Game News Chronicles of Vaeltaja is a grid-based blobber set in a colorful fantasy world, now on Early Access

[Infinitron]

Tags: Chronicles of Vaeltaja: In Search of the Great Wanderer; Witchgrove Games

Chronicles of Vaeltaja: In Search of the Great Wanderer takes you back to the golden era of pc gaming, when role-playing games like Dungeon Master, Might and Magic, Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, Wizardry and Ultima ruled the world. Gather your party of six adventurers and embark on a journey through the colourful kingdom of Twin Falls where sunny fields, lush forests, misty swamps and dark dungeons await to be explored!

Welcome, traveller, to the kingdom of Twin Falls where strange menace is threatening the land that once lived in tranquil. You are hired by the King Menekses II to investigate strange occurrences in seaside town of Pramea where children have been disappearing and travellers are under constant attacks from bandits and beasts that shouldn't even roam there. Your job is to gather a party and find out who or what is behind this new threat and uncover the mystery of the Great Wanderer who once saved the humanity from a great peril.

So ready your weapons and wits to take on a memorable journey across vast forests, fields, swamps and dungeons to bring peace back to Twin Falls.

• First-person exploration in beautiful and colourful world created with 2.5D pixel graphics combining pre-made and custom assets.
• Main questline where some quests give you a possibility to choose from a couple of different solutions.
• Mythology inspired by ancient Gnostic writings.
• Six character party system with skills and stats that affect beyond battles and conversations.
• Multiple character classes to hire: Warrior, Hunter, Mage, Shadow, Priest, Witch.
• Grid-based movement that takes you back in the golden era of pc-gaming.
• Turn-based battle system with animated enemies.
• Overworld areas full of exploration.
• Atmospheric and dangerous dungeons where different enemies delve and puzzles await.
• Fight against bandits, bats, skeleton warriors, zombies, leechers, dark mages and other creatures of evil.
• Boss battles that might have other solutions than violence.
• Hand-crafted game world with no procedural generation.
• Multiple side-quest that may even lead to optional dungeons or other hidden secrets.
• Branching conversations where your 'charisma' and speech skills are put to test.
• No tutorials, no hand-holding, no cinematic cutscenes - just pure joy of experiencing and discovering!
• Lots of equipment and items to help you on your journey - don't forget to buy at least torches as the dungeons are dark places to wander around.
• Use mouse and/or keyboard to interact with the game world.
• Control battles with mouse and/or keyboard.
• Interact with NPCs to access side-quests.
• Meet quirky characters like The Order of the Knights Who Never Discuss About the Same Topic Twice.
• Inspired by the classics like Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima and The Legend of Zelda

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

nice nostalgic vibe... though 10 second loading time for the next level in the video is pretty crap for such a simple game

 

[Jaesun]

Hand-crafted game world with no procedural generation.

 

[Dorateen]

Looks like another gem. Lots of searching going on recently between this and Maphaldo.

2024 could be the Year of the Blobber.

 

[BrotherFrank]

I like the music, even the battle theme is cozy.

 

[luj1]

Respect for the format but this pops no style. It desperately needs some pimpin with 2D art and better assets

Looks like made in RPG maker. I always wonder how 2023 games manage to look worse than 90s and even 80s games

 

[Grauken]

I always wonder how 2023 games manage to look worse than 90s and even 80s games

Games made by one amateur versus games made by profi teams at the peak of their industry in their respective years

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Respect for the format but this pops no style. It desperately needs some pimpin with 2D art and better assets

Looks like made in RPG maker. I always wonder how 2023 games manage to look worse than 90s and even 80s games

I agree. The game could be excellent but its that "pillow" shading look which looks amateurish.
I think I know what retro style he was going for, but its a bit of a miss graphically.

 

[luj1]

I always wonder how 2023 games manage to look worse than 90s and even 80s games

Games made by one amateur versus games made by profi teams at the peak of their industry in their respective years

No

Just lack of vision/skill, or laziness

Underrail was made by 1 guy, Grimoire was made by 1 guy, Kenshi was made by 2 guys, etc. Despite the level of graphics, which isn't contested here, all of these games have a distinct style.

Even if this person cannot draw, he could have used AI to generate portraits, paper dolls and various 2D art for the game

You don't need professional teams to replace MS paint solid colors that look like shit

 

[luj1]

I agree. The game could be excellent but its that "pillow" shading look which looks amateurish.
I think I know what retro style he was going for, but its a bit of a miss graphically.

The game also looks too dark. Need moar gamma

 

[Grauken]

I always wonder how 2023 games manage to look worse than 90s and even 80s games

Games made by one amateur versus games made by profi teams at the peak of their industry in their respective years

No

Just lack of vision/skill, or laziness

Underrail was made by 1 guy, Grimoire was made by 1 guy, Kenshi was made by 2 guys, etc. Despite the level of graphics, which isn't contested here, all of these games have a distinct style.

Even if this person cannot draw, he could have used AI to generate portraits, paper dolls and various 2D art for the game

Well, he didn't, what you gonna do about it?

 

[luj1]

Keep correcting your bum takes while I play KotC 2?

