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

[hacknhack]

Only gotten my toes wet but Skald is good fun so far (and cheap!). Well done to everyone involved. Though I do kinda wish they'd stayed away from the modern pixel-art aesthetic and stuck to the simpler retro styling on show early in the development process. I know this is selfish as the graphics upgrade probably increased the game's sales potential, but still....

Bitch, bitch. Moan, moan.

 

[rikkles]

I’ve put up a couple of guides on Steam. One has the list of console commands and how to use them, and the other lists all the crafting recipes (food and alchemy).

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Non-combat skills are prolific in the best way. All of them get heavy use. Probably the only two that aren't explicitly necessary are Stealth and Thievery, but are still extremely useful. Survival is possibly the least used, but still common.

This is nonsense. Athletics get used 4-5 places, thievery is useful for locks, stealth to avoid fights, and thats about it. Some diplomacy checks in the beginning, one or two survival, lore, and healing, but those checks are all cosmetic. They make no difference whatsoever. You can use survival to get extra food when resting I guess.

You get companions to cover every skill too except for early game diplomacy, so that's all you need to invest in (you dont get anyone with Lore until very late but its a worthless skill).I'd even say the games opening events are more interesting if you fail the diplomacy checks.

The skill system is overall poorly used and makes little difference in the end.

 

[Adeptus]

Non-combat skills are prolific in the best way. All of them get heavy use. Probably the only two that aren't explicitly necessary are Stealth and Thievery, but are still extremely useful. Survival is possibly the least used, but still common.

This is nonsense. Athletics get used 4-5 places, thievery is useful for locks, stealth to avoid fights, and thats about it. Some diplomacy checks in the beginning, one or two survival, lore, and healing, but those checks are all cosmetic. They make no difference whatsoever. You can use survival to get extra food when resting I guess.

You get companions to cover every skill too except for early game diplomacy, so that's all you need to invest in (you dont get anyone with Lore until very late but its a worthless skill).I'd even say the games opening events are more interesting if you fail the diplomacy checks.

The skill system is overall poorly used and makes little difference in the end.

I think that healing influences amount of vitality You get from healing potions?

 

[Smiling Sam]

Only gotten my toes wet but Skald is good fun so far (and cheap!). Well done to everyone involved. Though I do kinda wish they'd stayed away from the modern pixel-art aesthetic and stuck to the simpler retro styling on show early in the development process. I know this is selfish as the graphics upgrade probably increased the game's sales potential, but still....

Bitch, bitch. Moan, moan.

Man that looks awesome and way preferable to what we got. I just finished the game and thought it was pretty good. I was hoping for Ultima V and I did not get that, but I don't think there will ever be a game that scratches that itch.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Grampy_Bone I politely disagree. Awareness reveals troves all of the time. It also alerts you to enemies in the dark. Lore and Diplomacy skills are all over the place. Even in camp. Athletics is used from hanging ropes, jumping bridges, bashing locks, and even intimidating in dialogue. Stealth is not only for avoiding combat over land and in area, but also for getting a surprise round when you attack and setting up rogues. Thievery lets pick locks, but also steal from stores. Stealing is extremely benefitial. Crafting is major, as food is crucial. Recepies are greater than the sum of their parts by far. If you want your casters at full steam, you'll keep the spice flowing with potions. Potions in general are very strong in this game. Not just because they directly replicate a buff, but instantly and without any action cost.

I think the only two that don't see much use are Healing and Survival. Those skills have only come up maybe 2 or 3 times each. Otherwise, I would put skill usage on par with Kingmaker. Particularly for it being such a smaller game.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

jumping bridges

There's only one of these and you can just walk around it.

