KickStarter Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - first-person open world RPG adaptation of Kickstarted board game - now on Early Access

[cyborgboy95]

It's coming out... in early-access.

 

[cyborgboy95]

Announcing closed Alpha tests for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Hello adventurers,

We have exciting news for you today. We decided to run an exclusive early access test and you may be one of the players who get the opportunity to check the game out before everyone else!

As Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon nears its early access launch, we’d love to show some of the players what the game offers. This is not only a chance for you to be the first to set foot on the island of Avalon, but also a prime chance for us to gather valuable feedback.
We would be really extremely grateful for your help!

Please note that this version, while offering a significant amount of content, will be far from its final polish. For example:

• The voice-over will not be present for the majority of NPCs.
• The balance will be inconsistent.
• The visuals will lack some polish.
• There will be bugs, some possibly game breaking, scattered throughout the game.
• Some quests may be broken or missing.
• Some systems may not function correctly, such as crafting.

Okay, now that all the negatives are out of the way, check out some of the exciting things we are preparing! Take a look at the world of Avalon!

100 players will be selected based on a simple survey[forms.gle] (link provided below) and will be given access to the game. After experiencing Fall of Avalon, we will then ask you to fill out another survey to gather information on your enjoyment and technical aspects of the game. Using this feedback, we will strive to improve the game even further before its early access launch.

To apply for participation in the testing, please complete the questionnaire linked below. As this is an exclusive opportunity for pre-launch access, you must also agree to withhold any information about the game by signing a simple non-disclosure agreement. This is crucial to us, as we do not want any information about the game to be leaked prior to its launch. We want everyone to have an enjoyable journey without being spoiled beforehand.

https://forms.gle/RLCgmBBaRPcmJyfF7

Those of you who get selected will be contacted by email, so be sure to leave your actual address in the form (no other emails will be sent, marketing or otherwise).

Not to leave you empty-handed at the end, here’s a look at some of the views straight from the game:

We CANNOT wait to invite you to discover the entirety of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon and hear your feedback!

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

What are the chances of this not being shit?

 

[Tyranicon]

What are the chances of this not being shit?

You can usually answer this by finding out who's making this, and what they made before.

Making a great game your first time is not unheard of, but rare in the extreme.

The devs behind this are the same ones that made Tainted Grail: Conquest, which is a different genre (roguelike deckbuilder).

It has pretty good reviews.

Man, who are these guys? They released five games since 2021. Questline is making the Tainted Grail games.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Man, who are these guys? They released five games since 2021.

you mix the developer and the publisher

 

[BruceVC]

What are the chances of this not being shit?

I bought this game years ago so Im hoping its entertaining and worthwhile

 

[Infinitron]

 

[fantadomat]

Looks good,better than the rando generation card game for sure. Nice touches in the prologue too. Reminds me of enderal

 

[lametta]

Demo out now!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1466060/view/3660902126928378574

 

[JDR13]

Just finished the demo. It's very average. The setting and lore are interesting, but the visuals are subpar, and the combat feels pretty janky.

It's no Monomyth that's for sure.

 

[norolim]

It's been released in Early Access.

Adventure begins now! Early Access is live!
Join us in this update to learn more about our approach to Early Access!

Adventure begins now! Early Access is live!

Join us in this update to learn more about our approach to Early Access and learn how we plan to work with our community to create an incredible open world adventure together!

Hello adventurers!

We have officially launched Early Access, and we couldn't be more excited (and stressed :D)! Although the game’s still far from complete, we have a full first part of the adventure ready for you to explore, and we hope you'll have a lot of fun doing so!

First, let's watch the release trailer!



Now, let's discuss a few things about Early Access in general, how we approach it, and what we're striving for:

This will not be a AAA game.
It's essential to mention this. We are a small indie team with big ambitions in terms of gameplay, story, and general fun-factor, but we are not striving for AAA quality, especially in terms of visuals. Please keep that in mind!

Bugs, problems, balance issues.
Although we've done our best to prepare for Early Access, due to the scope of the game, we're sure you will encounter some bugs and problems. Our team is on standby, so you can expect fixes coming quickly if anything critical appears.

We also recommend saving manually from time to time – and backing up your saves – during your adventures.

