KickStarter SKALD: Against the Black Priory - retro RPG inspired by Ultima

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Bows are useful when the party forms a fine conga line in a narrow corridor and fat enemies block the character(s) in the front from advancing further into the room.

Doubly so if there are bowmen in the enemy party.

Triple if they have poison arrows.

 

[Andhaira]

I'm a fire-focused battle magos.

The Guild Magos seems like a better choice to start with, as I see more spell versatility and some abilities that the Battlemage doesn't get, like Spellburn. I don't see the point of getting the light weapon feat on that character. It seems like a robust system, not bloated with feats. There are few choices of classes, but each of them has significant differences and roles. I quite like it so far; it has a very old-school D&D combat feel. They could have done without that faux retro look, however.

I inspired SkaldRPG over on the discord a few years back to add in a warrior-mage class. Unfortunately I should have gone a bit more in depth in how to make it more useful, and not nerf it in both S&S. Hopefully it'll be patched soon. While I've been looking forward to this for years, I'm not a fan of the feat system implemented since the last demo update;much preferred the old prolgue version of the game system as it allowed any class to select any feat without being chained to tree's but different classes paid different costs for the feat (so pure mage or theif paid higher for warrior type feats), but oh well.

The flavor and the writing of the game won't be affected, and its still seems a gritty, low magic setting with strong lovercraftian vibes.

The game uses the skill checks of the companions you use to interact with the world (at least in the demo) so you can use thief to pick locks, party member with the highest diplomacy to speak to NPCs, etc. Or not for pure roleplay fags. Or mix and match depending on your mood.

For my playthru I'm going with Guild Magos, with Roland speccing in a greatsword build to start off with. Full M&M vs eldrtich abominations. Going to be a fun weekend!

 

[Jrpgfan]

camp activity

considering food scarcity. But that may only be an early game problem.

That's not my experience at all. I have like 12 vegetables soups and 10 omelettes plus a lot of rations in my inventory and I've camped quite a few times already. My main character is a mage with high int and crafting though, idk how it is with a low crafting character.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Katyana wrecking face with ranged backstabs

She mostly misses for me. I did just find an enchanted bow for her but I ran out of arrows long ago and haven't found any for awhile. I might restart the game though.

That's not my experience at all.

Yeah I have lots of ingredients but my dumbo team can't cook much except the vegetable soup. I'm sure it will be better once I get more recipes.

-Taking a spin through the classes, it seems Officer gets most of the good skills of Armsmaster plus the Officer buffs which look pretty good (+1 attacks for the entire team? Heck yeah). You lose two-handed and bows which I wasn't planning on using for my main guy anyway, so I think I'm going to reroll. Also I want to redo my skills as I hate having redundant characters.

-Crusader doesn't get the Bred for War tree so no multiple attacks for him unless you use heavy weapons. Rangers do get that tree though so in theory they're better as fighters w/ some magic, depending on what spells are in the Nature tree. I have no idea what any of the spells are like in the game though as I haven't found any casters. If you want a fighter-healer it looks like you should take Hospitaller, as they get more magic and still have decent mace attacks.

 

[Nikanuur]

I am really crossing my boundaries with this graphical style and I may end up not being able to bear with it, but I solemnly swear to buy SKALD, as soon as my salary comes.
This kind of effort that went into implementing such heartfelt RPG features needs to be supported.
Also, 'Lovecraftian' is too much of a lure :3

 

[Tacgnol]

Enjoying this a lot. The island has a really unsettling and hostile atmosphere.

There really isn't enough CRPGs with more of a horror feel.

 

[sser]

Good game, but my eyes wonk the fuck out whenever I exit.

 

[mondblut]

Just purchased. Not going to get around to playing it for a while I think, but 'dex gamedevs deserve support.

He is not dex dev. He left us disgusting chuds. Probably triggered by some edgy posters.

He also never posted anywhere but this thread, which makes him a glorified plant, not a proper codexer.

