Realms of Antiquity: The Shattered Crown - Ultima-like retro RPG

[adamantyr]

While exploring the graveyard north of Boniface, I noticed that the Librum Piehl that Doran is using suddenly doesn't have a Mindguard spell anymore. He was casting them fine from this book only moments before. I guess this is a bug?

Yes, in 4.10.034 I swapped Mindguard for Ward. Someone pointed out that Ward was only available in one spellbook, which was not by design. Mindguard can be found in two spellbooks now. Those darn magic books, switching spells on you! It's like they have minds of their own...

And I noticed that the Rogue and the Bard are getting up to no good at the Inns we are staying at. You will have a mass of upset gamers knocking on your door, demanding to know why the main character isn't the centre of attention.

I'm glad someone has them in their party so they can enjoy the drama!

 

[Ladonna]

Yes, in 4.10.034 I swapped Mindguard for Ward. Someone pointed out that Ward was only available in one spellbook, which was not by design. Mindguard can be found in two spellbooks now. Those darn magic books, switching spells on you! It's like they have minds of their own...

You killed my Mindguard? In the middle of a graveyard? What exactly does Ward do? Does it stop charm, confusion etc?

I'm glad someone has them in their party so they can enjoy the drama!

Yes. I noticed the fraternising earlier, and then the Bard slipping out of the Rogues room in the early hours. Lucky they both have signed non breakable contracts to join the party.

 

[adamantyr]

You killed my Mindguard? In the middle of a graveyard? What exactly does Ward do? Does it stop charm, confusion etc

Ward grants a bonus to reduce, resist, and you have reduction against ALL damage types.

Spoiler

Librum Fetzner and Urbanus contain the Mindguard spell. Eruditic Tea will also provide Mindguard, you can purchase them in Ashford. And in the latest patch, both Enrage and Mindguard will now purge and protect against sleep effects.

 

[Decado]

I just downloaded this and am going to give it a whirl.

Is it better to roll a full party? Or roll one character and find NPCs?

 

[adamantyr]

I just downloaded this and am going to give it a whirl.

Is it better to roll a full party? Or roll one character and find NPCs?

The "easy" game, at least at the start, is to start with one character that is the Hero class. You can then get NPC's to join your party. It's possible to play the game with a single character but very challenging.

Making your own party has the advantage you can customize them in any way you want. A tester has played and won the game with nothing but fighters and rogues (no magic party) and one that was all cloth wearing magic users.

 

[Decado]

Cool, thanks dude.

Nice work. Reminds me of playing older RPGs on my Tandy 1000HX.

 

[Decado]

Hey man, I'm quite enjoying this game.

I took it upon myself to edit and reformat the instruction manual -- chiefly to make it a searchable PDF. The version you have included with the game is not searchable in Adobe, which was kind of a pain. No big deal.

I imported it into Word, took an editing pass, corrected some typos and grammar, standardized the fonts, etc. Also, I noticed in the glossary that you listed "Indigo" as a skill but no other classes of magic. I therefore removed "Indigo," but of course the alternative would be to add in all of the other spell colors with the same description (probably not necessary).

I tried to upload it to this post, but the file is too large. PM me your email address and I'll send it your way, if you're interested.

 

[adamantyr]

Awesome! I can drop you a PM, or you can join the Discord channel and try getting it to me there. (Find the link at http://quixotic.adamantyr.com)

The manual was mainly created as a printed book, instead of a digital PDF meant for searching. Somewhat old school in that regard.

I created the manual in MS Publisher, so no surprise it didn't have the ability to do searchable chapters when creating a PDF export.

 

[Decado]

Awesome! I can drop you a PM, or you can join the Discord channel and try getting it to me there. (Find the link at http://quixotic.adamantyr.com)

The manual was mainly created as a printed book, instead of a digital PDF meant for searching. Somewhat old school in that regard.

I created the manual in MS Publisher, so no surprise it didn't have the ability to do searchable chapters when creating a PDF export.

Yeah I could tell, it gave me the old-school Phantasie manual vibe. I very much liked reading it.

I'll email it to you via the address on your homepage.

 

[rikkles]

I just downloaded this and am going to give it a whirl.

