy to read.

what game is that?

 

[Mortmal]

The combat is far from mindless and is more complex than any 80s or 90s games

I'm actually comparing it to Rad Codex games. Kingsvein blows this away. Also Caves of Lore had more useful abilities and spells for all party members, though it's much easier.

Kingsvein's top down graphics are less appealing than the style of this game but they are more readable and easier to parse, esp. in battle. Skald often looks stylish but needing to constantly hit the 'highlight items' button is a sign of art design overtaking playability. Ultima never needed that shit.

*edit* also, really? Play any gold box game. Shit, play Wizards Crown.

So is that better than a clear-cut tactics game like Kingsvein?

It's not. Kingsvein has actual challenging battles but doesn't focus too much on resource accumulation. Much more build freedom. Skald is more about managing health and mana over the long haul, though because there's no random encounters in dungeons you can always walk back to a bed to rest. Skald also gives you a free heal every level up, I'm level 8 in my game and I've been milking this to almost never rest at all.

What Skald has is 'muh grimdark' and story. It's fine, nothing amazing, but some people weight those factors higher (*cough* game journos *cough* *cough*)

It seems like you are extremely biased against the game. And for fuck's sake, don’t tell me to play a Gold Box game or Wizard’s Crown—I’ve played them all. You are exhibiting the common syndrome of the Codexer, praising the ancient perfect game that never existed. Skald clearly has a lot of features that weren’t in those Gold Box games, which were filled with random encounters with little strategic depth. As for the grimdark aspect, yes, it’s a huge advantage. It has a good plot and is something that would stand on its own at a true RPG table. The young isekai hero saving the world from the demon king in a JRPG-style plot doesn’t do it for me. So, Skald’s darker and more coherent universe, with resource management and deeper gameplay than usual, is considerably superior in my eyes compared to the 'rad' Codex darlings.One thing I would agree with is the cluttering on screen, forcing you to use Shift to highlight things. But again, the games from the '80s and '90s were not as detailed.

Mortmal praising a game with such unreadable fonts is all the recommendation I could need!

Well, I certainly have some experience with RPGs that are not so easy to read.

what game is that?

Zodiac's Legion Alpha version: Don't worry, this screenshot caused emotional anguish to Galdred , it will not look like that and will be properly sized.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Btw. , C64's colour palette is very characteristic due to the following reasons:

- A ~third of all 16 colours available is reserved to browns and greys
- There's only two greens for anything green (e.g. trees)
- The only true red is rather muted too, giving it the appearance of rust -- or actual blood
- Flashy colours are in short supply in general, giving everything a muted look (compare this to the palette of Amstrad 8bit computers such as the 6128...)

I think this fits the game's mood exceptionally well. There's obviously a bit more going on, or else he wouldn't have been able to do the dynamic lights and shades. Not sure if it's all dithering and the like. Also, the resolution is more akin to Amiga rather than C64. Plus obviously, not all the art in here would have fitted a couple disks games used to ship with. Including all the portraits, 2D arts of locations and character sprites changing accordingly to the gear they wear. So it's more like you REMEMBER oldschool Ultima et all to look like.

But man, this is a good job.

Anybody reminded of Amberstar and Ambermoon as well? Also the soundtrack at times.

 

[Lemming42]

Only played about half an hour so far but the presentation of everything here is absolutely superb. Not just the visuals, but the way it genuinely feels like a game from a bygone era but reimagined with modern features and controls, making it incredibly smooth and easy to play. It's superb. If an Unlimited Adventures style toolkit were released based on this we could get some of the best cRPG experiences in years.

 

[Galdred]

The combat is far from mindless and is more complex than any 80s or 90s games

I'm actually comparing it to Rad Codex games. Kingsvein blows this away. Also Caves of Lore had more useful abilities and spells for all party members, though it's much easier.

Kingsvein's top down graphics are less appealing than the style of this game but they are more readable and easier to parse, esp. in battle. Skald often looks stylish but needing to constantly hit the 'highlight items' button is a sign of art design overtaking playability. Ultima never needed that shit.

*edit* also, really? Play any gold box game. Shit, play Wizards Crown.

So is that better than a clear-cut tactics game like Kingsvein?

It's not. Kingsvein has actual challenging battles but doesn't focus too much on resource accumulation. Much more build freedom. Skald is more about managing health and mana over the long haul, though because there's no random encounters in dungeons you can always walk back to a bed to rest. Skald also gives you a free heal every level up, I'm level 8 in my game and I've been milking this to almost never rest at all.