Early Access - saves.
The most important thing to note is that if you want to participate in the Early Access adventure, you need to be prepared for the possibility that your saves may be lost at some point with a major patch.

Chapter 1: Horns of the South
In this stage of Early Access you will have a special, smaller price and access to first part of the game - Horns of the South. There is around 10-15 hours of content there!
More will be coming with big patches and will be added for free to the game!

How will we work with the community and update the game?
There are several ways in which we’ll gather feedback from you, most notably:

We will closely monitor comments here on Steam.
You can chat with us on our Discord server.
We will ask for feedback/opinions on specific things via updates.

In the future, we will also add detailed in-game statistics that will help balance out the game.

In general, you can expect us to read almost everything, but we may not always be able to respond due to being a small team with a lot to do.

But we will try our best!

In our previous Early Access, Tainted Grail: Conquest, we were able to work really close with community to create a great experience and we hope to do even better here!

In terms of adding patches and content, here is our base idea:
Small bug-fixing/balance patches - We'll add these to the game as needed, without any specific timeline.

Small content additions - From time to time, we may add small (not too complicated) content additions to the game. This can include things like more character customization options, some extra art assets, or items for the game.

BIG content patches - The most important way for us to progress the game will be through significant content patches, which will happen in estimated three to six month periods. You can expect significant quality of life improvements and extra large amounts of content that push the story forward.

Language support - We plan on translating to other languages, but we want to reach the 1.0 version of the game first - that is, complete all the content and then move through the translation process.

With that out of the way, we invite you all to join The Fall of Avalon! Tons of amazing adventures await you!

Spoiler

 

[koyota]

Tainted Grail: Conquest was the surprise gem of whatever year that came out.

Is this more elder-scrolls or more of a pure dungeon crawler?

 

[norolim]

Tainted Grail: Conquest was the surprise gem of whatever year that came out.

Is this more elder-scrolls or more of a pure dungeon crawler?

Looks like Elder Scrolls. I'm hoping it'll be more Morrowind than Skyrim. Installing now, will report if any good.

 

[Turn_BASED]

I watched some gameplay on this today, hitboxes look good in melee. Video below at timestamp 46:00:

 

[razvedchiki]

havent seen any non combat gameplay mechanics (attributes/skills), like merchantile or speechcraft.

 

[Justinian]

The demo had lying, persuasion and intimidation as proficiencies (Tainted grail equivalent to skills, skills in tainted grail are basically passive abilities/perks).

 

[Justinian]

My impression of the demo is that it is heavily elder scrolls inspired and reminds me of Oblivion total conversions. Hopefully the devs have enough sense to avoid oblivion's most obvious flaws. The melee combat is very mediocre (much like oblivion's was) with very limited attack options. Stealth archery is def not a thing because I shot a guy in the head from stealth with a bow and arrow and he took like 20% damage. Archery is basically useless, like it was in Oblivion (unless you did stay at level 1 cheese). Thankfully it is just the demo and I hope the devs make a good game because I'd love to play a decent elder scrolls clone. Hardly anyone makes these.

 

[Cryomancer]

Seems promissing. How is magic in this game?

 

[norolim]

I tested it for a couple of hours yesterday. I didn't play Skyrim, but based on gameplay videos, I'd say this looks like a Skyrim clone - even the lockpicking mini-game is exactly like in TESV. In terms of gamapley, however, I think it's a bit more sophisticated. Here is a short write-up. Oh and go ahead, laugh at my 5:4 display ratio... Ackchyoolly, fuck off, I need it for work.



Unfortunately, because of my display ratio, you'll notice numerous bugs, esp. in the various menu screens - the devs clearly did not optimise the game for 5:4.

Character progression seems to be modelled on Morrowind more than Skyrim. You manually distribute points between the main attributes at level-up and also unlock skills associated with those attributes. Each attribute has a separate skill tree with tiers locked until you meet attribute requirements.

Spoiler

Additionally, there are Proficiencies which you improve through use. According to the in-game description they only have a "slight" effect on various gameplay elements. What's the point, then?

The inventory is much better than the vanilla Skyrim. Visually, I'd say it's Witcher 3 inspired. It works fine and there are 4 weapon loadouts, which you can switch between with shortcut keys.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try as much gameplay, as I would like. My rig is a few years old, it lacks RAM and works on an HDD. Due to poor optimisation, 16 GB RAM and an SDD is a must, if you want to play this game in EA. In the Prologue the performance was OK, but it became nearly unplayable in the first open world location, even when I lowered all the settings to minimum. I was able to do some testing though.


