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

[baba is you]

Huh, I saw the ending. Hmm... there are a lot of people who haven't seen the ending yet, so I don't have much to say. There was a part of the story that I didn't understand in the second half.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Huh, I saw the ending. Hmm... there are a lot of people who haven't seen the ending yet, so I don't have much to say. There was a part of the story that I didn't understand in the second half.

So, how long was the game for you? HLTB claims it takes 15 hours to complete the main story plus some side content, but it's based on one testimony, so not really worth that much.

 

[baba is you]

Huh, I saw the ending. Hmm... there are a lot of people who haven't seen the ending yet, so I don't have much to say. There was a part of the story that I didn't understand in the second half.

So, how long was the game for you? HLTB claims it takes 15 hours to complete the main story plus some side content, but it's based on one testimony, so not really worth that much.

I don't live in an English-speaking country, so I have to interpret English. Therefore, my play time tends to be inflated. But if you're still curious... If you do the sub-quest and main quest at the same time, it took about 30 hours.

 

[notpl]

Another thing I'm not seeing people posting about enough is the difficulty system. To anyone who hasn't played yet: literally the ONLY thing that changes with difficulty is the amount of dice fudging. On "Easy" your party rolls three times for everything and uses the best result, on "Hard" the enemies do it instead. There is zero modification to enemy behavior, encounter size or type, anything. The difficulty is ENTIRELY in dice weighting. And the system is 2d6-based, so a reroll is much more significant than it is in a d20 system, for example. On "Hard" enemies simply don't miss. It's one of the most bizarre ideas I've ever seen in an RPG.

 

[Mortmal]

For anyone that finds the pixel art too sharp and the inbuilt CRT mode too shit inadequate, ReShade can provide a few filters that work well:

ReShade

RetroArch's CRT Royal ported to ReShade

It doesnt look half bad with my new settings, for 4K full screen:

 

[Tyranicon]

Another thing I'm not seeing people posting about enough is the difficulty system.

Nobody's posted about the fact that you can shoot through walls too.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Had a bit of free time so I figured I might take a stab at the palette a bit while I wait for the game to get patched. Dialing it as I go along, that’s why the greens are kinda overblown on the second screen but seem to work better after I dialed them in on the third context.
Not 100% happy with the CRT yet.

 

[Darkwind]

Had a bit of free time so I figured I might take a stab at the palette a bit while I wait for the game to get patched. Dialing it as I go along, that’s why the greens are kinda overblown on the second screen but seem to work better after I dialed them in on the third context.
Not 100% happy with the CRT yet.

This first one here is amazeballs. Looks REALLY good, can you post up your ReShade config/settings for us to download? I would be highly interested in this one, it smooths out the ugly quite nicely...

 

[AdolfSatan]

First one is literally just the game with all its included effects disabled, lol.
I can’t stand that greenish shade of brown, it looks sick (in a bad way).

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Are their any npc heirophants or guildmagos's? Or should I just buy the stupid mercs to get thos? Annoyed that I'm I chapter 2 level 10 and still don't have a full party.

 

[notpl]

Are their any npc heirophants or guildmagos's? Or should I just buy the stupid mercs to get thos? Annoyed that I'm I chapter 2 level 10 and still don't have a full party.

You don't need either, the caster classes are terrible. A full party of officers would probably sweep the game clean.

 

[AdolfSatan]

A dude’s been compiling a list of spells with added comments; might be helpful until there’s a manual, specially with how frustrating character creation is, not being able to go back and all that:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...kEfuXeVCZPpp3SFyF0OWcRqIIU/edit#gid=764152868

 

[Jermu]

so you can level up in middle of combat and gain full recovery that way

spell casters indeed seems trash at least early, Roland carrying whole party so far
thief lady would be more useful if you would get more arrows

 

[Mortmal]

so you can level up in middle of combat and gain full recovery that way

spell casters indeed seems trash at least early, Roland carrying whole party so far
thief lady would be more useful if you would get more arrows

You will be drowning in arrows by the time you reach Horryn. Look for many vendors in the Undercity; one of the overland map encounters is an arms merchant selling them too. The smuggler cave also has some. Speaking of vendors, thieving gets you the best pieces very easily. The ones having huge issues are the mages. One tier 3 spell for my magos and half its mana pool is gone, with too little damage and some debuffs.

 

[Tacgnol]

Mages are quite useful late game where a lot of enemies have resistance to physical damage. I'm making quite good use of the mage companion you get late game for these sections.

I specced her for Air and Fire. Fireballs seem to do a decent chunk of damage.

 

[Mortmal]

A dude’s been compiling a list of spells with added comments; might be helpful until there’s a manual, specially with how frustrating character creation is, not being able to go back and all that:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...kEfuXeVCZPpp3SFyF0OWcRqIIU/edit#gid=764152868

Usefull but

Thunderclap

30

18

Enemies

Allenemies

Lesser Blindness, Deafened, Mute, Stunned, 6-8 Magical, Kinetic

5/5

Congratulations, sit at the back, cast this spell, watch your team mop up the permastunned enemies

I dont see them permastunned unfortunately.