What Skald has is 'muh grimdark' and story. It's fine, nothing amazing, but some people weight those factors higher (*cough* game journos *cough* *cough*)

It seems like you are extremely biased against the game. And for fuck's sake, don’t tell me to play a Gold Box game or Wizard’s Crown—I’ve played them all. You are exhibiting the common syndrome of the Codexer, praising the ancient perfect game that never existed. Skald clearly has a lot of features that weren’t in those Gold Box games, which were filled with random encounters with little strategic depth. As for the grimdark aspect, yes, it’s a huge advantage. It has a good plot and is something that would stand on its own at a true RPG table. The young isekai hero saving the world from the demon king in a JRPG-style plot doesn’t do it for me. So, Skald’s darker and more coherent universe, with resource management and deeper gameplay than usual, is considerably superior in my eyes compared to the 'rad' Codex darlings.One thing I would agree with is the cluttering on screen, forcing you to use Shift to highlight things. But again, the games from the '80s and '90s were not as detailed.

Mortmal praising a game with such unreadable fonts is all the recommendation I could need!

Well, I certainly have some experience with RPGs that are not so easy to read.

what game is that?

Zodiac's Legion Alpha version: Don't worry, this screenshot caused emotional anguish to Galdred , it will not look like that and will be properly sized.

Yes, I am on it, but that requires a bit more changes than I expected (the mouse and some layers don't play well with the viewScale). I didn't have time to launch Skald yet because of that!

 

[Nikanuur]

If you haven't already, consider turning off the trashmobs in the overworld. I didn't realize there was a setting for it until late in the game.

IMO, the combat doesn't get unenjoyable until the last half of the game, where you run into stack after stack of high HP enemies. Also there's low enemy variety and little variation needed in your tactics. Endgame battles are basically the same as early game ones, just higher numbers. This is unfortunate, as you spend a lot of your time in combat.

Since the most useful companion is semi-arbitrarily removed, I was stuck with a very unoptimized party. Battlemagos and Champion are basically trap choices. They're practically useless in combat outside of very niche situations (such as inferno spamming fire vulnerable enemies). Hospitaller is a goodafter combat healer but not very useful in dealing damage, and this is a damage race game. Armsmaster is amazing, Officer is even better, Ranger is top tier, and thief can be very good with backstabs.

Mages require this really finicky abuse of the crafting system to make a ton of potions, so they can spam a lot of cascade attacks per turn, but all those attacks are low damage. I feel like something is bugged.

I agree that the strongest custom party would probably be three officers and three rangers, provided you somehow get enough arrows because they churn through them. The easier tactic is probably to get six battlemagos and just spam inferno through the entire game, as I don't think I've come across fire-resistant enemies.

But I wouldn't fucking know, because the battle text is blink and you miss it, and I'm not checking the battle log every single turn.

THERE IS A BATTLE LOG?!

 

[Nikanuur]

Look at you brothers Codexers all getting triggered over my raw brotherly love happy, joyful, and sharing news, passion, decency, and informational value in abundance over a great, new cRPG!

 

[TheDarkUrge]

Having a lot of fun playing this game. Artstyle is cool, overworld map adds a good sense of scale, combat is simple but still feels strategic, music is nice. Biggest complaint so far is how sometimes your spells just go into nothing -- why not cancel it if the spell location is invalid?

 

[Mark Richard]

Lovecraft-inspired settings are a dime a dozen and not much of a selling point for me these days, but the execution of this one is impressive. Grimdark washed out colour palette, haunting soundtrack, foggy locales, body horror, quests that dispel foolish notions of heroism – gotta' love it when an RPG is so focused and consistent on a theme. Surprisingly well-written and concise too, contributing to the flavour while staying clear of the overindulgent text walls that so often plague the genre these days.

I think this fits the game's mood exceptionally well. There's obviously a bit more going on, or else he wouldn't have been able to do the dynamic lights and shades. Not sure if it's all dithering and the like. Also, the resolution is more akin to Amiga rather than C64. Plus obviously, not all the art in here would have fitted a couple disks games used to ship with. Including all the portraits, 2D arts of locations and character sprites changing accordingly to the gear they wear. So it's more like you REMEMBER oldschool Ultima et all to look like.

Precisely. The trick to connect with the hazy childhood memories of what the player thinks the classic game is, rather than give them the reality. Not an easy thing to do that and keep the essence of what the game is supposed to be intact, but I think Skald pulls it off.

 

[Terenty]

I agree, it's a rare case when all the elements come together to create a cohesive whole. The game just feels high quality unlike a lot of indie stuff.

Also the atmosphere reminds me of Deus Ex in the sense that the tone is very consistent and it feels like the devs are actually serious about the world they created

 

[Robber Baron]

Ok help me out here team, I can't

cross this little bridge

over to the ship in chapter 2
the character just bumps like into an invis wall, but at the same time I can stand on the water tile beneath it for some reason
is it a bug or some secret? I'm confused

 

[Falksi]

If mid stuff like Sea of Stars manages to make the GOTY awards and win best Indie game, Skald most certainly does. It's a thousand times more enjoyable than that was.

