Review Frayed Knights review

[Elwro]

Tags: Frayed Knights

<p>That new first-person, turn-based, party RPG <a href="http://rampantgames.com/frayedknights/">Frayed Knights</a> has been <a href="http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2011/10/review-frayed-knights-pc.html">reviewed</a> at Digitally Downloaded. The review, while not as in-depth as some previous offerings, is very favourable and, frankly, anyone with a remote interest in TB RPGs should take a look at the <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?dp88lv2340df2br">demo</a>. Notice that you'll be getting some humour together with the TB dungeon crawling goodness:</p>
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Your party consists of four fixed members. Arianna, dainty warrior half elf with a short temper, Dirk, a clumsy lowbrow thief, Ben, a timid priest only very recently joined after a spell in herbalism, and a ditsy sorceress named Chloe who takes a little too much pleasure in pyromania spells. This is where the writing of this game really shines. It got to a point that even though the gameplay itself was excellent; I kept playing into the wee hours of the morning for the dialogue. So much fun is had here with not only the characters interacting in the most hilarious, fascinating and memorable ways, but with all the fun poked at RPGs I mentioned earlier. It throws a lot of curveballs around RPG convention. When asked to check out the rat problem in Farmer Brown&rsquo;s basement, Dirk proclaims &ldquo;not another kill the rats in the basement quest!&rdquo; I actually laughed out loud.</p>
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<p>Easily amused, eh? Well, the reviewer says "it's perhaps the weakest gag". Here's a bit straight for the Codex:</p>
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The writing is the reason every RPG fans should play it, or even <strong>RPG haters</strong>, hell, everyone!</p>
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<p>Drama queens should also find something for themselves here:</p>
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<p style="padding-left: 30px;">it gets pretty challenging even early on. To help you with this, the games&rsquo; unique drawcards come in. First is a neat little thing called &ldquo;drama points&rdquo; and I find the concept in itself hilarious. Basically, you gain points that fill up three stars at the top of your screen whenever you do anything dramatic; anything that would be accompanied in a movie by the DRR DRR DRR sound of melodrama. This ranges from dialogue, to encounters to disarming traps - all sorts of things.</p>
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<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=3403">Tales of the Rampant Coyote</a></p>

 

[Morkar Left]

About the writing; it is not as good as he praises it but it keeps you smiling and is good for a laugh once in a while. For a total rpg newcomer without pnp experience it is a lot more enjoyable, I say.

Like I already mentioned somewhere else it is the type of humour you can read here in the codex LPs in the playground. Another example of this style of humor would be The Order of the Stick comicstrips. But OotS is a class on its own.

Combat is good. You have enough magic spells and active/passive feats to choose from (like d20) at lvl ups. The combat is balanced but there is still room for optimization. You don't have to fight as much enemies as you usually have in blobbers. It's not like fighting 30 goblins with 16 wolves and 20 skeletons. It's 1 - 6 enemies at once and patrouiling enemies can be avoided (but there are ambushes possible).
The stamania system is a good balancing device but could use some finetuning for melee attacks.
The drama points are nice and are an additional motivating factor.

But the best thing to judge the game is clearly to play the demo and to read the manual. If you don't like the game in the demo I highly doubt you will ever enjoy it.

 

[felipepepe]

I played a little yesterday and found the writing and characters VERY webcomic-sh. Not sure if that's good or bad yet, gonna play some more and them do a deeper analysis.

Also the graphics take some time to get used to, they are kind of bad, but not unplayable bad like Sword and Sorcery - Underwolrd was. Combat is ok for now, need to play more to see if evolves or just get's boring. Luckly tomorrow is holiday! o/

 

[O'Hallahan]

The game is a gem.

 

[Gord]

I quite liked the demo.

If you can deal with humor in your rpgs you might enjoy it.

System seems fairly complex. You get Attributes, Proficiencies (Weapons and the like), Spellcasting, Enhancements (similar to perks) and Skills. At first glance the division between the latter two does seem a tad bit arbitrary, though.
The drama stars are a nice idea, and they don't get saved, so you are really better off playing without reloading too much.

