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

[Luzur]

Ok, im in the Evil Priory, at the statue puzzle, and i read some...shitty stuff about the ending? has that been fixed?

Ok game sofar, liked the first part with Horryn and insane cannibals, but after you get boat it...well its ends up being empty. you can sail around but not much to sail to.

Hopefully SKALD 2 have bigger map and more to do, this game felt more like a very small JRPG.

 

[Incognito]

Ok game sofar, liked the first part with Horryn and insane cannibals, but after you get boat it...well its ends up being empty. you can sail around but not much to sail to.

Did you do the Firgol carnivale and the Tower of Ash?

 

[Luzur]

Ok game sofar, liked the first part with Horryn and insane cannibals, but after you get boat it...well its ends up being empty. you can sail around but not much to sail to.

Did you do the Firgol carnivale and the Tower of Ash?

Yep, had an incling that the festival would end up going bad, and Tower was abit hard but fun, those slimes where real sluggers.

Dev have something good going here ya know, i havent felt this kind of involvement in an RPG since the Might & Magic and Goldbox days, but he/they should fill out the world abit more, after first island it kinda start going downhill and railroady.

 

[Incognito]

Ok game sofar, liked the first part with Horryn and insane cannibals, but after you get boat it...well its ends up being empty. you can sail around but not much to sail to.

Did you do the Firgol carnivale and the Tower of Ash?

Yep, had an incling that the festival would end up going bad, and Tower was abit hard but fun, those slimes where real sluggers.

Dev have something good going here ya know, i havent felt this kind of involvement in an RPG since the Might & Magic and Goldbox days, but he/they should fill out the world abit more, after first island it kinda start going downhill and railroady.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Apart from finding all the the shrines, there wasn't much to explore on the middle/north part of the map.

 

[Incognito]

It is done. No regrets.

 

[Fatberg Slim]

Thoughts after recently finishing this (took around 20 hrs):

- The atmosphere was a high point. It’s not high art but I like that it was going for something different. NPCs were fun to have around and added to the story
- As a former extensive C64 gamer I really appreciated the aesthetic. The colors here are a little less pastel and the sound less twangy, but I got warm vibes from it
- I encountered no bugs and patches have been coming
- Character generation was fun, but subsequent progression could have been better. You can get the best feats by level 10 or 15 and if you’re smart you’ll save up your points to get them all as soon as you’re eligible, and after that you’re just left with mostly incremental gains that are hard to get excited about. I ended at the maximum level of 20 which I reached a little before the final location
- Which game started the trend of completely healing you when you level-up? Diablo? It’s worse here because you can strategically save your level-ups for when you need the healing. This shouldn’t be a tactical decision!
- I turned off all the multiple dice roll stuff, which may have gimped me because I don’t know whether the difficulty was tuned for this or not. I didn’t feel overly challenged though even when I failed these rolls, and I agree that the skills should have been more impactful
- Combat was decent. It was satisfying when the skills you’ve selected all come together and you start clearing the map in one round Some issues like underpowered magic (I only used around 5 Mind and Air spells and did not feel like I was missing anything) and the universal cooldown surprised me because they seemed like things that should have been polished over the long development time
- Still not a fan of crafting that requires collecting/hoarding massive amounts of herbs and shit
- Thieving was fun, a little OP but it’s a welcome change from most other games that include it as an afterthought. Plus there was a small amount of strategy involved in deciding what to buy vs steal
- SJW watch: there is one unnecessary non-straight romance. No underlying social commentary that I could detect, although I admire that there is an unsavory “cabal” of business leaders that secretly runs things
- Shrines: I never found the trigger for using these. I checked after beating the game and apparently you need to talk to some people in a house in Horryn after you clear it that you have no other reason to go to?
- Ending thoughts: Definitely bleaker than your standard ending which was refreshing, but I didn’t understand it completely. Did we break out of the time loop or not, or is this intentionally unclear because of “cosmic horror”?

I backed this mainly out of obligation to promote old-school RPG design and had my doubts it would ever be done. There are significant design problems but it was brisk and unlike many games it didn't outstay its welcome that much.