Is it better to roll a full party? Or roll one character and find NPCs?

The positives about rolling a full party are:
- you pick and choose the classes you want without having to do quests to acquire companions
- you can have more than 1 of each class (2 fighters!)
- you start with 4 people already!

The negatives are:
- acquired companions have additional attribute points
- the hero is badass and you can’t select him in your party

Personally I like to play fast. Real fast. So I stay with a solo hero all the way. But the cool thing about this game is that every game style is possible.

 

[Decado]

I just downloaded this and am going to give it a whirl.

Is it better to roll a full party? Or roll one character and find NPCs?

The positives about rolling a full party are:
- you pick and choose the classes you want without having to do quests to acquire companions
- you can have more than 1 of each class (2 fighters!)
- you start with 4 people already!

The negatives are:
- acquired companions have additional attribute points
- the hero is badass and you can’t select him in your party

Personally I like to play fast. Real fast. So I stay with a solo hero all the way. But the cool thing about this game is that every game style is possible.

Cool. Is there a list of NPCs available?

ETA: Because on the one hand I can stumble through the game and find NPCs that I might like, but on the other hand it is nice to have some kind of plan . . .

 

[rikkles]

Cool. Is there a list of NPCs available?

ETA: Because on the one hand I can stumble through the game and find NPCs that I might like, but on the other hand it is nice to have some kind of plan . . .

Simple: There's one of every class that you can get to join, except for the hero.
Some are easier to get than others, generally because they come earlier in the game (bard and thief being the most obvious).

 

[rikkles]

FYI Decado and others, I've posted a guide on how to play the game in solo hero mode.
I don't recommend reading it before you've actually played the game fully, because of obvious spoilers. The guide doesn't go into a lot of details on the quests (that's not its purpose), but it does tell you where to go and what to aim for when playing in solo mode. This "recipe for success" has been thoroughly tested by yours truly over probably a dozen solo runs.
You can obviously use it if you're stuck somewhere in your current playthrough, as anything you do in solo is applicable in party mode.

How to play RoA in solo hero mode

 

[Butter]

After over a month of testing, build 4.12.036 is finally released!

This build has seen a lot of bug fixes and new features added. It's not required but starting a new game is ideal to be able to experience the entire thing.

My plan going forward is to resist adding any new features or tweaking anything. The game should stand as it is finished. Any serious bugs, of course, will require a new build, but I hope we caught most of those in testing.

Keep an eye on the horizon for some new announcements as well!

• Bugs
  • Fixed a bug where creatures who were immune to sleep had zero defense.
    
  • Fixed some map issues with going off the edge and appearing in mountains.
    
  • Typo and grammar error corrections.
  
  
• Items
  • Four new trinkets.
    
  • Two new daggers.
    
  • Two new mail armors.
    
  • One new plate armor.
    
  • Three new 2H weapons.
    
  • The Boomerang Axe is now the Eldrich Axe, ideal for warlocks...
    
  • Wands and staves now add their hit bonus to sorcery skill when equipped.
    
  • Item statistics have been heavily revised across the board for better mid-game play.
    
  • Items can now give bonus damage types to weapons or armor.
    
  • Weapons can now inflict debilitating effects on a hit in addition to damage.
  
  
• Monsters
  • Monster spawn rates have been adjusted to be less frequent.
    
  • Statistics adjusted across the board for the new resist mechanics and the defense bug.
    
  • New optional boss monster added.
    
  • Three new monsters added.
    
  • New treasure drop mechanics
    • Divided into consumable items (75% drop rate) and permanent items. (25% drop rate)
      
    • Both common and rare items occur in each group, based on monster type.
  
  
• Classes
  • Experience awards have been increased for faster leveling.
    
  • Skill training now raises skill by 2 points per training point until a threshold is passed. Then 1 point per point after. Each skill has a different threshold.
    
  • Fighters now have a "Lunge" ability usable in combat. It increases hit chance and damage, at the cost of fatigue.
    
  • Rogues now have a "Vanish" ability usable in combat. It allows them to sneak up on opponents, at the cost of fatigue.
    
