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KickStarter SKALD: Against the Black Priory - retro RPG inspired by Ultima
- Thread starter SkaldRPG
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https://www.skaldrpg.com/2024/12/skade-tool-open-beta/
SkaDE Tool Open Beta
Ho ho ho!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year and I come bearing gifts: The Skald Data Editor (SkaDE for short) tool enters open beta today and YOU’RE invited!
What is it?
In short, the SkaDE toolset is a bundle of tools that I made to make Skald. In other words, they are the actual tools I used to make the game.
What I’m releasing into BETA today is the first step towards bringing these tools to the community. This means that, for now, only a reduced tile-set is available (should be enough to get you started on that Ultima clone you’re dreaming about). The toolset is and modding is currently only available on PC.
You can read more about the tools in the tutorials linked below. Modding also has its own subchannels on the Skald Discord .
Finally, it is worth reiterating that the current version of the tools and the modding implementation in the game itself is in a very early Beta stage. There are a lot of rough edges so be patient.
How to Use the Tool and Get Content
Skald modding lives on mod.io! This is where you’ll find all the content created, sample projects and all the tutorials for the SkaDE toolset.
If you want to start using the modding tools, head on over to the first tutorial!
If you would rather just download and play mods, check out the guide for installing mods.
A WORD OF WARNING: You need to swap branches to play the version of the game that supports mods (see guide above). The reason we keep it on the experimental/Beta branches is that the build is less stable that we hoped. This will improve but for now these builds should ONLY be used for testing mods – not general play of the vanilla game.
At the time of writing, there is not really any user-created content up so you may need to check in over the coming weeks. Which leads me to…
A Contest!
The Task
Using the SkaDE tool you are to create a small, playable adventure.
- The theme of the adventure shall be “Low Level Adventures” – How does a hero take their first steps to become an adventurer?
- The adventure must be based on the SkaDE sample project . Note that this is a nearly empty project and you can change any aspect of it – it’s just a way of ensuring that the scope remains manageable
- The adventure must contain both a surface level and a dungeon level (as in the sample project)
- There must be both dialogue and combat
- There must be 15-30 minutes of gameplay for a “fresh” player (the jury will spend around 20 min with each contribution)
- You are free to collaborate!
WINNERS AND PrizeS
We’ll pick three winners of a Steam gift card to the value of 100 USD. Your submission will also be featured on the devlog.
Our assessment will be based on:
- Creativity
- Fun of play
- Overall impression
How to Submit
Upload the module to the Skald mod.io and use the tag “XMAS CONTEST”.
Uploading mods is super easy – just remember the tag so that we can find your submissions.
Date
The final date for submission is January 15th.
That should be enough to get you started so head on over to Skald on mod.io and start hacking or go to the Discord to find people to collaborate with!
I’m really excited to see what the community does with this. I’ll be putting out more tutorials over Christmas as well (they may be handy for the contest) so keep an eye out for those.
Best of luck and seasons greetings,
AL
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I finished this up yesterday. Overall, I enjoyed it, but it's a bit amateurish. The setting is by far the strongest part. I love the idea of an RPG set in a dark, Lovecraftian world. There's also some good stuff like solving a conflict with diplomacy/subterfuge, but then you never see that again. The first island felt like a great intro to an epic adventure... but then that ended up being most of the game. The game is very linear, combat is super easy outside of the very early game, and a lot of the game just feels like its missing stuff. The ending in particular made me feel like I was missing a lot. I feel like his worldbuilding article is a must read to help understand what's going on. Ultimately, there's some good stuff here and I hope the dev builds upon it for a future title. For the $15 I paid for it, it's fine.
The time loop stuff could have definitely been explained better. After reading the worldbuilding article, I got a different impression.
Humans exist in a single, linear dimension of time. If the reticulum allows users to experience multiple dimensions of time, I took the "time loops" as their limited minds misinterpreting the premonitions as memories. They may be experiencing all of time at once. Otherwise nothing else in the game seems to indicate that they are physically re-experiencing things over and over again.
Humans exist in a single, linear dimension of time. If the reticulum allows users to experience multiple dimensions of time, I took the "time loops" as their limited minds misinterpreting the premonitions as memories. They may be experiencing all of time at once. Otherwise nothing else in the game seems to indicate that they are physically re-experiencing things over and over again.
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The worldbuilding stuff is clearly obsolete though. Eg, originally Adler's Helm was going to be the capital of the Empire's northern province on the mainland, not a tiny mining camp in the Outer Isles.
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I don't really see anything in the history one that contradicts anything in the game. Freymark still exists in the game via dialog. It seems like Adler's Helm name was simply given to the mining colony instead. I get the impression this was intended to be a much larger game where most of it was going to take place in Freymark.
I'm in chapter 3. Eh. It's a charming solo project.
But there is almost no encounter design. Mostly trash mobs. No hostile spellcasters so far, no nothing. Luckily, the basics are solid.
Cool first game, but I hope to see improvements in dude's future projects.
Edit: An ancient undead king shot a magic missle at me. Hooray!
But there is almost no encounter design. Mostly trash mobs. No hostile spellcasters so far, no nothing. Luckily, the basics are solid.
Cool first game, but I hope to see improvements in dude's future projects.
Edit: An ancient undead king shot a magic missle at me. Hooray!
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Litmanen
Educated
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- Feb 27, 2024
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- 700
Yeah, spellcasting is almost absent either on player's side. Few spells are actually necessary. Mass healing is the most important.
> Get to a new island.
> There's a nice village here. What a strange sight after all the horror.
> Almost every line of dialogue is about how quaint and peaceful this place is.
> There's a festival soon.
> There's a nice village here. What a strange sight after all the horror.
> Almost every line of dialogue is about how quaint and peaceful this place is.
> There's a festival soon.