Realms of Antiquity > Nox Archaist > Skald >> Caves of Lore

 

[Fedora Master]

Am I stupid? Is there no recipe for normal Attunement potions?

 

[Incognito]

Am I stupid? Is there no recipe for normal Attunement potions?

Yes.

 

[Fedora Master]

Not bad. Does have its quirks though. Combat is... yea. I still enjoyed it though. Get it on discount.

 

[kangaxx]

I somehow knew I'd end up trawling the sewers of this fishing village.

Question: is the cleric as useless as she seems? Maybe I'm using her wrong, but she seems like a wasted slot, and another pure fighter would be more useful.

 

[Cohesion]

View attachment 51220

Not bad. Does have its quirks though. Combat is... yea. I still enjoyed it though. Get it on discount.

You got it from a ((Russian friend)), enjoyed the game and don't wanna pay? Shame on you, Fedora. Don't tell us gaming is in the shitter if you are the cause.

 

[Fatberg Slim]

Question: is the cleric as useless as she seems? Maybe I'm using her wrong, but she seems like a wasted slot, and another pure fighter would be more useful.

She was the weakest link in my Officer-led party for a while, until she learned the group stun ability and got like +4 aura radius due to feats and equipment. She did better after that but probably still the weakest, and she missed more than everyone else combined. Being limited to one-handed clubs didn't help with weapon selection. I got some use out of Mind Magic too.

 

[Incognito]

Question: is the cleric as useless as she seems? Maybe I'm using her wrong, but she seems like a wasted slot, and another pure fighter would be more useful.

You can spell spec her into #sublime damage, which is useful in the last chapter. I used her mostly as healer and off-tank tho.

 

[Pompey]

Question: is the cleric as useless as she seems? Maybe I'm using her wrong, but she seems like a wasted slot, and another pure fighter would be more useful.

She was the weakest link in my Officer-led party for a while, until she learned the group stun ability and got like +4 aura radius due to feats and equipment. She did better after that but probably still the weakest, and she missed more than everyone else combined. Being limited to one-handed clubs didn't help with weapon selection. I got some use out of Mind Magic too.

The Cleric was very much lacking compared to the Thief and the Battlemaster (I think it is called) who were the heavy hitters in my party. I just relegated her to using buffs on the party at the start of a fight.

 

[Mark Richard]

Fini. This gets a thumbs up from me, just know what you're getting into. Skald isn't a mechanically dense experience where you spend several hours in the character creation screen. Instead it's a compact and linear one and done where the major selling point is the presentation. The writing, music, and graphical style do a wonderful job of servicing the cosmic horror theme and really give the game a strong sense of identity. Anyone who needs a break from bloated 60 hour RPGs should pick this up, it's a breath of fresh air.

 

[Fedora Master]

I would like to see more from this dev. I think the game is one iteration away from being truly great. Make it a bit longer, add more reactivity/skill checks and tweak the combat.

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

NOO aagh. Not two women eating each other's cunts!

 

[Pompey]

NOO aagh. Not two women eating each other's cunts!

I can't believe this happened in my based CRPG and I don't have the option to watch them

 

[koyota]

Finished on hard in 16 hours.

+Love Love the Low-Magic Ravenloft-style horror setting, atmosphere, story, basic mechanics, skill checks, all good.
Would recommend and will be purchasing anything else the developer puts out.

however

- Played as Ranger. No deaths after Ch.1, Mid-Point in Ch.2 equipped everyone with bows except Roland and basically stopped doing anything besides Rapid Shot and pressing 1 to auto-attack / Defeated the last boss in under 3 turns.

Without major overhauls, Wondering how you could change it to introduce a more difficult survival or nightmare mode etc?

- Stealing is ridiculous and breaks the economy, Get rid of thievery or majorly nerf it or roleplay a saint.
- Resting requiring food is great concept, but food is rich and abundant in this land of The Outer Isles, remove 90% of the food
- Potion Overhaul? Never used anything besides Vitality / Attunement potions. Why use any of these potions to get a few extra points of damage, when you can use that turn to do 40 damage instead?
Damage reduction is less effective than using that turn to restore HP.
- Require recipes before being able to craft potions?