Regarding the graphics, well, compared to modern day AAA titles they are surely quite bad. But I think they have charm and they reminded me of better times, so they get a nostalgia bonus.
Unfortunately they are a bit incoherent in their style at some points.

I also liked the music, but sound effects are rather low-key.

Demo definitely got me interested, but honestly at about 25 € it's a bit too expensive, imho. Guess I'll wait a while to see if it will drop in price, probably after being available at one of my trusted digital distribution platforms.

P.S.: There might even be some C&C. In the demo you can choose to free a prisoner or not. No idea though if it will lead to anything later. Maybe someone who has the full version can comment.

 

[sea]

There is a very minor bit of choice & consequence, and it usually just boils down to being given a choice between say, diplomacy (which is theoretically based on your Charm stats) and combat. There are only a handful of such situations and they rarely have meaningful long-term repercussions. The girl in the dungeon, for instance, shows up in town if you rescued her and her dialogue changes depending on how reluctant you were to rescue her, plus she gives you a minor quest. That's pretty much the most significant example in the entire game, though.

 

[Oriental European]

25 €

 

[Crooked Bee]

Yeah, it's a good game but a bit too pricey. Personally, I bought it, but I even bought Demise: Ascension, which only goes to show I can buy pretty much anything dungeon-crawly.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Fuck you faggots and your C&C.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Yeah, it's a good game but a bit too pricey.

Pricey compared to what?

 

[Morbus]

The UI is terrible. God.

I don't have time to learn what does what...

 

[Oriental European]

Yeah, it's a good game but a bit too pricey.

Pricey compared to what?

To common sense. Those indie fucks have lost their fuckin mind.

 

[Grunker]

Blackadder is apparently on a crusade against people who don't have eternal wealth to spend on video games, don't worry.

When asked to check out the rat problem in Farmer Brown’s basement, Dirk proclaims “not another kill the rats in the basement quest!” I actually laughed out loud.

:/

No, actually,

Anyway, demo downloadan'! Getting more and more excited about this

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Yeah, it's a good game but a bit too pricey.

Pricey compared to what?

To common sense. Those indie fucks have lost their fuckin mind.

Of course.

To quote an intelligent man:

Codex: FFFUUUUU!!!! WHERE ARE THE PROPER BLOB CRAWLERS OF OLD? WHERE ARE THE TB RPG'S? FUCK THE BIG COMPANIES!!! WHO CARES ABOUT GRAPHICS!!!

Frayed Knights developer: Hey guys, I've a TB blob crawler, just $29, maybe you'd lik.....

Codex: FFFUUUUU!!!! $29 FOR SUCH AN UGLY GAME?????? FFFUUCCKKK YOOOOUUUU! WE CAN GET MASS EFFECT SERIES ON A STEAM SALE FOR THAT!!!!

 

[Grunker]

Fuck you, Blackadder. No, really. I'm sure you're just waiting to jump at us with your "hurr durr you think 40$ is okay for ME why not for this" argument, but it's bullshit and you should be above it.

The costs of producing a AAA title is enourmous compared to a title such as this. While this also means that Frayed Knights must be more expensive relative to its production costs (because the market is smaller) 29$ *seems* extraordinarily much. I.e. is the market really SO small that at its production costs Frayed Knights must command more than half the price of a AAA game?

On what do I base this? Well, I bought KotC for 15$, I picked up Frozen Synapse for 10$ when it was brand new, and so on. I buy a lot of indie games, and Frayed Knights is easily the most expensive of the bunch.

So fuck you and your aloof attitude, the question isn't whether the game is worth 29$, but why it is so much more expensive than anything else from the indie market. If it's correctly priced, which it might very well be, I'd like to know what sets it apart from games like it.

Basically, your argument builds on the assumption that the consumer should pay what he thinks the product is worth. Well fuck that simplistic market-bullshit view. I'd like to afford as much as possible.