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I always wonder how 2023 games manage to look worse than 90s and even 80s games

Games made by one amateur versus games made by profi teams at the peak of their industry in their respective years

No

Just lack of vision/skill, or laziness

Underrail was made by 1 guy, Grimoire was made by 1 guy, Kenshi was made by 2 guys, etc. Despite the level of graphics, which isn't contested here, all of these games have a distinct style.

Even if this person cannot draw, he could have used AI to generate portraits, paper dolls and various 2D art for the game

You don't need professional teams to replace MS paint solid colors that look like shit

Complaining about a lack of style then suggesting he use AI is a weird take.

 

[Grauken]

Keep correcting your bum takes while I play KotC 2?

It's funny that you mention KotC 2, which looks

Just lack of vision/skill, or laziness

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

vs

Both "cute" very simple style yet one is punchy and distinct drawing the other cloying.

What stands out are are the pillowy looking NPCs, the lack of form or pose, and also that way of drawing vegetation looks so damn weird. I think the backgrounds otherwise are ok.

 

[covr]

It looks like shit. Sounds are horrible.

So now we're prestigious gaming site covering RPG Maker low effort products Infinitron

 

[luj1]

I always wonder how 2023 games manage to look worse than 90s and even 80s games

Games made by one amateur versus games made by profi teams at the peak of their industry in their respective years

No

Just lack of vision/skill, or laziness

Underrail was made by 1 guy, Grimoire was made by 1 guy, Kenshi was made by 2 guys, etc. Despite the level of graphics, which isn't contested here, all of these games have a distinct style.

Even if this person cannot draw, he could have used AI to generate portraits, paper dolls and various 2D art for the game

You don't need professional teams to replace MS paint solid colors that look like shit

Complaining about a lack of style then suggesting he use AI is a weird take.

Bruh look at his portraits

They look like MS paint characters from Windows 3.0 (if you remember those games like Robin Hood)

With good prompts you can achieve a coherent style, Cleve is doing it for one of his games - https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/what-are-you-working-on.145219/#post-8225110

 

[luj1]

Keep correcting your bum takes while I play KotC 2?

It's funny that you mention KotC 2, which looks

Just lack of vision/skill, or laziness

KotC 2 has tokes made by an artist

This looks like MS Paint

 

[Grauken]

It looks like shit. Sounds are horrible.

So now we're prestigious gaming site covering RPG Maker low effort products Infinitron

We covered KotC 2

 

[Grauken]

KotC 2 has tokes made by an artist

Even KotC 2 tokens looked lazy and awful compared to the token you get from other RPG kits

 

[Atlet]

The pedantic retard rly trying to defend KotC 2 shit artstyle lol

 

[luj1]

You two bums never drew anything with a pencil in your life. Yes, let's take a look at KotC 2.

It's not Frank Frazetta, but you can immediately tell that, 1) they went for DnD fantasy type of look, and 2) they were drawn by a human artist (whose style seems prevalent in the 2D art used in the game)

Compare with this game

You are just two cucked retards who hate incline

 

[luj1]

It looks like shit. Sounds are horrible.

So now we're prestigious gaming site covering RPG Maker low effort products Infinitron

We covered KotC 2

KotC is the successor of ToEE, you fetid corpse

Anyway this game needs to at least upgrade its looks to that basic level. Atm it looks worse than a chinese mobile game

 

[OSK]

It looks like shit. Sounds are horrible.

So now we're prestigious gaming site covering RPG Maker low effort products Infinitron

Better than covering the likes of Cyberpunk and Starfield.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I always wonder how 2023 games manage to look worse than 90s and even 80s games

Games made by one amateur versus games made by profi teams at the peak of their industry in their respective years

No

Just lack of vision/skill, or laziness

Underrail was made by 1 guy, Grimoire was made by 1 guy, Kenshi was made by 2 guys, etc. Despite the level of graphics, which isn't contested here, all of these games have a distinct style.

Even if this person cannot draw, he could have used AI to generate portraits, paper dolls and various 2D art for the game

You don't need professional teams to replace MS paint solid colors that look like shit

90s games (and even some 80s games, DM among them IIRC) generally had actual artists working on them, not just programmers doing ASCII or MSPaint shit. From your listed examples Grimoire, KotC2, and I believe Underrail all outsourced their art to varying degrees. AFAIK, Cleve, Pierre, and Styg had little, if anything, to do with the creation of the art assets in those games. Now you can argue that this guy should have followed their path and just outsourced it all or turned to AI (and for what it's worth I agree that the characters/monsters/portraits are lulzy as fuck), but the reality is that the sort of turbo-charged autist who is going to make a TB party-based blobber in Anno Domini 2023 is also probably going to have... ah... some lacunae in the index of their self-awareness/capability.

More concerning to me are things like:

6 char party with only 6 classes. Lame as fuck.

Inspired by EotB, DM, Ultima, and LoZ. But also with turn-based combat. Someone can't pick which side of the fence they want to be on, and that usually doesn't work out well.

"Meet quirky characters like The Order of the Knights who Never Discuss About the Same Topic Twice" OH FUCK ESL EURO HUMOR! ABORT! ABORT!

All that said I will probably buy this, assuming they don't price it insanely *cough* *cough* *PIERRE*. TB blobbers are a niche enough genre that I'm happy to throw some dosh at even the crappy ones in the hope that more devs feel emboldened to take a stab at the subgenre.