Indie Archaelund: RPG that combines 1st-person exploration with 3rd-person TB combat - now available on Early Access

[DavidBVal]

That was purely a pun. I haven't played the game, since I'm done with EA. Waiting for the full release.

LOL, I need to relax, too many replies about balance/bugs issues in the Steam forums can be detrimental to sense of humor.

@DavidBVal Did you add an inventory quick-switch for melee vs. ranged?

Nope but it's somewhere in the QoL list, eventually will be added.

the 3D landscapes looking so painterly, a feat even AAA games can rarely achieve

Thanks, it's great to know the effort is appreciated. Lots of concept drawings of landscapes over the years, and ideas coming and going between me and Nacho, so I'm glad it sometimes delivers.

 

[Tyranicon]

Keep going, game is good.

This, along with Monomyth and Tainted Grail, are some of my most anticipated indie RPGs.

 

[covr]

Codex consensus is rarely so positive. Will buy this later today. Good luck with development!

 

[Nortar]

Codex consensus is rarely so positive. Will buy this later today. Good luck with development!

It's not perfect though - there are no dwarves.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Codex consensus is rarely so positive. Will buy this later today. Good luck with development!

It's not perfect though - there are no dwarves.

And humans still can't be barbarians yet.

 

[covr]

The game seems to be great but performance is one of worst I've recently experienced. And it does not look better vs games released 15 years ago like Two Words 2 (which was also not a landmark in terms of visuals/performance).

 

[Litmanen]

The game seems to be great but performance is one of worst I've recently experienced. And it does not look better vs games released 15 years ago like Two Words 2 (which was also not a landmark in terms of visuals/performance).

Who cares about visuals? It's good enough. doesn't need to shine.

 

[covr]

I don't care, and don't get me wrong - I was able to play the ugliest games ever. But performance on rtx 4060 on low/medium details is simply unstable, ranging between 20 to 60 FPS outdoors. It is painful experience. And I'll wait until another round of optimisation pass is done.

 

[Litmanen]

I don't care, and don't get me wrong - I was able to play the ugliest games ever. But performance on rtx 4060 on low/medium details is simply unstable, ranging between 20 to 60 FPS outdoors. It is painful experience. And I'll wait until another round of optimisation pass is done.

Ok, performances are a problem, as you said. But visual quality isn't on the table, for me.

 

[Tyranicon]

I don't care, and don't get me wrong - I was able to play the ugliest games ever. But performance on rtx 4060 on low/medium details is simply unstable, ranging between 20 to 60 FPS outdoors. It is painful experience. And I'll wait until another round of optimisation pass is done.

I would check out the steam forums to see if there's a fix for what you're going through. I played this on a low-mid range pc and it worked well enough on mediumish settings.

 

[DavidBVal]

I don't care, and don't get me wrong - I was able to play the ugliest games ever. But performance on rtx 4060 on low/medium details is simply unstable, ranging between 20 to 60 FPS outdoors. It is painful experience. And I'll wait until another round of optimisation pass is done.

That's weird, with a 4060 you should be well above 60 fps all the time, even in 1440p. One of my testing PCs has a 3060 and runs the initial area at 80-90fps. How much RAM do you have?

 

[covr]

8 GB of memory on a GPU. 32 GB RAM, i7 13700. Of course it's a laptop (heh), but it should not run so crappy. I blame Unity, almost every Unity game runs terrible on my rig, even on medium/low details. And the resolution is not that high, I've lowered it to 1920x1200. Initially I thought it was using CPU Intel HD card instead of dedicated one, but no.

 

[mediocrepoet]

And humans still can't be barbarians yet.

There's a deeper truth here and you're so SO close to grasping it...

 

[DavidBVal]

Initially I thought it was using CPU Intel HD card instead of dedicated one, but no.

Are you 100% sure about this? can you hear the GPU ventilation? Have you tried a system reboot?

Your specs are more than enough to run the first area (Bluffs) close to 100fps, and that's how it has been performing for other players with 4060.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

And humans still can't be barbarians yet.