  • Dual-wielding now gives best hit, worst AP cost, and combined damage.
  
  
• Gameplay
  • On world maps, your party now appears as a group of tiny figures matching party size.
    
  • When an "incidental message" occurs, the game now pauses and waits for you to press a key before continuing.
    
  • Resist mechanics have been updated.
    • Resist acts as a passive defense against sorcery; a debuff spell can be completely resisted and have no effect.
      
    • Ranged attacks now suffer a small penalty based upon distance from the target.
      
    • Some spells are now "aimed" spells and have a chance of missing.
      
    • Affinity acts as a bonus to resist, if applicable.
    
    
  • Your party will see small drops in stamina as a combat progresses.
    • When a character reaches maximum fatigue, they are penalized to one action point per combat round until stamina is recovered.
    
    
  • The old hermit now relocates to Alpthorpe and offers training.
    
  • Perse d'Or Mul will no longer train you while in prison, you need to get him out first.

 

[Abu Antar]

KS for Collector's Edition.

 

[Butter]

Build 4.14.037

Changelist:

• Bugs
  • Fixed an issue where some monster attacks caused damage values to be increased across the board.
  
  
• Features/Updates (Actually was in 4.12.036)
  • All consumable items (potions, scrolls, touchstones) now have 1-4 randomly determined uses
  
  
• Emulator Update
  • Classic99 updated to version 399.051.
    
  • The Escape key no longer maps to F9, reloading the game. This is a configuration option in the INI file.
    
  • Overdrive speed can be changed. This is a configuration option in the INI file.
    • Parameter is "overdrive", default value is 50.
      
    • Integer value
      
    • This is a CPU multiplier for overdrive. So setting to 2 would make overdrive be twice as fast as a native TI-99/4a.

 

[Desiderius]

KS for Collector's Edition.

Ah, so that's what a publisher does. Hoping Owlcat goes for Maxell too on their floppies. Nothing but the best man.

 

[adamantyr]

Kickstarter is live! If you missed out on a collector's edition before, here's your chance to get one.

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...iquity-the-shattered-crown-collectors-edition

 

[Butter]

Version 4-15-038 Released

Changelist:

• Bugs
  • Fixed an issue where throwing weapons weren't available after being thrown at the start of the next turn.
    
  • Corrected several staircases that should have been going up, not down, in the graveyard crypts. (Will only appear on new saves.)
  
  
• Features/Updates
  • Retreating from combat now removes the mob you escaped from, but a new one spawns on the same map automatically.

 

[Arthandas]

How tough is this game on a scale of Skyrim - Wizardry IV ?

I mainly play those kinds of prehistoric old-school games for the challenge but it's really hard to find any info on it.

 

[rikkles]

It’s about on par with Skyrin. The main difficulty is the actual scale of the game.

 

[adamantyr]

If you want to see the game in action, a streamer has been playing it. He just defeated a major boss in the last video with a lot of reloads needed...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKWVFVH2SeAA8iusfix2Ou2OTYsta4QC_

 

[Arthandas]

If you want to see the game in action, a streamer has been playing it. He just defeated a major boss in the last video with a lot of reloads needed...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKWVFVH2SeAA8iusfix2Ou2OTYsta4QC_

Yeah, I've seen some gameplay but I don't want any spoilers. Half the fun is going in blind and exploring everything yourself.
Also, it doesn't really tell me anything about the overall difficulty. If it's as braindead easy as Skyrim, then I'm afraid I've lost all interest. Are there any difficulty settings or challenge modes?

 

[rikkles]

Nonono. It’s not braindead easy. It’s going to force many reloads for sure. But it doesn’t have crazy hard puzzles.
The amount of exploration is what makes it tough. You’re going to have to build a very resilient team that can survive. But you won’t tear your hair out trying to figure out puzzles.

 

[Arthandas]

The main difficulty is the actual scale of the game.

The amount of exploration is what makes it tough.

You're not making any sense. Whether a game is linear or open-world matters none in terms of difficulty, Skyrim being the best example. Actually, games with heavy focus on exploration tend to be much easier since you can sequence break or get powerful items early.
Also, I'm obviously asking about combat, not the puzzles.