Preview Swordhaven Pregander Video

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: ATOM Team; Swordhaven: Iron Conspiracy

With the recently announced Swordhaven Kickstarter, Mortismal has released a preview video on his channel for those looking for some more information about the upcoming title from ATOM Team.

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I really like the idea that this is going to be "low fantasy". To be honest, one of the main things I've criticized Baldur's Gate was that it was a huge Monty Haul. It always felt to me like playing a tabletop game with a DM that's a freshman in high school, trying too hard to be liked.

 

[unseeingeye]

I really like the idea that this is going to be "low fantasy".

I like this too. I loved Kingdom Come Deliverance because of the central focus on historical accuracy, but having a game like this in a low fantasy style seems to me very interesting.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I am always apprehensive about Early Access let alone Kickstarter. I wonder if Atom didn't make enough money to fund this. They aren't asking for much.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I do not like Luck as a stat in RPGs. Its usually an omnistat to dump into if you're already min-maxed. Stats should reflect a characters most fundamental abilities. Their "cosmic chance" doesn't make sense to be one of them. There are some other things here, like Attention increasing carry weight. Odd choice. Overall, the stat system doesn't look like it had a lot of thought put into it. :-/

I am betting magic is going to creep in as the story unfolds. It will start as superstition with plausible explainations, but then become overtly metaphysical.

 

[Atomboy]

Wow, thank you so much for sharing! Mortismal did a great job showing the world and we love him.
For us, low-magic is a way to make a world way more nuanced. Like in a lotsa-magic fantasy setting all you have is your magical reality. But in a low-magic setting you have your ordinary, maybe somewhat gritty normie reality, but there's also this "magic" reality underneath it all, waiting to be discovered... It's cool!

I am always apprehensive about Early Access let alone Kickstarter. I wonder if Atom didn't make enough money to fund this. They aren't asking for much.

We more or less have enough to fund it to look and play like ATOM, that's why we're saying that we'll finish it even if we won't get the funding. We tend to even work for free if we want to finish something, as history has shown... That was a pain though!! BUT!!
What the Kickstarter will get us if its successful are improvements. We want this one to have dozens of battle animations, tons of body types, fat merchants, sickly peasant children, buff pigs, old women doing cartwheels, gaunt noblemen, any combo in all shapes and sizes. Our team always lacked an in-house animator \people modeller, we outsourced since day one. And for what we planned, we need to outsource so much it might just cost us that sum we're asking for. Really hope we'll get it, there will be cool anims then!

I do not like Luck as a stat in RPGs. Its usually an omnistat to dump into if you're already min-maxed. Stats should reflect a characters most fundamental abilities. Their "cosmic chance" doesn't make sense to be one of them. There are some other things here, like Attention increasing carry weight. Odd choice. Overall, the stat system doesn't look like it had a lot of thought put into it. :-/

I am betting magic is going to creep in as the story unfolds. It will start as superstition with plausible explainations, but then become overtly metaphysical.

Ahhhh you spotted it... The Attention ups Carry Weight thing! See, Attention actually doesn't increase carry weight. It increases the Survival skill which in turn raises carry weight. But since the system is the way it is right now, it just writes that Att raises carry weight. I'm gonna patch it out later on, since it's technically not a bug, I'll just have to rework the system. We're using the ones we used in Atom and Trudograd, but I'm reworking it here and there. Should be great when I'm finally done! I didn't do much to it yet, but for example now SP (or AP as they were known) are formed from three attributes instead of just DEX. That gives more power to Endurance which was previously a dump stat. Luck is there for the dialogue checks where you pray for something to happen and it governs battle a lot. If you have 8-15 damage, Luck determines how many times you get to hit for 15 compared to how many times you get an 8, instead of picking damage completely randomly. It's still experimental though!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I do not like Luck as a stat in RPGs.

I've always liked it mainly because it can make for a really interesting game if it's done decently. I remember back in the day when FASA still existed, if you looked at Captain Kirk's character sheet, his Luck attribute was 98/100 and his second highest stat was Charisma at 94/100. I always thought that was pretty funny as a take on TOS Era Kirk.

Wow, thank you so much for sharing! Mortismal did a great job showing the world and we love him.

No problem! Thanks for adding controller support to ATOM for Android for those of us that like handhelds!

 

[Cohesion]

No problem! Thanks for adding controller support to ATOM for Android for those of us that like handhelds!

Always wondered how do people play RPGs on tiny handheld screens like Steam Deck? (Besides control issue). Same thing with watching movies on mobile/handhelds.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Always wondered how do people play RPGs on tiny handheld screens like Steam Deck? (Besides control issue).

The Steamdeck is pretty big. Too big for me to consider ever wanting one, honestly. If it can't fit in my shirt pocket, I'm not interested in it. They have NUCs that are 2" x 2" x 2.4", but every x86 handheld has to be nearly a foot long and at least 6" from top to bottom. I think that so far, the x86 developers are more interested in running Cyberpunk 2077 at 45fps and then sizing the screen to whatever hardware it took to do that. So, you wind up with 8" screens and up.