There's a deeper truth here and you're so SO close to grasping it...

Yes, the patch that allows it is in the works.
Quoth DavidBVal himself.

 

[covr]

Initially I thought it was using CPU Intel HD card instead of dedicated one, but no.

Are you 100% sure about this? can you hear the GPU ventilation? Have you tried a system reboot?

Your specs are more than enough to run the first area (Bluffs) close to 100fps, and that's how it has been performing for other players with 4060.

2024-11-23 23:04:18 - INIT -
2024-11-23 23:04:18 - INIT - Archaelund 0.8.2 - Build 438
2024-11-23 23:04:18 - INIT - Windows 10 (10.0.19045) 64bit *** 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700H (20 cores), 32GB RAM
2024-11-23 23:04:18 - INIT - Resolution: 1920x1080 *** NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU-Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.1]-7GB VRAM ***

I have forced it in nvidia panel to use dedicated GPU. Indoors performance is fine. Outdoors is the issue.

 

[DavidBVal]

Initially I thought it was using CPU Intel HD card instead of dedicated one, but no.

Are you 100% sure about this? can you hear the GPU ventilation? Have you tried a system reboot?

Your specs are more than enough to run the first area (Bluffs) close to 100fps, and that's how it has been performing for other players with 4060.

2024-11-23 23:04:18 - INIT -
2024-11-23 23:04:18 - INIT - Archaelund 0.8.2 - Build 438
2024-11-23 23:04:18 - INIT - Windows 10 (10.0.19045) 64bit *** 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700H (20 cores), 32GB RAM
2024-11-23 23:04:18 - INIT - Resolution: 1920x1080 *** NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU-Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.1]-7GB VRAM ***

I have forced it in nvidia panel to use dedicated GPU. Indoors performance is fine. Outdoors is the issue.

Looks like you're using the nvidia GPU, yeah. One of my own machines is a 3060 laptop, with 16gb RAM, clearly inferior to yours, and the most graphic intensive area in the game runs at 45-60fps in Ultra. I have no idea what's wrong here but there must be a cause to the game's low performance on your machine.

So your FPS is 20-50, where exactly? just as you start the game? it remains like that, or is it spikes? Have you enabled the FPS counter on settings, or is it another counter?

 

[covr]

Well, it is outdoors mostly. Funny thing - after setting everything to ultra I came back to the beach (first area) and had pretty stable 55-60 FPS. The area was cleared and I have noticed dropdown to 40 for a second when being very close to the models of defeated enemies. I will investigate this after the 9.0 patch when I plan to do a full playthrough.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Litmanen]

This will be for sure GOWYICO: Game Of Whatever Year It Comes Out.

 

[agris]

Well, it is outdoors mostly. Funny thing - after setting everything to ultra I came back to the beach (first area) and had pretty stable 55-60 FPS. The area was cleared and I have noticed dropdown to 40 for a second when being very close to the models of defeated enemies. I will investigate this after the 9.0 patch when I plan to do a full playthrough.

How are your system temps? Given you’re on a laptop with those specs, throttling of cpu or gpu due to high temps could be a factor. Even battery temps can cause performance throttling iirc.

 

[Abu Antar]

Godspeed.

Merry Christmas and happy 2025 to everyone!
Hello everyone! I’d like to wish you all a joyful holiday season and an incredible New Year.

It’s been a while since the last update, 0.8.2, in November, and I haven’t been very active in the community since then. The reason? I’ve been working nonstop on the next big update! Once more, it's a big one that can't be released in small installments. While I’d hoped to deliver it as a Christmas surprise or in celebration of the Early Access anniversary this January, it’s definitely going to take longer; at least until late February.

Here are my main development goals for 2025:

Release Update 0.8.3: This will introduce a new map area, an increased level cap, and many QoL improvements (like inventory sorting, quest search filtering, and more). Similar to the previous map expansion, some areas and dungeons will remain inaccessible for now.

Reaching Version 0.9: Targeting a spring release, this update will bring the conclusion of the second main quest chapter, open some inaccessible dungeons, and gameplay improvements like dual wielding and new careers.