Falksi
Arcane
Honestly, once I'd got over how lame the Mage class is, I loved the fact that it was a more toe-to-toe based game.
I'm all for magic, but it feels like far too many great games are weighted in favour of it, so it was nice to see Skald lean the other way.
almondblight
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2004
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I mean, I guess those are technically "other words."
Welp. I finished it.
The ending was appropriate, given the genre. It was fine.
Maybe I would argue the final revelations needed a longer setup.
IF we have to peek behind the curtain this much, which is arguable.
The ending was appropriate, given the genre. It was fine.
Maybe I would argue the final revelations needed a longer setup.
IF we have to peek behind the curtain this much, which is arguable.
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Litmanen
Educated
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- 700
Yeah, the ending is a bit "brusque".
Litmanen
Educated
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I agree. Sometimes it is quite disarming to have such an ending (Prelude to Darkness). In this case, it has a bit more sense but... meh.
The ending is very good as a realization of the genre - cosmic horror fantasy. The world is saved by forgotten heroes, by making the ultimate sacrafice... and it's still a bummer, because you've seen too much and everyone dies...
The ending is not so good as a gaming experience. Can it be?
I don't think a bummer-ish endings can work in games, except for very short artsy titles.
Your brain expects a reward, you play games to win. Here it gets some existential dread instead.
Well, that and the final Giger museum trip jumps at you a bit too bluntly, methinks.
The ending is not so good as a gaming experience. Can it be?
I don't think a bummer-ish endings can work in games, except for very short artsy titles.
Your brain expects a reward, you play games to win. Here it gets some existential dread instead.
Well, that and the final Giger museum trip jumps at you a bit too bluntly, methinks.
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Litmanen
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Once, I found myself reading a thread on Reddit, and there was this guy reconstructing the entire story of the ending in an absurdly convoluted and fascinating way. Basically, the death of the protagonists is actually the logical consequence of everything that has happened, and, in truth, the world is in a loop where you 'appear', take action to save it, and die in the process. And to make all this happen, you're actually the one bringing death and destruction both to those who follow you and to those you see as 'enemies.' You're a harbinger of death in an eternal loop.
Maybe it is already clear in the game and I haven't understood when due.
Mages aren't bad in this game, we've just gotten used to modern tastes. They abide the old AD&D trope of linear warriors and quadratic wizards. They're a carry until you get to Chapter 3, at which point they start to shine. By the time you get to the BBEG of the first island, they're hogging glory. Your MP gets high enough, mana potions are everywhere, and Spellburn is actually quite nice. The problem is that their selection isn't very large or terribly interesting. Swarm of Gnats, Blinding Bolt, and Poison Globe are all you need. Silence is nice since it's on the way to Poison Globe, but it will get used half a dozen times all game. The ooze is a decent summon and the Stoneskin & Diamond Skin spells are powerful, just not necessary. The fire spells are bleh. I took Fists of Fire only because I had a lot of points and wanted all damage types covered. The ultimate Air spell (thunderclap?) is nice on the final battle and you have the MP for it at that point, but again, not necessary.
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I still don't see anything the indicates there's a time loop. The ending destroys the Outer Isles and the spaceship leaves. The empire claims it was due to the volcano and time marches on. I still say that the "time loop" is either premonitions of the future or visions implanted in Embla's mind by the navigator to guide her to the final destination.
Litmanen
Educated
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- 700
I post here his comments in that thread. I can't read them again now and maybe he is saying something different from what I reported, but you can maybe see his point of view:
I think the ending is great, for the same reasons you found it going against your gut.
This is gothic, grim-dark fantasy. The advantage to that setting is the opposite of what normally happens in a fantasy game. It flips the morality scale.
In Final Fantasy, your choices don't really matter that much because in the end everything you did was justified, and what you did for your party is mostly for your interest. You saved the world! Yay, everything else you did was gravy. The rare exception is FFIII, where the final assault requires at least 4 party members, but more likely, as many as you can get.
But with Skald, and an ambiguous failure condition, where success in it of itself is dubious, now you have to focus on what you did that was objectively good or bad.
In grimdark fantasy, ALL that mattered was the choices you made. Not just whether or not to doom your allies by association, but dooming everyone on the island. Every quest you did mattered, every choice you made had huge consequences... and every item you sold.
For example...
The outpost where you helped them form a festival?
Had you never visited that place, the ambush for you would've never gone off, and they wouldn't have been killed. Asking yourself questions like, "Why did they gather up the children in a circle?" should haunt you, because they were doing *something*.
You can save everyone by not beating the game solo, I tried it. Iben isn't on the rack, someone else is, but you don't recognize them or converse with them - symbolizing that this function for the ship was likely imperative and they needed *someone*. Kat doesn't get sucked into a wall, but her fate is *completely* ambiguous, getting sucked into the wall of that ship might save her life - we'll come back to her.
You don't need Roland to stand in front of the portal for you, his death is totally needless. Roland lived for those moments though, he was an aggressor at heart - when you meet him he's biting off more than he can chew. Whether or not he served your cause is secondary to the idea that he was already heading headlong into danger.
Driina has her eyes eaten, but she prays - showing her denial. What she's seeing she's choosing not to see - whether or not the swirling purple void is a good thing for her, or a bad thing, is very questionable. The dragon itself may not be evil, it may simply be all-consuming.
This ship, too, suggests its own nature. You do a puzzle which is geometric growth - this is symbolizing that it cares a great deal about infinity, and it basically forces you by inevitability to accept geometric growth is inevitable. This is to stop the plague, but whether or not that is a good thing is truly ambiguous. The murderers in the town can be reasoned with to a degree, their obsession with swirls isn't all consuming. The wizard you save? He's keeping slaves, you've doomed them all to servitude by helping him, but what he did might've been of more importance... but no telling.