Combat is a typical TES affair. It was a bit choppy for me, even in the prologue, but I can confirm the hitboxes are quite good. The action is rather slow, your opponents can visibly evade your attacks and will not hit you from a mile away. You can also dodge and parry their attempts. Magic works, like it does in Skyrim, I think.

There are currently mechanics for alchemy and cooking. You can also swim and dive, if you find a body of water that is big enough.

The game looks good, even on minimum settings. There are some nice effects, like moving cloud shadows, and puddles that appear after the rain. Animations and face models are much better than anything Bethesda has ever produced. The environments look good, as well. They set the tone well and there are some interesting ideas, like two titans endlessly powering an underground facility:

I didn't play enough to rate the writing, but from what I experienced, it is not terrible. Dialogues usually give you several options and there are even some skill tests. Not sure whether real or fake at this point.

So yeah, I think Tainted Grail has a potential to be a better, deeper more RPG Skyrim with a grim-dark tone and good writing. I'll leave you with some more pretty visuals:

 

[Zombra]

I picked this up on a lark and it's ... I don't think I'd especially recommend it but it's enjoyable in its way so far. Just a couple hours in, I guess mostly I like it because of the novel setting and the sense of mystery ... I really have no idea what's coming next. One thing I do appreciate is there is at least a sense of freedom - almost immediately an NPC shows up, gives you a (small) lore dump, and tells you about the Big Quest to Kill the Big Monster and follow him ... and then immediately after that you're violently separated and left completely on your own so you have no choice but to explore randomly, which is great.

Gameplay is meh, combat is exactly what you'd expect and so far there's nothing to do but walk and kill (or avoid) things. There's no feeling (yet) of "making a build" as all the level ups so far have been things like "+1% damage with one-handed weapons", but my character's only like level 4 so maybe it gets better later.

Also the game space feels vast at first but I realized that my "random exploration" eventually funneled me in a single direction which is a disappointment. Still curious to see where it goes.

 

[toro]

This is depressing. We will never get another Gothic or Arx Fatalis.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Gameplay is meh, combat is exactly what you'd expect and so far there's nothing to do but walk and kill (or avoid) things. There's no feeling (yet) of "making a build" as all the level ups so far have been things like "+1% damage with one-handed weapons", but my character's only like level 4 so maybe it gets better later.

When I played the demo, this was the impression I got too. I felt they could overcome their technical shortcomings by implementing hardline and impactful progression, or just overall unique RPG systems. What I witnessed felt so limp and ineffectual. Don't know how they could save it without a major overhaul, honestly. Please let us know if it improves later.

Liked the setting and atmosphere a lot. If they nail meaningful exploration I'd consider giving it a go despite the ostensibly very mediocre character progression.

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1466060/view/5368909498008162621

Here is a list of major changes!

• 4 new language editions: German, French, Chinese Simplified / Traditional (not available in the Beta, only at release)
• Fully redesigned and improved environment
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Every single dungeon redesigned to accommodate more playstyles
• Strongly increased performance all over the board
• Dual wielding (weapons, magic etc.)
  
  
  
  
• New viable playstyles (stealth, defensive etc.)
• Improved enemy AI
• Improved combat FX and visuals
• Improved all combat animations
• New quests and NPC
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Total rebalance and introduction of new skills, items
• First iteration of theft system
• New spells and magic visual upgrades
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Improved crafting, alchemy and cooking systems
  
  
  
  
• Added Fishing system
  
  
  
  
• New music, including collaboration with Danheim

 

[Zombra]

Interesting they seem to realize that "walk forward clicking on things" gets old fast. Cool that dungeons have been overhauled for multiple routes, they made a point to emphasize every single dungeon has been revamped. That said I completely forgot this game existed after those first 2 hours playing it back in April.

 

[Cryomancer]

edit : only now realized taht I played 0.5 not 0.6

Played a bit. IDK if the spell was added with the update or not but Icicle blast is amazing. A "frost fireball" with amazing AoE damage. My char. I really liked the game. About the performance improvement, the game still runs like shit and I had to lower the graphics a lot.