Second Half of 2025: updates will expand the playable area further, increase the level cap, and add a new main quest chapter. Alongside this, I’ll work on making the world more dynamic and alive, polishing graphics and animations, and introducing other improvements to elevate the game.

That’s the plan! Of course, these goals are subject to change, but you already know that. I deeply appreciate your patience and support; it means the world to me.

Here’s to another fantastic year of adventuring together!

--
David

 

[Abu Antar]

Posted very early game screens in the Screenshot thread.

Performance is okay, put the graphics on Ultra, everything maxed out. After the first fight, I did have a graphical issue that mesed up my whole PC. It was like the screen was transporting me to either the afterlife, or a new dimension. Every time I pressed a button, the screen would go bananas. A reboot later, and a fights more never encountered it agian.

Creating a party was straightforward. Made a lizard barbarian, a gobbo burglar, a gobbo healer, and a minotaur body guard. I tried to cover as many non-coombt skills as I could. I don't know if I messed up my characters, but I feel like setting up a party wasn't too confusing, with easy to understand attributes. I haven't figured out if you can change the formation of your party, though. Fights have been pretty quick, but there are lots of misses from both sides. (I looked in the menu, and you can speed up combat animations up to 2.5X, but I haven't tried, yet. In one of the fights, the enemy got in a nice crit on my tank, with 12 damage. That tells me that I should at least look into having one good crit specialist in the party, because that was a significant damage boost. I have finall found real weapons for the gladiator, and burglar. Also one armour found.

I'm too early in to say anything about exploration. Still at the starting area, getting familiar with the surroundings. Environments look good enough for me. Loading screen art looks good. Music is solid. Menus are a bit ugly, but they have everything you need presented in an orderly fashion (other than the formation option, if there even is one.)

It's 3.30AM, which means I won't play more for now. Hopefully, I get to play some more when I wake up (or in a few days), and share more incoherent impressions. If anyone has any questions, or wants me to look up anything in the game, post, and I will do my best to accommodate your wishes.

 

[Litmanen]

Posted very early game screens in the Screenshot thread.

Performance is okay, put the graphics on Ultra, everything maxed out. After the first fight, I did have a graphical issue that mesed up my whole PC. It was like the screen was transporting me to either the afterlife, or a new dimension. Every time I pressed a button, the screen would go bananas. A reboot later, and a fights more never encountered it agian.

Creating a party was straightforward. Made a lizard barbarian, a gobbo burglar, a gobbo healer, and a minotaur body guard. I tried to cover as many non-coombt skills as I could. I don't know if I messed up my characters, but I feel like setting up a party wasn't too confusing, with easy to understand attributes. I haven't figured out if you can change the formation of your party, though. Fights have been pretty quick, but there are lots of misses from both sides. (I looked in the menu, and you can speed up combat animations up to 2.5X, but I haven't tried, yet. In one of the fights, the enemy got in a nice crit on my tank, with 12 damage. That tells me that I should at least look into having one good crit specialist in the party, because that was a significant damage boost. I have finall found real weapons for the gladiator, and burglar. Also one armour found.

I'm too early in to say anything about exploration. Still at the starting area, getting familiar with the surroundings. Environments look good enough for me. Loading screen art looks good. Music is solid. Menus are a bit ugly, but they have everything you need presented in an orderly fashion (other than the formation option, if there even is one.)

It's 3.30AM, which means I won't play more for now. Hopefully, I get to play some more when I wake up (or in a few days), and share more incoherent impressions. If anyone has any questions, or wants me to look up anything in the game, post, and I will do my best to accommodate your wishes.

What about UI/NPC icons/battlefield colors? From videos and screenshots looks like there are too many bright colors on screen when you're in combat and it feels a bit annoying and to mine immersivity. What's your opinion about it (if i made myself clear)?

 

[agris]

fwiw i dislike the candy colored / cartoonish art style so popular with games today, and Archaelund never once reminded me of that. The art style is quite decent, it evokes an old EverQuest aesthetic in a way (albeit with an order of magnitude or greater polygon count).