The other issue is "time".
There's a time distortion field around the ship and the Black Priory. As you approach the Black Priory, time moves slower. As you walk away from it, time moves faster. There's a girl in the town who asks you to send a message to the Outpost, but by the time you deliver it, you've arrived before she was ever late. From her perspective she's running late, but she can still arrive BEFORE she is. This is why the sheep are dying in the hills, that slight northern walk has made the days longer. The boy's been out there for several days in his mind, but in actuality, what he thought was 2 days by the sun was likely a week... it just... went... slower. That's why they're starving up there and why the insects of are pestilence. It's why the area around the Black Priory is teaming with bandits, hellhounds, and the like... creatures who are living 18 hour nights and 16 hour days, or *worse*. They've had time to live weeks, months, maybe even years waiting for help that'll never come living in a world where time doesn't make sense anymore.
This is also how the pirate ship can escape. You've triggered a tremendous explosion, but it doesn't destroy the Isles immediately, the time distortion field means that the people waiting at the boat have likely waited for a week for you to simply go inside and fight the boss even if the way is clear. The closer you get the more time goes by.
There's also a locked treasure on the ship and this is key.
This is gothic, grim-dark fantasy. The advantage to that setting is the opposite of what normally happens in a fantasy game. It flips the morality scale.
In Final Fantasy, your choices don't really matter that much because in the end everything you did was justified, and what you did for your party is mostly for your interest. You saved the world! Yay, everything else you did was gravy. The rare exception is FFIII, where the final assault requires at least 4 party members, but more likely, as many as you can get.
But with Skald, and an ambiguous failure condition, where success in it of itself is dubious, now you have to focus on what you did that was objectively good or bad.
In grimdark fantasy, ALL that mattered was the choices you made. Not just whether or not to doom your allies by association, but dooming everyone on the island. Every quest you did mattered, every choice you made had huge consequences... and every item you sold.
For example...
The outpost where you helped them form a festival?
Had you never visited that place, the ambush for you would've never gone off, and they wouldn't have been killed. Asking yourself questions like, "Why did they gather up the children in a circle?" should haunt you, because they were doing *something*.
You can save everyone by not beating the game solo, I tried it. Iben isn't on the rack, someone else is, but you don't recognize them or converse with them - symbolizing that this function for the ship was likely imperative and they needed *someone*. Kat doesn't get sucked into a wall, but her fate is *completely* ambiguous, getting sucked into the wall of that ship might save her life - we'll come back to her.
You don't need Roland to stand in front of the portal for you, his death is totally needless. Roland lived for those moments though, he was an aggressor at heart - when you meet him he's biting off more than he can chew. Whether or not he served your cause is secondary to the idea that he was already heading headlong into danger.
Driina has her eyes eaten, but she prays - showing her denial. What she's seeing she's choosing not to see - whether or not the swirling purple void is a good thing for her, or a bad thing, is very questionable. The dragon itself may not be evil, it may simply be all-consuming.
This ship, too, suggests its own nature. You do a puzzle which is geometric growth - this is symbolizing that it cares a great deal about infinity, and it basically forces you by inevitability to accept geometric growth is inevitable. This is to stop the plague, but whether or not that is a good thing is truly ambiguous. The murderers in the town can be reasoned with to a degree, their obsession with swirls isn't all consuming. The wizard you save? He's keeping slaves, you've doomed them all to servitude by helping him, but what he did might've been of more importance... but no telling.
The other issue is "time".
There's a time distortion field around the ship and the Black Priory. As you approach the Black Priory, time moves slower. As you walk away from it, time moves faster. There's a girl in the town who asks you to send a message to the Outpost, but by the time you deliver it, you've arrived before she was ever late. From her perspective she's running late, but she can still arrive BEFORE she is. This is why the sheep are dying in the hills, that slight northern walk has made the days longer. The boy's been out there for several days in his mind, but in actuality, what he thought was 2 days by the sun was likely a week... it just... went... slower. That's why they're starving up there and why the insects of are pestilence. It's why the area around the Black Priory is teaming with bandits, hellhounds, and the like... creatures who are living 18 hour nights and 16 hour days, or *worse*. They've had time to live weeks, months, maybe even years waiting for help that'll never come living in a world where time doesn't make sense anymore.
This is also how the pirate ship can escape. You've triggered a tremendous explosion, but it doesn't destroy the Isles immediately, the time distortion field means that the people waiting at the boat have likely waited for a week for you to simply go inside and fight the boss even if the way is clear. The closer you get the more time goes by.
There's also a locked treasure on the ship and this is key.
Remember those artifacts you *might* have sold in the rat's nest? If you don't have them, they're likely there. The mossy tablet, the evil dagger, and the tome? The tablet isn't mossy because it's just old, it's mossy because it keeps going around in time.
Either it ends up with Kat, or it ends up on the pirate ship. It doesn't matter, because it's going around again - but it matters a whole lot to Kat.
There's two graves just before the final boss - there's a chance that's Kat and someone else. It also may be Kat who went crazy at the obelisk underwater, having realized her fate was to deliver that knife to herself, or someone like her, in another go around in time. She went mad and hid it underwater, with someone else, and it drove her insane. That's what the spirals mean - around and around, going on forever. Geometric growth and infinity.
They can't destroy the Dragon, only placate it hoping someone in those millions of years figures out a way - but that might be *hell*.
If you fight the boss solo, that's a real feat. It was easier before, they made it hard after - I used a guildmagos as my main character, which luckily meant I had access to Invisibility, which allowed me to heal up, magic up, run to the other side of the map and use screen-hitting spells to fight it. It's no peach, especially if you take no backup. I didn't take Embla, but she DOES end up there, even if you don't take her with you. This tactic can work with her as well, so you can potentially save your friends. I opened my save and did exactly that, but I walked in with them too at the end, never having considered if they would be better off on someone else's quest.