 

[Gahbreeil]

I watched the intro and I feel hooked although I'm not sure about two points, does it work well on modern PCs (IK, IK, honest question though) and is the game supposed to be too difficult? As in, I didn't play it yet.

 

[Tacgnol]

I watched the intro and I feel hooked although I'm not sure about two points, does it work well on modern PCs (IK, IK, honest question though) and is the game supposed to be too difficult? As in, I didn't play it yet.

Yes to the first and difficulty wise it's pretty easy, at least on default settings. It does give you quite a bit of difficulty customisation though.

 

[Tyranicon]

Yeah, my only real major gripe about the game is it takes a lot of fiddling with the settings to reduce how eye-strain-y everything is, and even then the font still sucks balls.

->months if not years of everyone complaining about the font in the demo
->adds three slightly different fonts

What the fuck.

 

[notpl]

The #1 biggest issue in the game is the total illegibility of the combat. The fact that there isn't even a combat log is insane.

 

[Lyre Mors]

The #1 biggest issue in the game is the total illegibility of the combat. The fact that there isn't even a combat log is insane

Floating numbers and text come and disappear way too fast, I agree. However, there is a detailed combat log. You just have to pull it up (there's a button on the quick bar). Wish it was always on screen though. Still, better than nothing.

In terms of difficulty, I'm playing on Hard and have part wiped around 5-6 times in 3 hours of play. We'll see how things change once I get a full party, but it's been nicely challenging so far.

 

[Alienman]

The #1 biggest issue in the game is the total illegibility of the combat. The fact that there isn't even a combat log is insane

Floating numbers and text come and disappear way too fast, I agree. However, there is a detailed combat log. You just have to pull it up (there's a button on the quick bar). Wish it was always on screen though. Still, better than nothing.

Really? I tried to find one, but couldn't. It was not listed under key commands in the press version. What do you need to press to see it?

Edit: Oh quick bar... wtf

Edit2: Holy shit there is one. How did I miss that for 20 hours

 

[Lyre Mors]

Really? I tried to find one, but couldn't. It was not listed under key commands in the press version. What do you need to press to see it?

Not at my computer right now so I can't check, but like I said, while in combat it's a button on the clickable quick bar. Sadly haven't found a way to display it out of combat, but I haven't looked that hard yet. Too bad SKALD dev left the codex, so he probably won't be seeing any of the feedback here.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Enjoying the punishment on my solo Guild Magos run. Is there any way to increase core stats? Reached lvl 6 and only could raise feats

 

[notpl]

Enjoying the punishment on my solo Guild Magos run. Is there any way to increase core stats? Reached lvl 6 and only could raise feats

There are feats to increase them, if you somehow failed to notice that.

 

[bandersnatch]

waiting for bandersnatch's review

You summoned?

You may need to wait on that review , I prefer womans breasts, but after seeing that gay man chesticles portrait i'm strangly questioning my manhood and want to save money for some hormone shots. I never bought this guys schtick anyway after seeing his previous woke political games. Maybe when the deluxe version goes on deep discount I'll consider throwing a few loonies towards it to get you lads my review.

I will say, a ballsy approach coming up with that sea-jew-deluxe version by commenting out a few lines of code and asking for an additional $10 to enable them. what's next, paying $1 to enable each function key?

 

[FUGUSHKA]

Bought this game yesterday & I've been having a blast playing through it!

Having gotten a feel for the skills/attributes - Thinking of starting over as either a Champion (Warrior-Cleric) or Battlemagos (Warrior-Mage), however Guildmagos (Pure Mage; no melee) and Hierophant (Pure Cleric; no melee) are looking good too!

Does anybody now what Embla's class is?