 

[Tacgnol]

A dude’s been compiling a list of spells with added comments; might be helpful until there’s a manual, specially with how frustrating character creation is, not being able to go back and all that:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...kEfuXeVCZPpp3SFyF0OWcRqIIU/edit#gid=764152868

Usefull but

Thunderclap

30

18

Enemies

Allenemies

Lesser Blindness, Deafened, Mute, Stunned, 6-8 Magical, Kinetic

5/5

Congratulations, sit at the back, cast this spell, watch your team mop up the permastunned enemies

I dont see them permastunned unfortunately.

They get stunned for 1 round, but you can just cast it again. It doesn't seem to have diminishing returns.

 

[Grunker]

Mages are quite useful late game where a lot of enemies have resistance to physical damage. I'm making quite good use of the mage companion you get late game for these sections.

I specced her for Air and Fire. Fireballs seem to do a decent chunk of damage.

Any experience with the gishes? I love gishes generally, but in games like this with scaling leveling they can be a trap. I'm worried Champion or Battlemagos will be underpowered later. Champion seems like a shoe-in for PC in this game though.

 

[Tacgnol]

Mages are quite useful late game where a lot of enemies have resistance to physical damage. I'm making quite good use of the mage companion you get late game for these sections.

I specced her for Air and Fire. Fireballs seem to do a decent chunk of damage.

Any experience with the gishes? I love gishes generally, but in games like this with scaling leveling they can be a trap. I'm worried Champion or Battlemagos will be underpowered later. Champion seems like a shoe-in for PC in this game though.

Armsmaster and Officer seem to be king. The companion Hospitaller (Warrior/Cleric hybrid) has a pretty awful skill tree.

Seems like people in this thread have commented the hybrids are generally pretty poor.

 

[Hydro]

How tactics-heavy is it on the scale of “- out of KotC”?

 

[Falksi]

I get the feeling this is doing well, as I'm seeing threads posted about it in general RPG groups on Facebook.

Just downloading it myself now, hyped by what I've seen so far and desperately need a tonic after playing the dire Disco Elysium.

 

[Tacgnol]

Just completed the game. Took 20 hours to do everything.

Enjoyed it a lot overall. Has some weak areas such as itemisation, poor mid-late game balance and poor writing polish (typos/grammatical errors).

Overall a very unique game setting wise. It does capture the lovecraftian feel well, and it makes me wish we had more CRPGs with a focus on horror.

Ending spoilers:

Ending is pretty grim. No one gets a happy ending. The world is saved (at least for a time) at the total cost of the protagonist and all his allies. If by some miracle any of them did survive they'd be gibbering wrecks both mentally and physically.

 

[Bladderfish]

I'm finding this game impressive enough for me to post on the Codex for the first time in several years.

Only a few hours in, but the game has a unique feel - cosmic horror mixed with fantasy - that elevates it above its contemporaries right from the off. Combat is clunky and simple at the moment, but it isn't a walk in the park and I'd imagine it gets more involved the larger the party becomes. Writing is excellent imo. Not too verbose and intriguing enough to hook you into a quest via the tone of what is happening rather than just the need to get more exp and cleave one's way forward. Music is also rather pleasing and retro. Not amazing, but appropriate for the game, adding to the feel.

As for the complaints about graphics and coloring... I don't really give a shit tbh. Seems fine to me.

Good stuff. Will see how it goes.

 

[Trash Player]

I mean, what is the deal with people complaining about casters being bad? I don't regret playing a mage at all. Fire is pretty bad but the other 2 are gamebreakers.
CC in this game at least works until the end of the victim's own turn, so it is easy to set up for backstab. Attunement is a non-issue past early game due to the abundance of crafted potions.
The same deal with bows. Arrow availability is a non-issue if one bother to buy them. They become obscene later on, hitting almost as hard as a melee 2 hander but always attack fully due to not moving.
Officer's ability to give bonus attacks provides the same buff as frenzy potions and the fire spells. The tier 3 version can be spammed every turn, with self damages that are irrelevant later on with the abundance of healing.
I guess people are just not playing the game past the first few hours.

 

[Mortmal]

A dude’s been compiling a list of spells with added comments; might be helpful until there’s a manual, specially with how frustrating character creation is, not being able to go back and all that:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...kEfuXeVCZPpp3SFyF0OWcRqIIU/edit#gid=764152868

Usefull but

Thunderclap

30

18

Enemies

Allenemies

Lesser Blindness, Deafened, Mute, Stunned, 6-8 Magical, Kinetic

5/5

Congratulations, sit at the back, cast this spell, watch your team mop up the permastunned enemies

I dont see them permastunned unfortunately.

They get stunned for 1 round, but you can just cast it again. It doesn't seem to have diminishing returns.

You can do it twice only before exhausting all your mana.