It's fine that you have all the money in the world to spend on this, but why the fuck do you cry rage because we raise the very good question of why exactly Frayed Knights is more expensive than similar games on the market?

 

[Grunker]

The price tag of Frayed Knights doesn't really warrant a discussion of this extend, because hell, it's not the end of the world, but your attitude towards the simple question of 'why is Frayed Knights so expensive' is retarded.

 

[made]

Surely no price is too high for a quality TURNBASED rpg with the most hilarious tongue-in-cheek humor since Div2. Sell a kidney and stop whining.

 

[Oriental European]

So fuck you and your aloof attitude, the question isn't whether the game is worth 29$, but why it is so much more expensive than anything else from the indie market. If it's correctly priced, which it might very well be, I'd like to know what sets it apart from games like it.

 

[Roguey]

@Grunker - KotC cost me about $25 because of the funny money (US dollars)-conversion rate. Up until last week pretty much every Spiderweb Software title cost $25-28. This isn't out of the ordinary.

Also complaining about a price of a game before you've even played it is pretty funny. For all you know it might be worth $0 to you. Or a full $29 if it really hits all the high notes.

 

[Grunker]

lol

By that logic I should purchase every game in the universe that looks remotely interesting. I don't buy that everything is worth what we can afford. I think it's reasonable to demand knowledge of why an item is priced as it is.

In reality though, I just personally think 29 is a lot of $$$, it's not really anymore complicated than that. My opinion will no doubt become more nuanced when I play the demo. I wish TPB had a "full" demo though.

 

[Morkar Left]

I in no way regret buying the game for the price it is sold but I have to agree that reducing the price would benefit sales.
With 29$ people consider maybe to get 2 indiy games or not indy games to a reduced sale instead. You have to keep in mind there are still older games as competition and people usually like more than one genre.

I have to admit I had nothing against the pricetag of 22,95 $ but was a bit annoyed to have to pay 19% VAT on top of it. I still don't know why this is necessary. I doubt the tax goes to my country. Some VAT scholars here? At least the $/€ exchange is handled correctly.

 

[Elwro]

I'll have to pay 23% VAT. But I'll buy this in the evening, after I get back from the hospital. (Hopefully.)

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

So fuck you and your aloof attitude, the question isn't whether the game is worth 29$, but why it is so much more expensive than anything else from the indie market. If it's correctly priced, which it might very well be, I'd like to know what sets it apart from games like it.

Economy of scale my dear. Economy of scale.

How many copies would he need to sell in order to do this full time? Without even thinking of outlays, percentages to the card company collecting the money, taxation and so on....

1000 sales would net him 22,000 zog bucks (bearing in mind the above outlays). A poor wage by any means. So, 2000 sales would be a bare minimum. Unlikely considering that even someone like yourself, that tends to play older games, thinks that price is too much.

It isn't very expensive at all. Eschalon was the same price when it first came out, and KotC wasn't far behind, then when we go to our sister niche wargaming....

When we look at Wargames, it is positively cheap! Go and take a look at Matrix Games prices...ripoffs you say? Well, wargamers don't agree, and this is why they get such a continuing run of (mostly) nice wargames while we get...very little in the CRPG area.

In a nutshell: If you want CRPG's, you have to pay for them. Same as wargames. These games are not going to sell a fraction of a fraction of the AAA..."RPG's"...and unless you enjoy waiting a decade or so for each game, then small devs need to make enough cash to live on.

 

[Grunker]

Thank you for explaining to me what I myself explained (though in fewer words) in my own post:

While this also means that Frayed Knights must be more expensive relative to its production costs (because the market is smaller)

but my point was that

29$ *seems* extraordinarily much. I.e. is the market really SO small that at its production costs Frayed Knights must command more than half the price of a AAA game?

Meh... Haven't had the time to try the demo out yet with all this travelling, but I will tonight or tommorrow.

 

[Gord]

The point indeed isn't whether the game is worth the price or not, it's what you are willing to pay for it.

Right now, although interested, I'm not interested enough to pay 25€.