Lore checks don't tell you anything. They don't solve quests, give more rewards, or provide alternate solutions. None of the skill checks do. When the outcome of an event is the same with or without the skillcheck, it is meaningless. The info they give is all red herrings anyway, the author deliberately hides the wtf Prometheus ending as le tweest. What meaningful checks there are are entirely in the first few areas of the game. You can use diplomacy to avoid one fight on the boat at the very beginning. Kat joins you either way (because there aren't enough party members for you to lose any). The choices when you enter the town are also bogus, you always end up in the same fight, and the choice to turn the reavers on each other isn't skill check dependent at all. The system is about 90% fluff. Sorry to burst your bubble.

It's especially hilarious to compare it to Kangmaker, a game where botched skill checks can lose you party members, fail quests, and even unlock an alternate ending.

 

[Haba]

Skills are IMHO just perfectly implemented here. They give you a little bit of extra here and there, but they won't get in the way of actually playing the game. You don't need to micro your levelups to pass specific speech checks or worry about losing content.

That is how it was during the good old days. Just roll a character and have fun.

 

[Gandalf]

Swen Vincke is in the credits of this. So, what did he do as a producer?

 

[Ialda]

Currently exploring

Spoiler

the catacombs under the temple

and I've run out of arrows; any idea where I can buy some ?

 

[Tao]

How do you buy in bulk? Buying arrows is a little pain in the ass

Also magic is terrible in the game. I have to re start 3 times because i choosen mage and then battlemage. The strat to mage is just pass the early beach and meet Roland? Then again is not even worth with how it's implemented and i asume there is a mage companion in the game anyways.

When i blasted those rats in the prologue with my mage i though i was a god lmao

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

jumping bridges

There's only one of these and you can just walk around it.

Lore checks don't tell you anything. They don't solve quests, give more rewards, or provide alternate solutions. None of the skill checks do. When the outcome of an event is the same with or without the skillcheck, it is meaningless.

This is not true. For example consider just the lighthouse.

Spoiler

1. If you walk around the bridge, it takes you through quite a few enemies the player might struggle with at the point. Failing the check also damages the party. Success also gets you XP.
2. The lighthouse keeper gives you helpful information in solving the buried treasure quest in the area if you pass a Diplomacy check. +XP
3. The caves under the lighthouse have a swimming maze that is navigable based on your Athletics score.
   1. This is valuable because the side entrance to the tomb will not be known to players.
   2. There is a dead body with gold and a key to a difficult to open chest nearby which has phat l33wtz. +XP. I got a powerful magical 2-handed hammer for Roland.
      1. This chest can be opened by bashing the lock (athletics +XP) or lockpicking (thievery +XP).
4. After you swim through the tunnels to find the tomb, the player needs to have 5 Lore or 5 Healing to retrieve the +3 magic dagger, which is an excellent weapon. Especially then in the game. +XP for that action, then +XP for solving the quest.
5. Stealth is very useful to traversing the caves under the lighthouse, as the acid spitting crabs will ambush you if you don't. It's far better to stealth to them and get the surprise round on them.
6. You can use the craft station in the lighthouse to make a potion of Acid Resistance against those crabs, taking them from TPK to doable. The recipe is found in locked chest (Athletics or Thievery to open, awards XP) in that same lighthouse.
7. There are lots of random treasures to find at the beach if you have the Awareness to spot them.

All passed skill checks give you XP, even if they don't show it explicitly. For example

Spoiler

The player's first encounter with the cultists inside of the city Horryn. If you pass a diplomacy check, you can save the woman and avoid combat. If you pass the Healing check, you can save her life. This completes the quest to find & save the lost woman, which avoids combat and nets you more experience than if you had attacked them.

There are false choices, like in the prologue. All those skill checks do reveal more information and all of them do give experience. Even the one that involves stealth. This game makes good use of skill checks and they all have use. Do they branch plot? No. That's kind of a fool's errand in game design. Here they are used more wisely as an asset to the player, rather than to avoid punishment or access content.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

This is not true.

Wrong, I got the dagger without the skills. Also, I said the skills were frontloaded. Things like the underwater section are meaningless because you will have the Armsmaster guy who is pre built with athletics. You can't fail that section via build. None of this stuff happens from chapter 2 onwards, game becomes completely on rails.