That's an interesting note to hit, it should twist your gut when your friends meet terrible ends... and the game warns you plenty.
But Iben isn't dead unless you snuff him out. Maybe they can fix him? Kat isn't dead either, they say she's got a special role to play, and I suspect it involves her creating the next timelines crash site... and maybe going insane. That's extrapolation but considering how perfect that knife seems for her, and the vague idea that it's cursed, it does seem like her "curse" is palpable.
Had you never picked up that knife, you'd never have doomed it to loop again.
You can analyze many quests under this lens, almost all of them show greater purpose. Feeding the refuge's is funny, because they shouldn't be starving - there's food nearby in the ground. They're starving because the days and nights are driving them insane and they can't function like that. It's making them all weaker... and they don't notice food is growing nearby. The rot has spread to here, the bodies have worms, but they aren't the magical swirling doom yet. It's why they're shocked, the bodies have likely been dead for 2 days, but its been 84 hours or so - the worms don't stop when the sun is up or down, so they festered much sooner than they expected.
The lighthouse you fill with oil?
Now more ships can come in, dooming more people... driving them to potential sea monsters... but also it may be the only landmark that keeps them going out. Ships might be coming or going based on that lighthouse - and if the pirate ship isn't the one that escaped, that towns ship in the docks does... carrying the rat town treasures you sold that are destined to circle back.
I really like this, but I totally get that it may be off putting. That's grim-dark.
But to me, saving your friends by leaving them behind on a suicide run feels very fitting. You have real agency, real choice... and with the threat of the dragon being somewhat ambiguous (despite the murder clowns they're pumping out) the fates of your friends, quests, and allies are all not. Those choices mattered. Even the villains, largely, have been driven mad by the knowledge of an ever spiraling future - but that's not what happens to everyone. Driina, with her eyes consumed still holds her faith, it didn't subvert their will. They were raiders before, they aligned to these visions, but the murder? Not necessarily something they were directly driven too. We see some zombies rise up in the Black Priory and they do attack, but are they trying to kill you or simply infect you?
Is being infecting bad?
Or is it some creature trying to ascend you to some higher consciousness and it's these aliens who are stunting this, using you for their own purposes?
Either it ends up with Kat, or it ends up on the pirate ship. It doesn't matter, because it's going around again - but it matters a whole lot to Kat.
There's two graves just before the final boss - there's a chance that's Kat and someone else. It also may be Kat who went crazy at the obelisk underwater, having realized her fate was to deliver that knife to herself, or someone like her, in another go around in time. She went mad and hid it underwater, with someone else, and it drove her insane. That's what the spirals mean - around and around, going on forever. Geometric growth and infinity.
They can't destroy the Dragon, only placate it hoping someone in those millions of years figures out a way - but that might be *hell*.
If you fight the boss solo, that's a real feat. It was easier before, they made it hard after - I used a guildmagos as my main character, which luckily meant I had access to Invisibility, which allowed me to heal up, magic up, run to the other side of the map and use screen-hitting spells to fight it. It's no peach, especially if you take no backup. I didn't take Embla, but she DOES end up there, even if you don't take her with you. This tactic can work with her as well, so you can potentially save your friends. I opened my save and did exactly that, but I walked in with them too at the end, never having considered if they would be better off on someone else's quest.
That's an interesting note to hit, it should twist your gut when your friends meet terrible ends... and the game warns you plenty.
But Iben isn't dead unless you snuff him out. Maybe they can fix him? Kat isn't dead either, they say she's got a special role to play, and I suspect it involves her creating the next timelines crash site... and maybe going insane. That's extrapolation but considering how perfect that knife seems for her, and the vague idea that it's cursed, it does seem like her "curse" is palpable.
Had you never picked up that knife, you'd never have doomed it to loop again.
You can analyze many quests under this lens, almost all of them show greater purpose. Feeding the refuge's is funny, because they shouldn't be starving - there's food nearby in the ground. They're starving because the days and nights are driving them insane and they can't function like that. It's making them all weaker... and they don't notice food is growing nearby. The rot has spread to here, the bodies have worms, but they aren't the magical swirling doom yet. It's why they're shocked, the bodies have likely been dead for 2 days, but its been 84 hours or so - the worms don't stop when the sun is up or down, so they festered much sooner than they expected.
The lighthouse you fill with oil?
Now more ships can come in, dooming more people... driving them to potential sea monsters... but also it may be the only landmark that keeps them going out. Ships might be coming or going based on that lighthouse - and if the pirate ship isn't the one that escaped, that towns ship in the docks does... carrying the rat town treasures you sold that are destined to circle back.
I really like this, but I totally get that it may be off putting. That's grim-dark.
But to me, saving your friends by leaving them behind on a suicide run feels very fitting. You have real agency, real choice... and with the threat of the dragon being somewhat ambiguous (despite the murder clowns they're pumping out) the fates of your friends, quests, and allies are all not. Those choices mattered. Even the villains, largely, have been driven mad by the knowledge of an ever spiraling future - but that's not what happens to everyone. Driina, with her eyes consumed still holds her faith, it didn't subvert their will. They were raiders before, they aligned to these visions, but the murder? Not necessarily something they were directly driven too. We see some zombies rise up in the Black Priory and they do attack, but are they trying to kill you or simply infect you?
Is being infecting bad?
Or is it some creature trying to ascend you to some higher consciousness and it's these aliens who are stunting this, using you for their own purposes?
