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Game News Serpent in the Staglands, a Darklands inspired RPG with cool pixel art, now on Kickstarter

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Kickstarter; Serpent in the Staglands; Whalenought Studios

I spotted this game on Kickstarter today. It's called Serpent in the Staglands and it claims to be inspired by games like Baldur's Gate and Darklands. The developers are a husband-and-wife team by the name of Whalenought Studios. Here's their pitch video and an overview:



The vision for Serpent in the Staglands is a mix of the addictive build customization of ARPGs and party control and role-playing elements of games like Baldur's Gate and Darklands. A throwback to cRPGs of the past with fresh new role playing designs and combat mechanics.

During your search as a god's mortal avatar, you'll plunge into the Stagland's deep combat and open world exploration. Skills, spells, and aptitudes can be individually customized for up to five different party members of your choosing. With an expansive variety of build options and branching paths to choose from, the game will offer significant personalization and replayability.

The real time combat is frenetic and can often turn into an onslaught of magical assaults and frenzied attacks as soon as it starts, so the ability to pause the game at any time to issue out orders (or get a grip on your party's situation) can be welcome relief. Though you become more powerful and earn more skills as you progress, the range of dice roll outcomes grows larger and more unpredictable. This creates variety and cultivates the need to strategize in order to survive. Our combat system is meant to be a challenge; death can always be around the corner.

The art process allows for us to keep our characters unique with lots of details, armor sets, and enough fabulous cloaks to keep warm and stylish in the coldest of blizzards. We love seeing small details, so every one of our animations, like our backgrounds, are hand-drawn frame by frame. We plan on having 8 main armor sets with color/cloak color variations, and plenty of unique weapons and equipment. We meticulously designed all the menus and art to be as interesting and thematic as possible for your viewing pleasure while playing.

We're in an alpha stage of the game right now, and have no intention of releasing it without it being a finished, polished product. To reduce any feature creep, the main system components, dice roll combat, and gameplay mechanics are already completed (more info in a graph below on where we are in development), and are now at the stage of creating levels, dialogue, enemies and more art.

If you’re interested in this project, that probably means you have a solid experience of classic rpgs or tabletop rpgs - and that makes you an invaluable partner in its development. One of the fundamental parts of roleplaying is the discussion and ideas that are created with those who are playing. We're thrilled with how development has been going, the game so far, and the direction we are taking it we're excited to see what aspects can be improved with your help. With Kickstarter we have an easy opportunity to hear and implement ideas from an invested community. We gathered a lot of feedback during the release of our previous titles, Isle of Bxnes and Bridge to the Moon, both during the beta releases and after the initial post release and the games benefited greatly as a result.

The game is currently in development for PC and Mac, and with the help of Kickstarter donations, we plan to release it Winter 2014. Our hopeful Kickstarter funds will help us create the game without having to freelance or pursue other projects during development, as well as garner valued community feedback and beta testers.

The full pitch has lots more information on combat mechanics, skills, magic, lore, etc. Not to mention lots of lovely animated pixel art! The funding goal is a mere 10,000 dollars, but like the pitch says, the game is already half-done. These two have made games before, so I assume they know what they're doing. What do you think, Codex?
 

Haba

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Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Staglands Whalenought

I think they are pretty terrible with names.

No actual whales on the video, so eeeh. Art is pretty kewl, but how about the game itself? Slow movement would allow more tactical options, for sure...
 

Zed

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This looks fucking great! Fucking great!

Backed.
 

FeelTheRads

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Dat pixolart.

I like this:
We've avoided many MMORPG trends commonly seen in RPGs today, instead creating an entirely unique combat mode. You won't find any skill cooldowns, experience limited use per battle skills, or see a Scrabble board worth of skills and spells littered all over your screen. We designed what we believe makes for a fun tactical RPG: micromanaging team strategy and planning skill output—not button mashing. Your characters are loaded to the brim with what skills you give them, and they trigger independently. Spells are more omnipotent and are cast and held over a duration. With enemies wheeling and dealing the same spells and skills as you are, your strategies and builds make all the difference between a quick victory or defeat.
 

Mortmal

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Yes this look fucking great , lot of stats, lot of dialogue too apprently . The very low amount of 10k$ surprises me , even if its only a wife and husband working on this. Hope this will work this time.
You should invite those nice developpers on the dex , to discuss , ruin their dreams etc... Oh and i backed it of course
 

Hormalakh

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a very intentional move away from the design goals of PoE. I wonder which one will have the better combat? They'll both come out at the same time-ish.
 

Angthoron

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Hm hm, $500 Tier - "You will have an opportunity to work with us to design a race of monsters [...] to work your vision into something the Stagland's children whisper frightful tales of into the night."

Another Codex fundraiser time? $500 isn't a big deal for an affluent community like ours. The Trollus Codexicus could be a frightful creature indeed, with terrible powers of mimicry and sanity-assaulting raves.
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Hm hm, $500 Tier - "You will have an opportunity to work with us to design a race of monsters [...] to work your vision into something the Stagland's children whisper frightful tales of into the night."

Another Codex fundraiser time? $500 isn't a big deal for an affluent community like ours. The Trollus Codexicus could be a frightful creature indeed, with terrible powers of mimicry and sanity-assaulting raves.
:mhd:
 

A user named cat

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What a tease. I opened topic, hoping to see something like this:

67qGlU9.jpg


Not a bunch of shitty rt combat (worst part of Darklands) by mobile devs.

yFkHfnO.gif
 
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
What a tease. I opened topic, hoping to see something like this:

67qGlU9.jpg


Not a bunch of shitty rt combat (worst part of Darklands) by mobile devs.

yFkHfnO.gif

Not expecting real-time combat in a Darklands spiritual successor is slightly unrealistic.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I did say "Darklands-inspired", not "Darklands spiritual successor". :smug:
 

SuicideBunny

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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
actually it said "and role-playing elements of games like Baldur's Gate and Darklands" which means even less than darklands-inspired.
 

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