 

[Tao]

Roland doesnt count for that section, i just tried. You get 7 breaths by default which is all you need to reach the tomb. You get more the more athletics you MC has. By default you get 1 min iirc which is the one breath you need to take the key from the drowned corpse.

Both of you are right imo. The end result to move foward quests and the campain seems to be predetermined but you get bits of rewards and can sometimes influence battles (mainly if you skip it or not). I think is done pretty well. In a way that seems natural and well implemented to a rpg

Is there a way to cheese a little with the chests random items? I speced to be a two handled weapon and all i get is medium sparkly items

Edit: also is there a way to respec? a potion or something? I got the cleric chick and now i see that body spells were a bad choice for my champion. It was great in the early but if the chick can go to tier 4 only there as a cleric spellcaster...

 

[kangaxx]

I'm enjoying the game overall, but I'm finding the combat a bit of a drag given the lack of variety. Stealing from vendors seems somewhat OP, unless the game punishes you some other way for this I'm not aware of?

 

[hacknhack]

Man that looks awesome and way preferable to what we got. I just finished the game and thought it was pretty good. I was hoping for Ultima V and I did not get that, but I don't think there will ever be a game that scratches that itch.

That Ultima V itch can be brutal. I know it. Still, we mustn't complain, things could be a lot worse.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Is there a way to cheese a little with the chests random items? I speced to be a two handled weapon and all i get is medium sparkly items

Whenever you enter an area with a merchant, especially the first time, save before you interact with it. You can quickload and it will reroll the inventory until it has something you want. With how OP thievery is, this feels a bit like a cheat but I don't care.

 

[Nikanuur]

Oh, man! I've stashed 2/3 of my food ingredients in a cupboard next to the oven in the town. Then, I completed the town boss and wanted to pick them up. To my my dismay, the way to the cupboard was blocked by a newly appeared citizen. One of many that pop up (in random places?) once you free the town. Aaaaaaaargh.

 

[Ysaye]

Oh, man! I've stashed 2/3 of my food ingredients in a cupboard next to the oven in the town. Then, I completed the town boss and wanted to pick them up. To my my dismay, the way to the cupboard was blocked by a newly appeared citizen. One of many that pop up (in random places?) once you free the town. Aaaaaaaargh.

I am only in chapter 2 but given the way the story is going maybe the town will get enslaved post freeing and the dude will be removed from in front of the cupboard and hung up in the slaughter house?

 

[Nikanuur]

Oh, man! I've stashed 2/3 of my food ingredients in a cupboard next to the oven in the town. Then, I completed the town boss and wanted to pick them up. To my my dismay, the way to the cupboard was blocked by a newly appeared citizen. One of many that pop up (in random places?) once you free the town. Aaaaaaaargh.

I am only in chapter 2 but given the way the story is going maybe the town will get enslaved post freeing and the dude will be removed from in front of the cupboard and hung up in the slaughter house?

I don't know what is yet to transpire. You might as well be right.
Anyway, I just wanted to went here a bit and maybe warn others to stash with foresight. Maybe not everything in one place, too.
For me, it's not that of a big deal. I've rations for at least several camps more, and I daresay I'll get more. The only thing that got hurt was my RPG pilling obsession, really

 

[Fedora Master]

Incline

 

[Ysaye]

View attachment 50964

Incline

You do realise that that dog had an eldritch horror in it's intestine that you have just woken up? It will probably eat the dog later and come after you in Chapter 4.....

 

[Decado]

I haven't played a game in over a week, I've been too busy. I am itching to get back to this. Goddamnit.

 

[Gandalf]

View attachment 50964

Incline

Funny thing is, the moment I pet the dog for the first time in the game, I thought to myself: yeah, Fedora Master would like this.
Game is so cool that one can even acidentally pet a dog when it is somehow appears on the players pathway.

 

[Fedora Master]

I was put off by the graphics, because I'm not an oldfag who grew up with C64 games but this is very good so far. Didn't know it was ~*Mythosian*~