The infection may rend your flesh, but Driina shows that it doesn't twist your will, she still believes in what she believes in even after her eyes are ripped away. God only knows what she's seeing in there - blissfully, they might have been just consumed, but Roland's wounds should've killed him. It didn't. It was doing something else. Those infected zombies were completely animated by this consciousness and though they attacked you, it's ambiguous whether or not that's true evil. It doesn't seem to have a conscious either, so it may be amoral - a creature beyond time and space simply consuming a planet that to it, has nothing to offer it. The aliens don't really "save" you, they destroy the creature but... is that a good thing?
Knowing the ending and manipulating your save states isn't cheating either - because you go around and around. Embla has this knowledge and chooses to live this ring, over and over, only forgetting small details. So you have to make your choice, but then make it again and again. What matters to you?
What kind of hope will you lay your madness down for? All the doors are colored, but where they go you cannot know. You just have to put your faith in what way you think is best and send them on their way... hoping.
To me, this made the game fascinating.
I may do a solo run sometime just to "see" if anything pops up of use. If there's DLC I suspect it will be as grim dark, and while it may illuminate some of these choices... I doubt they'll be significantly better overall, though you might get a peephole on each of those doors which could mean a lot.
But when there's no "right" way, and no, "wrong" way, suddenly your choices are far more interesting. Everything you did mattered, you just don't get the warm cozy justification of whether they were right or wrong... and no choice is ever so simple.
You do your best, you find your own way, and you make your choices based on what mattered to you... and live with them. I found a lot of interesting self-reflection in this game, and on the general RPG mentality of grow, thrive, and perpetually "win". All those instincts betrayed you, it challenges the ego and the methodology of becoming this pseudo-tyrannical dictator. Sure, you were chasing the right thing, but... having not found it... who were you really? A conqueror? Naive explorers? Or just friends trying to find the right path?
You get to have these questions when it's _______, but not when some NPC comes up and calls you "Heroes".
But hey, to each their own. Your thinking was sound, I'm just chiming in my feelings beyond those. We're largely in agreement about the facts... and I walked away with a pinched gut too, thinking I may have made mistakes.
Then I loaded it back up and tried the other thing.
Also, between you and me... fighting the last boss solo is a trip. I managed to do it without dying but... if you do... is that the fate? Is that a good thing? Does Embla still make it?
Should she?
I love this ambiguity, it's so scrumptious to me... but it should punch you in the gut. There's some cool characters in this game.
Knowing the ending and manipulating your save states isn't cheating either - because you go around and around. Embla has this knowledge and chooses to live this ring, over and over, only forgetting small details. So you have to make your choice, but then make it again and again. What matters to you?
What kind of hope will you lay your madness down for? All the doors are colored, but where they go you cannot know. You just have to put your faith in what way you think is best and send them on their way... hoping.
To me, this made the game fascinating.
I may do a solo run sometime just to "see" if anything pops up of use. If there's DLC I suspect it will be as grim dark, and while it may illuminate some of these choices... I doubt they'll be significantly better overall, though you might get a peephole on each of those doors which could mean a lot.
But when there's no "right" way, and no, "wrong" way, suddenly your choices are far more interesting. Everything you did mattered, you just don't get the warm cozy justification of whether they were right or wrong... and no choice is ever so simple.
You do your best, you find your own way, and you make your choices based on what mattered to you... and live with them. I found a lot of interesting self-reflection in this game, and on the general RPG mentality of grow, thrive, and perpetually "win". All those instincts betrayed you, it challenges the ego and the methodology of becoming this pseudo-tyrannical dictator. Sure, you were chasing the right thing, but... having not found it... who were you really? A conqueror? Naive explorers? Or just friends trying to find the right path?
You get to have these questions when it's _______, but not when some NPC comes up and calls you "Heroes".
But hey, to each their own. Your thinking was sound, I'm just chiming in my feelings beyond those. We're largely in agreement about the facts... and I walked away with a pinched gut too, thinking I may have made mistakes.
Then I loaded it back up and tried the other thing.
Also, between you and me... fighting the last boss solo is a trip. I managed to do it without dying but... if you do... is that the fate? Is that a good thing? Does Embla still make it?
Should she?
I love this ambiguity, it's so scrumptious to me... but it should punch you in the gut. There's some cool characters in this game.
Yeah this one is tricky of course, but it seems the most poignant.
It explains why the lands to the north are crawling with brigands, whose exposure to the priory is much more intense. The woman travelling from the major port to the outpost is the biggest damning theory.
It's also why the wizards doppelganger faints from overexertion when you meet them, he's been experiencing a lot more time - and being pushed by a mad wizard whose command was out of date. What likely was a humble command to get help turned out to be difficult, since nobody is going north. As it went south time sped back up, so its journey took a lot longer... but the wizard was moving slower. Likely so slow that it couldn't tell its agent to eat or sleep, and pushed them to death knowing that they needed to get people to the tower NOW.
It explains why the refuge camp is starving yet have plenty of money and food growing nearby - they're hysterical because the days are slightly longer. It explains why the barbarians who take over the port city are so easily swayed - they know.
It's why the tides take so long to go out at the boat crash site.
It's why the lighthouse was founded upon these tombs, it's the farthest point on the islands away from the priory.
It's why enemy density near the priory is so intense. Anything trying to get closer to the priory goes mad in the long nights and long days, and can't handle the intense conditions brought about by the priory itself. Anyone wondering in that area might find crazy time passing and 36 hour nights.
Worse, it's a spiral, so it isn't just geometric - if you find yourself in a channel of infinite time distortion, you may end up wandering those forests for months as hell hounds wander in from a faster time channel.
That spiral is very meaningful, it isn't just a colorful symbol it's an expression of geometric growth - which is the puzzle you solve on the alien ship to unlock it. That creates a direct line to it.
We have a general idea of distance changing time, but there may be layers in the swirls where time stops completely and they may extend to random areas of the map... like where those goats are.