Companions Classes:
Roland - Armsmaster (Weapon Master Warrior)
Kat - Thief (Rogue)
Driina - Hospitaller (Warrior-Cleric; focus on Body Magic and exclusive weapon focus on Shields & Clubs)
Iben - Ranger (Warrior class; gets unique Nature-magic and weapon specialization - haven't tried this out yet)
Iago - Officer (Warrior-Bard; feels like this might be closest to the "Skald" class that didn't make the cut during development?)
Embla - (From her sprite & portrait, either pure mage, pure cleric or unique class?)

 

[baba is you]

I just finished the Retaking Horryn quest. There was also a way to end it without a combat. It was a good quest design.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Tried it a bit more an looks fun, but I think I’m gonna hold out to see if a patch comes up to fix the abysmal UI. At the very least a combat log on screen at all times.

Plenty of typos too, this is quite unpolished for something that took as long as it did.

I will say, a ballsy approach coming up with that sea-jew-deluxe version by commenting out a few lines of code and asking for an additional $10 to enable them. what's next, paying $1 to enable each function key?

Indeed, should have worn his balls and priced it outright what he believed it to be correct, like the Legends of Amberland dev does. He knows he’s catering to a niche that’s willing to pay for quality, so he doesn’t lowball himself to then throw a switcheroo at the customers.

 

[Darkwind]

This game has me far more intrigued than I thought it would. As a self confessed graphics whore unlike many of the prestigious 'dexers I simply cannot tolerate shit graphics. Pixel art being up there as some of the worst. In fact, I am proud to say I have never played a single pixel art based game, excepting this one. But Skald has held my interest tremendously.

It is high quality artwork for starters and the game plucks the nostalgia strings just right falling somewhere between SSI's Gold Box series and Ultima 6/7 but modernized. UI is quite garbage as others have pointed out but I'm willing to overlook that quirk as part of the 'throwback thing' it is going for.

The Lovecraftian horror on an island setting is also somewhat novel too. It is a basic bitch RPG system but it gets the job done for the most part. The writing is decent, won't win any awards but not filled with woke fuckery and sadly today, that put its head & shoulders above most western RPGs. If the dev did some prior wokey stuff it certainly has no traces in this game so far that I can see.

Mages are weak AF as others have stated, apparently magic was the last thing added and it shows. In some ways this is not a bad thing because it mimics early versions of D&D where they were always pathetic and an 'investment' class then just became stupidly OP late in their career. The problem here is, that never really happens because of the goofy attunement system. You have a mana pool, and it never gets very big so at higher levels while you can probably drop some impressive spells you simply won't get very many of them. I'm hoping that enough feedback like that has the dev looking at this and possibly adjusting things a bit for the mage classes.

I have 5 hours played so far and I'm still interested and not put off by the pixel art so for the low price tag, I consider that a success. Sadly, doesn't look like this is going to generate any amount of sales that could fund a follow up game with perhaps some improved graphical and UI options.

 

[Alienman]

Mages are weak AF as others have stated, apparently magic was the last thing added and it shows.

Interesting. I found the mages to get pretty powerful later on, especially when you get AOE stuff. What I found the weakest, was the bow. Any kind of armor seems to neglect any kind of damage inflicted. It got so bad, I retooled my rogue into a melee/backstabber instead. However, I kept using bows throughout, since space for melee isn't always available.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

I restarted the game after three hours as my Champion proved to be an ok class, but just not more. As a warrior he can stand his ground but never becomes a real beast on the battle field. Maybe that's the point but I want to whack stuff hard. Now the Officer is another animal. His buffs are really helpful to beef up the party, he can take and deliver really good and is an overall interesting class imho. It's a bit painful to move away from my old habit of playing the holier-than-thou Paladin type, but panta rhei, I guess.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Enjoying the punishment on my solo Guild Magos run. Is there any way to increase core stats? Reached lvl 6 and only could raise feats

There are feats to increase them, if you somehow failed to notice that.

True, but was wondering if you get a stat point at some point, like lvl 10 or something.

Tho you do get a stat increase through feats, noticed there is one for +1 int down the line