As for CRPGs and screen size, keep in mind that there were people playing Golden Sun on the GBA which had a 2.9" 4:3 screen. Now, there's a whole lot of games that really weren't designed to be played on handhelds, and I'm aware that Golden Sun was designed to be played on that size screen. So, the UI was scaled for it. The Steamdeck had a lot of developers add UI scaling features, though. Font scaling, UI scaling, and so on go a long way towards making things playable on a smaller screen.

 

[Rincewind]

Being a huge fan of low-key low or no magic settings like Gothic and Nehrim, I'm very much looking forward to this. Instabuy when it comes out.

 

[Rincewind]

My only reservation so far is the selectable turn-based or RTwP mode. I don't think you can design encounters and systems that satisfy both modes equally well, so necessarily one has to suffer. I hope that will be the RTwP option and the game will be meant to played in turn-based mode.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

So I tried the demo. Encouraging, but definitely Kickstarter material. It's good. Definitely good, but seems uncertain it is voice. The game is aiming for Baldur's Gate, but comes off more as Dungeon Siege 2 with a mix of original Fallout. The Dungeon Siege remark isn't to say it's unsophisticated. It's just learning to walk before it runs. There is a lot of good here that just needs cultivation.

Combat is decent even at low level. I found it satisfying and expedient even when in turn based mode. Damage Threshold is also quite useful. I lumbered into several packs of wolves, and they weren't really able to harm me. I dumped Dexterity, and my combination of high INT, CON, and LUCK was a perfect compensation for it. Dialogue is very well supported, and the attribute/skill system is better implemented than face value suggests. I played as a min-maxed genteel halbradier, noble, aware, and intelligent. Talking my station to commoners was very effective, and I got ample use of the many dialogue options. Intimidate is extremely useful in this game, more so than Persuasion, which is a refreshing change.

Crafting seems like it will be very prominent and occupy the space normally held by magic. The crafting system seems intuitive and didn't annoy me, but I'll reserve my judgement on that as I am not a fan of crafting. Despite being low magic, healing potions exist, and it messes with the tone a bit. The color palette is a bit saturated and could use some subtlety, but is about my only real complaint. Overall, I'm satisfied with having backed. I think this could be a winner. I recommend you try the demo. I plays quickly and well. Do your part Codex.

 

[Atomboy]

I do not like Luck as a stat in RPGs.

I've always liked it mainly because it can make for a really interesting game if it's done decently. I remember back in the day when FASA still existed, if you looked at Captain Kirk's character sheet, his Luck attribute was 98/100 and his second highest stat was Charisma at 94/100. I always thought that was pretty funny as a take on TOS Era Kirk.

Wow, thank you so much for sharing! Mortismal did a great job showing the world and we love him.

No problem! Thanks for adding controller support to ATOM for Android for those of us that like handhelds!

Sure thing! We'll port this one on everything too, even quicker than the previous games. My unity build even accepts some controller inputs already, though it does also disable targeting enemies... We'll get there!

Being a huge fan of low-key low or no magic settings like Gothic and Nehrim, I'm very much looking forward to this. Instabuy when it comes out.

My only reservation so far is the selectable turn-based or RTwP mode. I don't think you can design encounters and systems that satisfy both modes equally well, so necessarily one has to suffer. I hope that will be the RTwP option and the game will be meant to played in turn-based mode.

Thanks! Yes, unless we balance them out perfectly, turn-based will be the leading one. My vision for RTwP and my main use for it even now (dev builds have RTwP enabled, though it's very underdeveloped and bugs everything) are situations when your cool party stumbles into a very weak group of enemies you may have missed when clearing the location out 10 levels ago. With the RTwP option you just switch to RTwP and watch your party destroy those critters in 2-4 seconds, instead of going through the whole proper turn-based battle just to get them. It saves time and helps the pacing. When \ if the AI learns to use techniques, heal and kite RTwP will become even more useful, but even now it's a nice skip of encounters you don't want to waste time on.

So I tried the demo. Encouraging, but definitely Kickstarter material. It's good. Definitely good, but seems uncertain it is voice. The game is aiming for Baldur's Gate, but comes off more as Dungeon Siege 2 with a mix of original Fallout. The Dungeon Siege remark isn't to say it's unsophisticated. It's just learning to walk before it runs. There is a lot of good here that just needs cultivation.

Combat is decent even at low level. I found it satisfying and expedient even when in turn based mode. Damage Threshold is also quite useful. I lumbered into several packs of wolves, and they weren't really able to harm me. I dumped Dexterity, and my combination of high INT, CON, and LUCK was a perfect compensation for it. Dialogue is very well supported, and the attribute/skill system is better implemented than face value suggests. I played as a min-maxed genteel halbradier, noble, aware, and intelligent. Talking my station to commoners was very effective, and I got ample use of the many dialogue options. Intimidate is extremely useful in this game, more so than Persuasion, which is a refreshing change.