... and it might be why the lighthouse keeper ran out of oil. He may have run out of resupply because he's on the spiral line, and the town was still running when he ran out. As the power there grows, he may be slowing harder. He's thankful for the oil but it may not bring anyone any peace if the tides aren't to his time...
That may explain, too, the spiral rock formations as areas where time stops.
I'm not sourcing this from anyone else, this was just my own interpretation, but there's enough evidence of time distortion to suggest a logic to it all.
I think there were notes from the people who'd died in the priory, they'd only died a day or so before you arrived. The town outside confirms it hasn't been that long since they'd seen their comrades, but they're too afraid to come out because things travelling at normal speed, like hell hounds, are likely naturally pouring into the area.
If things migrate in a circle annually, if time slows in an area, you make a traffic jam. Everything pours into the slow time area, hence the higher enemy density.
It's why a dormant volcano erupts too, time distortion would churn it right the eff up. No natural flow. A big beam doesn't hurt, but it may be why it's there at all.
Embla is with you as you get closer to the priory and she likely has some ability to help you navigate it - and your natural path is likely on safe lines. But in those mountains? God only knows how time is travelling there and what's pouring out of the caves.
... I'm forgetting some things, naturally, but I know there were more incidents. It's a subtle undertone the whole story. I might not have it all right, but I'd encourage anyone to try and compile data and eyeball the map.
That and consider which vendors have more food, it may suggest things are growing or being stolen.
Anyway I need to sleep, but it always interested me. There's some cool data there.
It explains why the lands to the north are crawling with brigands, whose exposure to the priory is much more intense. The woman travelling from the major port to the outpost is the biggest damning theory.
It's also why the wizards doppelganger faints from overexertion when you meet them, he's been experiencing a lot more time - and being pushed by a mad wizard whose command was out of date. What likely was a humble command to get help turned out to be difficult, since nobody is going north. As it went south time sped back up, so its journey took a lot longer... but the wizard was moving slower. Likely so slow that it couldn't tell its agent to eat or sleep, and pushed them to death knowing that they needed to get people to the tower NOW.
It explains why the refuge camp is starving yet have plenty of money and food growing nearby - they're hysterical because the days are slightly longer. It explains why the barbarians who take over the port city are so easily swayed - they know.
It's why the tides take so long to go out at the boat crash site.
It's why the lighthouse was founded upon these tombs, it's the farthest point on the islands away from the priory.
It's why enemy density near the priory is so intense. Anything trying to get closer to the priory goes mad in the long nights and long days, and can't handle the intense conditions brought about by the priory itself. Anyone wondering in that area might find crazy time passing and 36 hour nights.
Worse, it's a spiral, so it isn't just geometric - if you find yourself in a channel of infinite time distortion, you may end up wandering those forests for months as hell hounds wander in from a faster time channel.
That spiral is very meaningful, it isn't just a colorful symbol it's an expression of geometric growth - which is the puzzle you solve on the alien ship to unlock it. That creates a direct line to it.
We have a general idea of distance changing time, but there may be layers in the swirls where time stops completely and they may extend to random areas of the map... like where those goats are.
... and it might be why the lighthouse keeper ran out of oil. He may have run out of resupply because he's on the spiral line, and the town was still running when he ran out. As the power there grows, he may be slowing harder. He's thankful for the oil but it may not bring anyone any peace if the tides aren't to his time...
That may explain, too, the spiral rock formations as areas where time stops.
I'm not sourcing this from anyone else, this was just my own interpretation, but there's enough evidence of time distortion to suggest a logic to it all.
I think there were notes from the people who'd died in the priory, they'd only died a day or so before you arrived. The town outside confirms it hasn't been that long since they'd seen their comrades, but they're too afraid to come out because things travelling at normal speed, like hell hounds, are likely naturally pouring into the area.
If things migrate in a circle annually, if time slows in an area, you make a traffic jam. Everything pours into the slow time area, hence the higher enemy density.
It's why a dormant volcano erupts too, time distortion would churn it right the eff up. No natural flow. A big beam doesn't hurt, but it may be why it's there at all.
Embla is with you as you get closer to the priory and she likely has some ability to help you navigate it - and your natural path is likely on safe lines. But in those mountains? God only knows how time is travelling there and what's pouring out of the caves.
... I'm forgetting some things, naturally, but I know there were more incidents. It's a subtle undertone the whole story. I might not have it all right, but I'd encourage anyone to try and compile data and eyeball the map.
That and consider which vendors have more food, it may suggest things are growing or being stolen.
Anyway I need to sleep, but it always interested me. There's some cool data there.
I'm going to try and summarize, because remember - I'm not trying to convince you.
For all intents and purposes you may be right about being this uncomfortable with ambiguity and speculation. This kind of art imitates life in that way, which can be testing... and it's a brutal story any way you slice it.
The thing is the truth is not laid bare at any point, it is never splayed out. We get suggestions but never hard truths upon which to reflect on.
For instance, the outpost. Regardless of what was happening there, the ambush was set to happen during the festival - it was almost as if it was an art piece... that which you bring the last few pieces. You can walk to the last boss door, turn around, head back to the outpost and it'll still be there preparing for a massacre that may never happen. As far as I know that whole area is a side quest. It's right in your path, but you could avoid the festival.
It wouldn't have convinced that lady to change her plan, she might not have had time. Time dilation gives them a lot of time, but people move slow when days are 35 hours long. It may simply have not yet come to pass.
We know the Isle is destroyed, but who gets out is entirely up to them. There's that lady who asks you to update her sister how far she is away - she's trying to get there in a timely manner. She HAS to get there by boat, and there's one anchored. She's on her way. She doesn't arrive in the course of the game, but she may arrive in time.
If...
The festival doesn't kill everyone first.
The thing is, if they spell out the truth for you then you're left with a person's interpretation of the facts, and as a world builder, their truth is the final truth.