 

[Deadyawn]

Finished. I'll echo most of what's been said here: it's fairly linear after the first few hours, but more importantly, the easy combat and overabundance of resources completely undermine what the game was going for. It can rag about the horrors from beyond all it wants, my party never missed its 8-hour beauty sleep (with fish stew and canapes!) while stomping everything in their path, so the game didn't quite come together in the end for me.

I liked it well enough, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.

 

[Melan]

Impressions before I read the rest of the thread. Overall, a good game - an interesting mixture of cosmic horror and a sort of low fantasy that has excellent thematic coherence. Graphics and music are quite moody.

Combat and exploration are fun, character building is satisfying, and the story/text is usually quite well written. A lot of RPG writing is sub-par; this goes back to something like the Ultimas, particularly Serpent Isle. The companions have character. There are fun subsystems like cooking (no, really, it is implemented well as an enjoyable game mechanic). Except for a few combats, resources were very abundant, and after the initial phase of survival on bleak shores, it is usually smooth sailing. There is a lot of junk I never used; didn't make any potions, nor use too many except the basics. The item economy is generous, and it is nice to kit out the characters in gear that shows up on their sprites.

It is a lot less sandboxy and a lot more linear than might be expected. You are locked on a path, and there are not many side-quests (I completed all but one of them, I think). High points at the start - bleak, harsh, menacing - the skullduggery in the city, and the inexplicably peaceful village in the north. Once you think the game will open up a little, though, it actually narrows back down. You get a ship but there is barely anywhere to go. It feels claustrophobic, although that may be the point. If you like being along for the ride, it should be enjoyable. The ending is kinda a shitty sucker punch that left a seriously bad taste in my mouth; I will not spoil it.

Altogether, it was worth playing, but probably not much replay value. Would I buy a sequel? Yeah, although this one took weirdly long to finish up. The final game does not seem all that different from the demo the backers got. However, props for delivering something that seems completely bug-free on launch. That's not common.

 

[Ladonna]

Played as Ranger. No deaths after Ch.1, Mid-Point in Ch.2 equipped everyone with bows except Roland and basically stopped doing anything besides Rapid Shot and pressing 1 to auto-attack / Defeated the last boss in under 3 turns.

Where did you get enough arrows? I was always hard up and looking for more.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Played as Ranger. No deaths after Ch.1, Mid-Point in Ch.2 equipped everyone with bows except Roland and basically stopped doing anything besides Rapid Shot and pressing 1 to auto-attack / Defeated the last boss in under 3 turns.

Where did you get enough arrows? I was always hard up and looking for more.

You're going to have to buy them. This is hard at first, but by the time you're 3/4 Chapter 1, you should have plenty of money. There is a merchant you will have to find, but it's associated with a quest so you probably will. The next major source is another merchant in Chapter 2 who will also have to be found. They can be found quickly if you go exploring, and you should be flush with money by the time you find them.

 

[Tyranicon]

Played as Ranger. No deaths after Ch.1, Mid-Point in Ch.2 equipped everyone with bows except Roland and basically stopped doing anything besides Rapid Shot and pressing 1 to auto-attack / Defeated the last boss in under 3 turns.

Where did you get enough arrows? I was always hard up and looking for more.

You're going to have to buy them. This is hard at first, but by the time you're 3/4 Chapter 1, you should have plenty of money. There is a merchant you will have to find, but it's associated with a quest so you probably will. The next major source is another merchant in Chapter 2 who will also have to be found. They can be found quickly if you go exploring, and you should be flush with money by the time you find them.

Also keep a lookout for barrels with arrows sticking out of them, especially in the city.

You'll probably need to spam rests to do fetching in the endgame. Outside of one or two big loot rooms, there's nothing there for arrows. No merchants either.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Yes arrows are scarce : apart from on the ramparts in the port but until Erryl merchants don't have that many to sell. And fletching would give mostly 1 arrow per rest, with crafting +5.

The writing is good overall, with some strong moments

...

(the "I wear no mask" episode was quite inspired)