Crafting seems like it will be very prominent and occupy the space normally held by magic. The crafting system seems intuitive and didn't annoy me, but I'll reserve my judgement on that as I am not a fan of crafting. Despite being low magic, healing potions exist, and it messes with the tone a bit. The color palette is a bit saturated and could use some subtlety, but is about my only real complaint. Overall, I'm satisfied with having backed. I think this could be a winner. I recommend you try the demo. I plays quickly and well. Do your part Codex.

Thanks man, glad you liked it! We'll improve on all those mechanics before we're through, glad something is already showing. Crafting and Medicine won't be useless, but whether they will be obligatory for any build - I will really try to avoid that. Some throwing potions will behave like fireballs of sorts, but they'll have setbacks once I'm done balancing.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Pregnant, pregnander.

 

[Rincewind]

Thanks! Yes, unless we balance them out perfectly, turn-based will be the leading one. My vision for RTwP and my main use for it even now (dev builds have RTwP enabled, though it's very underdeveloped and bugs everything) are situations when your cool party stumbles into a very weak group of enemies you may have missed when clearing the location out 10 levels ago. With the RTwP option you just switch to RTwP and watch your party destroy those critters in 2-4 seconds, instead of going through the whole proper turn-based battle just to get them. It saves time and helps the pacing. When \ if the AI learns to use techniques, heal and kite RTwP will become even more useful, but even now it's a nice skip of encounters you don't want to waste time on.

Excellent news, that's the answer I was hoping to hear. I like that auto-combat idea for RTwP to quickly clear out some leftover low level enemy mobs. This is what the auto option in the Gold Box SSI games is for, so I approve.

 

[luj1]

In my view this plays kind of like BG with SPECIAL

I like it more than ATOM. I didn't think ATOM was great.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Looks fun, thanks for the tip, Codex. Downloading demo now.

 

[gurugeorge]

My only reservation so far is the selectable turn-based or RTwP mode. I don't think you can design encounters and systems that satisfy both modes equally well, so necessarily one has to suffer. I hope that will be the RTwP option and the game will be meant to played in turn-based mode.

Thanks! Yes, unless we balance them out perfectly, turn-based will be the leading one. My vision for RTwP and my main use for it even now (dev builds have RTwP enabled, though it's very underdeveloped and bugs everything) are situations when your cool party stumbles into a very weak group of enemies you may have missed when clearing the location out 10 levels ago. With the RTwP option you just switch to RTwP and watch your party destroy those critters in 2-4 seconds, instead of going through the whole proper turn-based battle just to get them. It saves time and helps the pacing. When \ if the AI learns to use techniques, heal and kite RTwP will become even more useful, but even now it's a nice skip of encounters you don't want to waste time on.

Yeah I think switching to RTwP for trash mobs is the right idea, it's probably what most people instinctively do with the games that offer the choice.

The thing that goes really well with RTwP, IMHO, is extensive AI conditionals offered to the player (as in DA:O, Deadfire and only a very few other games). "Winding them up and watching them go" (making your characters have a particular set of brains, and hopefully therefore even behaving in combat in a way appropriate to their rp flavour) is a fun mini playstyle in itself. But I guess that would be low priority (unless it's something that can easily be done).

I'm piddling around with the demo and enjoying it, looks positive so far! Looks and feels right, overall. Good foundation, but of course I would want to see a ton more options in all areas from UI to combat to build system. "Tiny characters, lots of options" as someone characterized CRPGs

 

[Feyd Rautha]

So Mortmal runs this youtube channel called "Mortisimal gaming"?

 

[gurugeorge]

So Mortmal runs this youtube channel called "Mortisimal gaming"?

I think his name is Mortym or some shit like that.

 

[Late Bloomer]

A little Youtube shilling should help their kickstarter.

 

[MerchantKing]

Does this have any good merchant gameplay?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

No problem! Thanks for adding controller support to ATOM for Android for those of us that like handhelds!

Always wondered how do people play RPGs on tiny handheld screens like Steam Deck? (Besides control issue). Same thing with watching movies on mobile/handhelds.

they are zoomers and think smaller screen=better, more cutting edge. Pretty soon zoomers will be bragging about watching movies on thimble size screens. So small, so advanced or something.

 

[King Crispy]

Yeah, I read the title as "pregender" and started worrying that Atomboy had gone full woke.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Does this have any good merchant gameplay?

You can haggle every merchant to lower their prices. It also has a Fallout style trade where you balance the equation. You can even persuade them to take a bum deal, successfully. For example, if you're asking several gold in price over the value of what you're offering, a small dialogue box will pop-up saying, "You expect me to over-pay by X gold for this?". So far I always tell them yes, and they do it. Playing the demo as a haughty noble and speaking per your station is both fun and profitable.