But by not doing so, and refraining, by introducing doubt and ambiguity, the story is left to be examined by people like you and me, and take from it truths we can. Your own perception of events matters because it may be true and your choices suddenly are the real story.
If I play Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth is so clear cut of a villain he's boring. He's lost his humanity as a character in the remakes, without moral ambiguity we can't speculate on greater themes. He rides a meteor into the earth like a cowboy, he's beaten by light, heroes, and the planet itself. Clear cut. Boring. FFVII is a great game, but not for being deep on this point.
The Dragon...
I hear you're getting the impression that Driina and Roland are toast, they're dying. We know they become zombies because we've fought them...
The real scary idea is... that a bad thing?
What exactly is happening when people are infected? The dragon has many eyes, it's one of the few things we see about it - but are those individual eyes, or are they collective? Are those eyes the people it absorbs into some kind of hive mind? It's painful, it's spooky, people aren't happy when it's happening... but we have no idea what is exactly happening to them.
What if the dragon is opening your consciousness, requisitioning your discarded flesh, and taking you to a higher plane of existence. What if it's opening your perception to something more? The name, the dragon, itself is a colloquialism talking down to our limited consciousness.
What if this dragon is the stars, and these aliens are the darkness?
The Emperor may be holding the world back from this because nobody is making guilded statues and building empires when they're joining a universal consciousness and living happily ever after as a sentient rainbow flesh god.
It appears ghoulish, nightmarish, and dangerous... Embla has a lot to say on this horror - but even if it IS evil, is it more evil than being in a torture porn time loop for all eternity? Forced to stare at the ever revolving decisions claiming lives of friends and loved ones?
If you're given a choice between torture until insanity, or a consciousness altering plague that may take your intelligence into a hive for a thousand years... which is worse? Is that really a choice?
Canonically dying outside the loop and letting the dragon win, every game over you had might've been the best ending. Dying cold alone by hellhounds might be the good ending. Dying to crabs on that first beach might've done a lot of good, and since the ultimate conflict is a stalemate... maybe the means are more important than the ends.
Suddenly, the entire game seems more poignant.
And we don't know what happens to people we don't take with us - we see a ship getting away, who knows whose on it. But if 1 ship is saved, that might be your true legacy. It may be a skeleton crew somberly sailing away with regrets, or there might be people in the water by the end they pick up... or fighting on the deck for space.
But there are no ships if we don't free that town - the only good we might've done was to save a captain and their crew, who in turn save whomever.
We could go around and around on individual points, and I'm over speculating to get the mental churn going. It's such a humble game, it's easy to miss how crafted the grim-dark ideas are, because you really have to stare with a critical eye and an open mind.
I'm waiting for updates to play it again, then I'll be taking notes when I do a solo run.
Immediately after playing I did feel a hollow sense of loss, but I was expecting a true grim-dark end and was watching the whole game for the subtle ambiguity to grow, so I was tempered for this.
The search for meaning and truth in a horrific nightmare never feels great, but the pieces you find are treasures. But it does take tempering, games like Darkest Dungeon are very testing - and I have beef with that game, there's things I don't like about that world. Some people would cite Warhammer for this, the recent outings were very nice examples of grim dark.
But here's the point of it all, for me.
When you made this post, I cared about what you thought. I laid my ideas down as contrast, for comparison, but for a game that we both played solo likely with no intention of analyzing, here we are baking our noodles as to what some of it meant.
I think about skald, I came to this reddit to see - because it's a little work of art without a signature or a title to suggest one way or another what the truth really was.
This nightmare, laid down as evidence, open to nuanced interpretation which reflect on you.
I didn't take Iben on the final battle my first loop. I brought a mercenary. What happened to that mercenary?
It's not just a gameplay thing... that mercenary was either killed, ran away, or otherwise disappeared.
Whe grim-dark highlights what didn't happen, suddenly an absence is poignant.
What does that say about me?
Now it's a thinking point instead of an incidental. Now it's story is my story. Did I kill a random merc? Did I spare Iben by not caring about him? Suddenly this story bleeds a real truth because there was agency and consequence - but which was which? I don't know.
But that could be offputting. It's a dark mirror. I made my girlfriend a Ranger to her specifications. She saved Iben.
Suddenly, my choices mean a heck of a lot more.
It's a neat little game. Again, I don't expect to change your mind.
It's just interesting to take it all apart.
Like apparently Iben was.
For all intents and purposes you may be right about being this uncomfortable with ambiguity and speculation. This kind of art imitates life in that way, which can be testing... and it's a brutal story any way you slice it.
The thing is the truth is not laid bare at any point, it is never splayed out. We get suggestions but never hard truths upon which to reflect on.
For instance, the outpost. Regardless of what was happening there, the ambush was set to happen during the festival - it was almost as if it was an art piece... that which you bring the last few pieces. You can walk to the last boss door, turn around, head back to the outpost and it'll still be there preparing for a massacre that may never happen. As far as I know that whole area is a side quest. It's right in your path, but you could avoid the festival.
It wouldn't have convinced that lady to change her plan, she might not have had time. Time dilation gives them a lot of time, but people move slow when days are 35 hours long. It may simply have not yet come to pass.
We know the Isle is destroyed, but who gets out is entirely up to them. There's that lady who asks you to update her sister how far she is away - she's trying to get there in a timely manner. She HAS to get there by boat, and there's one anchored. She's on her way. She doesn't arrive in the course of the game, but she may arrive in time.
If...
The festival doesn't kill everyone first.
The thing is, if they spell out the truth for you then you're left with a person's interpretation of the facts, and as a world builder, their truth is the final truth.
But by not doing so, and refraining, by introducing doubt and ambiguity, the story is left to be examined by people like you and me, and take from it truths we can. Your own perception of events matters because it may be true and your choices suddenly are the real story.