 

[Nikanuur]

Do you guys know how to make ReShade to ignore the ESC key? Whenever I press it as in to cancel something in game, or to get to the menus, ReShade reloads everything and recompiles shaders.
It's rather annoying, and I don't remember ReShade doing this in other games O.o
I don't think I've configured anything besides the filters, and the shortcut for switching the filters on and off (shift+x).

 

[Robber Baron]

Skald most certainly does

sorry not enough gender options in the character creation

 

[moleman]

Skald most certainly does

sorry not enough gender options in the character creation

I agree.
Since this is a Lovecraft themed game there should be:
Male/Female/Thing that should not be

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Well, Ultima 3 had "other."

 

[Jrpgfan]

If mid stuff like Sea of Stars manages to make the GOTY awards and win best Indie game, Skald most certainly does. It's a thousand times more enjoyable than that was.

Except, sadly, no one played Skald, while the former is way more popular.

 

[Falksi]

If mid stuff like Sea of Stars manages to make the GOTY awards and win best Indie game, Skald most certainly does. It's a thousand times more enjoyable than that was.

Except, sadly, no one played Skald, while the former is way more popular.

You sure about that? I'm seeing people post about Skald quite a bit around social media.

Sea of Stars will undoubtably be more popular, but saying no-one is playing Skald doesn't seem right.

And either way, Skald is brill, Sea of Stars is mid, so Skald deserves some spotlight.

 

[Machocruz]

If mid stuff like Sea of Stars manages to make the GOTY awards and win best Indie game, Skald most certainly does. It's a thousand times more enjoyable than that was.

Gotta have that sweet, sweet Chrono Trigger influence that they crave. You know that numbers and decision making panic them.

 

[Dumle]

Ok help me out here team, I can't

cross this little bridge

over to the ship in chapter 2
the character just bumps like into an invis wall, but at the same time I can stand on the water tile beneath it for some reason
is it a bug or some secret? I'm confused

You can't cross it, the ship's just background dressing. :/

 

[Robber Baron]

the ship's just background dressing. :/

I guess at some point it was planned to be a playable location
it's too confusing otherwise

 

[Tyranicon]

If mid stuff like Sea of Stars manages to make the GOTY awards and win best Indie game, Skald most certainly does. It's a thousand times more enjoyable than that was.

Except, sadly, no one played Skald, while the former is way more popular.

You sure about that? I'm seeing people post about Skald quite a bit around social media.

Sea of Stars will undoubtably be more popular, but saying no-one is playing Skald doesn't seem right.

And either way, Skald is brill, Sea of Stars is mid, so Skald deserves some spotlight.

According to the dev the launch was a success in every metric they were keeping. It has a good amount of reviews and an impressive peak player count for this genre:

For a solodev(?) this is a runaway success.

Sea of Stars seem like normie weeb slop with good art and that's it. Codex opinions only reinforce this.

 

[Jrpgfan]

If mid stuff like Sea of Stars manages to make the GOTY awards and win best Indie game, Skald most certainly does. It's a thousand times more enjoyable than that was.

Except, sadly, no one played Skald, while the former is way more popular.

You sure about that? I'm seeing people post about Skald quite a bit around social media.

Sea of Stars will undoubtably be more popular, but saying no-one is playing Skald doesn't seem right.

And either way, Skald is brill, Sea of Stars is mid, so Skald deserves some spotlight.

According to the dev the launch was a success in every metric they were keeping. It has a good amount of reviews and an impressive peak player count for this genre:

View attachment 50694

View attachment 50695

For a solodev(?) this is a runaway success.

Sea of Stars seem like normie weeb slop with good art and that's it. Codex opinions only reinforce this.

Yes, because the quality of the game alone is enough to award them GOTY prizes.

Unless of course you're talking about Codex GOTY, which no one outisde a handful of people who come to this site care about. And even then I have my doubts it would win. Depending on how KCD2 turns out even I could be voting for it in a GOTY poll instead of Skald.

 

[Tyranicon]

Yes, because the quality of the game alone is enough to award them GOTY prizes.

Unless of course you're talking about Codex GOTY, which no one outisde a handful of people who come to this site care about. And even then I have my doubts it would win.

Oh I was just bringing up numbers. I can't give a cunt's fart for game awards.

It's like the Oscars but even more fake, somehow.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Yes, because the quality of the game alone is enough to award them GOTY prizes.

Unless of course you're talking about Codex GOTY, which no one outisde a handful of people who come to this site care about. And even then I have my doubts it would win.

Oh I was just bringing up numbers. I can't give a cunt's fart for game awards.

It's like the Oscars but even more fake, somehow.

The post I was replying to was specifically saying Skald should win GOTY because it's better than Sea of Stars. The whole discussion is about that, I have no clue why you're even replying to it if you don't care about any of that.

And honestly, I have my doubts less than 1k reviews in more than a week after release indicates good enough sales, regardless of scope - remember we're not talking about tetris or snake here, it's a full-fledged old school RPG with some really decent art on top of it, and from what I was told, they invested some money on marketing too.