If I play Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth is so clear cut of a villain he's boring. He's lost his humanity as a character in the remakes, without moral ambiguity we can't speculate on greater themes. He rides a meteor into the earth like a cowboy, he's beaten by light, heroes, and the planet itself. Clear cut. Boring. FFVII is a great game, but not for being deep on this point.
The Dragon...
I hear you're getting the impression that Driina and Roland are toast, they're dying. We know they become zombies because we've fought them...
The real scary idea is... that a bad thing?
What exactly is happening when people are infected? The dragon has many eyes, it's one of the few things we see about it - but are those individual eyes, or are they collective? Are those eyes the people it absorbs into some kind of hive mind? It's painful, it's spooky, people aren't happy when it's happening... but we have no idea what is exactly happening to them.
What if the dragon is opening your consciousness, requisitioning your discarded flesh, and taking you to a higher plane of existence. What if it's opening your perception to something more? The name, the dragon, itself is a colloquialism talking down to our limited consciousness.
What if this dragon is the stars, and these aliens are the darkness?
The Emperor may be holding the world back from this because nobody is making guilded statues and building empires when they're joining a universal consciousness and living happily ever after as a sentient rainbow flesh god.
It appears ghoulish, nightmarish, and dangerous... Embla has a lot to say on this horror - but even if it IS evil, is it more evil than being in a torture porn time loop for all eternity? Forced to stare at the ever revolving decisions claiming lives of friends and loved ones?
If you're given a choice between torture until insanity, or a consciousness altering plague that may take your intelligence into a hive for a thousand years... which is worse? Is that really a choice?
Canonically dying outside the loop and letting the dragon win, every game over you had might've been the best ending. Dying cold alone by hellhounds might be the good ending. Dying to crabs on that first beach might've done a lot of good, and since the ultimate conflict is a stalemate... maybe the means are more important than the ends.
Suddenly, the entire game seems more poignant.
And we don't know what happens to people we don't take with us - we see a ship getting away, who knows whose on it. But if 1 ship is saved, that might be your true legacy. It may be a skeleton crew somberly sailing away with regrets, or there might be people in the water by the end they pick up... or fighting on the deck for space.
But there are no ships if we don't free that town - the only good we might've done was to save a captain and their crew, who in turn save whomever.
We could go around and around on individual points, and I'm over speculating to get the mental churn going. It's such a humble game, it's easy to miss how crafted the grim-dark ideas are, because you really have to stare with a critical eye and an open mind.
I'm waiting for updates to play it again, then I'll be taking notes when I do a solo run.
Immediately after playing I did feel a hollow sense of loss, but I was expecting a true grim-dark end and was watching the whole game for the subtle ambiguity to grow, so I was tempered for this.
The search for meaning and truth in a horrific nightmare never feels great, but the pieces you find are treasures. But it does take tempering, games like Darkest Dungeon are very testing - and I have beef with that game, there's things I don't like about that world. Some people would cite Warhammer for this, the recent outings were very nice examples of grim dark.
But here's the point of it all, for me.
When you made this post, I cared about what you thought. I laid my ideas down as contrast, for comparison, but for a game that we both played solo likely with no intention of analyzing, here we are baking our noodles as to what some of it meant.
I think about skald, I came to this reddit to see - because it's a little work of art without a signature or a title to suggest one way or another what the truth really was.
This nightmare, laid down as evidence, open to nuanced interpretation which reflect on you.
I didn't take Iben on the final battle my first loop. I brought a mercenary. What happened to that mercenary?
It's not just a gameplay thing... that mercenary was either killed, ran away, or otherwise disappeared.
Whe grim-dark highlights what didn't happen, suddenly an absence is poignant.
What does that say about me?
Now it's a thinking point instead of an incidental. Now it's story is my story. Did I kill a random merc? Did I spare Iben by not caring about him? Suddenly this story bleeds a real truth because there was agency and consequence - but which was which? I don't know.
But that could be offputting. It's a dark mirror. I made my girlfriend a Ranger to her specifications. She saved Iben.
Suddenly, my choices mean a heck of a lot more.
It's a neat little game. Again, I don't expect to change your mind.
It's just interesting to take it all apart.
Like apparently Iben was.
Falksi
Arcane
I just found them annoying to manage early game. Constantly having to craft/guzzle potions & rest early game felt like busywork, and felt too repetitive and chore-like.
I think you're right, if you want to make mages work you can and the mage here is "old-school", so should be viewed with perspective. But to actually play I got more bang for my buck and bioged down with less busywork using a Ranger and Officer.
Depends on what floats your boat, maybe gaming conditioning has shaped that over the years.
Overanalyzing entertainment media is a civilizational disease.
Man, it really takes me back to ME3 ending being so bad it spawned a quasi-religious cult.
I've seen Indoctrination Theory folks arguing that goofy low poly human bodies in the finale's background are an indication of Shepard's hallucinations. Clearly, a masterstroke of Bioware subtle storytelling and not limitations of console hardware.
Parabalus
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2015
- Messages
- 17,535
Mages are overpowered, it's just that the spells aren't terribly "interesting" - you press thunderclap every round and win.
Come to think of it, the ending was a LITERAL DEUS EX MACHINA~!
Litmanen
Educated
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2024
- Messages
- 700
Ah, I agree with you eh. I was just posting here his allucinations. I said in the first post his theory were "absurd and convoluting".
Overanalyzing entertainment media is a civilizational disease.
Man, it really takes me back to ME3 ending being so bad it spawned a quasi-religious cult.
I've seen Indoctrination Theory folks arguing that goofy low poly human bodies in the finale's background are an indication of Shepard's hallucinations. Clearly, a masterstroke of Bioware subtle storytelling and not limitations of console hardware.
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