KickStarter Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - first-person open world RPG adaptation of Kickstarted board game

[d1r]

Based on small conversation I've had with one of the devs a 2-3 weeks ago, although they are happy with sales ('quite' happy to be precise), they are going to give a long run treatment to the game to make it profitable. Keep in mind a couple of discounts in the last 2 years, including one -50% price, and that with polish taxes + steam cut + unity cost you have less than half left in the pocket. More like 35-40% net of a single purchase.
I think they have covered all costs of development by now with some modest surplus. But definitely not enough to fund the next game or keep that studio alive for the next 2 years. That's why they need to milk TG:FoA for the next 1-2 years and rely on sales from boardgames/miniatures to fund next projects.

Could they add some tits to the game? Would help me with the decision to buy it or not.

 

[Readher]

Based on small conversation I've had with one of the devs a 2-3 weeks ago, although they are happy with sales ('quite' happy to be precise), they are going to give a long run treatment to the game to make it profitable. Keep in mind a couple of discounts in the last 2 years, including one -50% price, and that with polish taxes + steam cut + unity cost you have less than half left in the pocket. More like 35-40% net of a single purchase.
I think they have covered all costs of development by now with some modest surplus. But definitely not enough to fund the next game or keep that studio alive for the next 2 years. That's why they need to milk TG:FoA for the next 1-2 years and rely on sales from boardgames/miniatures to fund next projects.

Could they add some tits to the game? Would help me with the decision to buy it or not.

The stuck-up noble lady you can romance has a plunging neckline with quite massive tits, for what it's worth.

 

[Fedora Master]

The body models are all rather questionable.

Are there no real vendors in Act 3?

 

[Angelo85]

For Board Game companies those million kickstarters you see can be deceiving. Overhead (shipping and tariffs especially) can be a huge and unexpected events like that freighter getting stuck or Trump going crazy can have disastrous consequences. Best example is CMON (Cool Mini or Not) they regularly did Kickstarters for millions of Dollars but are in dire straits right now. Just a couple days ago they had to sell off their #1 cash cow Zombicide to Asmodee.

 

[cvv]

For Board Game companies those million kickstarters you see can be deceiving. Overhead (shipping and tariffs especially) can be a huge and unexpected events like that freighter getting stuck or Trump going crazy can have disastrous consequences. Best example is CMON (Cool Mini or Not) they regularly did Kickstarters for millions of Dollars but are in dire straits right now. Just a couple days ago they had to sell off their #1 cash cow Zombicide to Asmodee.

Shipping is a non-issue, it's paid by customers. Tariffs are indeed a problem, as was Covid and p. much everything that can disrupt Chinese imports.

As for CMON, not sure about this specific cases but many American entertainment companies are in dire straits rn, mainly due to DEI and resulting skyrocketing costs and plummeting morale and quality. FFG is another example, they used to put out one banger after another and today their once legendary creativity has shrunk to a new Arkham Horror card packet every few months.

 

[Angelo85]

For Board Game companies those million kickstarters you see can be deceiving. Overhead (shipping and tariffs especially) can be a huge and unexpected events like that freighter getting stuck or Trump going crazy can have disastrous consequences. Best example is CMON (Cool Mini or Not) they regularly did Kickstarters for millions of Dollars but are in dire straits right now. Just a couple days ago they had to sell off their #1 cash cow Zombicide to Asmodee.

Shipping is a non-issue, it's paid by customers. Tariffs are indeed a problem, as was Covid and p. much everything that can disrupt Chinese imports.

I beg to differ in regards to shipping. For example when you pre-charge to backers and get hit by increased shipping costs caused by the Ever Green blockage of the Suez Canal, not every company could easily put that extra cost of re-routing on longer shipping lanes on the customers (or if they customers rightfully declined to pay extra and their whole order got cancelled).

For example Matt Colville of MCDM talked about loosing 300.000 Dollars linked to this incident when they fulfilled the Kickstarter for Kingdoms & Warfare. I don't have the link to his specific video handy where he discussed this but instead of leaving you with a "trust me bro", I asked ChatGPT to summarize (hey, better than nothing :D):

Matt Colville, the creator behind MCDM Productions, has frequently discussed the challenges of international shipping, particularly during the period known as the "shipping apocalypse." This term refers to the significant disruptions in global logistics that began around 2020, leading to skyrocketing shipping costs and delays.reddit.com+4reddit.com+4reddit.com+4

In a Reddit thread from September 2022, Colville revealed that MCDM was absorbing approximately $300,000 in additional shipping expenses for their Kingdoms & Warfare Kickstarter campaign due to unforeseen cost increases . He emphasized that these challenges were not unique to MCDM but were industry-wide, affecting all carriers and fulfillment solutions.sageadvice.eu+4reddit.com+4reddit.com+4reddit.com

To mitigate future issues, MCDM has adjusted its shipping strategy. For instance, with the release of Where Evil Lives, they opted to charge shipping separately at checkout rather than including it in the product price. This approach aims to provide more accurate shipping costs and avoid absorbing unexpected expenses.reddit.com+1reddit.com+1

Colville has also highlighted the complexities of international shipping, noting that services like Pirate Ship, which offer discounted rates, are not feasible for large-scale international fulfillment. He pointed out that even with such services, the logistics of shipping thousands of international orders remain prohibitively expensive .reddit.com+1

 

[xuerebx]

But I am! I just need to translate polski to English.

Awaken Realms for 2023: https://www.mediafire.com/file/fewc6rjvlhdxn0l/informacja_dodatkowa_RD_2023.docx/file

Questline has literally nothing for some reason. Apparently you need to have an income higher than 2 mln Euros to need to file reports, so maybe that? 2025 might be the first fiscal year they actually have to file one for if that's the case.

I tried to translate some specific parts but the language is too different from the romance languages for me to infer anything useful. I know that Gamefound's equity is 10.75m PLN, and Realms Distribution owns 18.64% of it (I think), but not sure how it ties in to Questline.

There being a minimum income threshold to file a report is common in the EU though so I get it. Also if it only started selling units this year in prior years it is expected that there is no or minimal income, although I would also expect there to be no expenses (instead capitalised to an intangible asset on the balance sheet) other than overheads and other costs no directly attributable to the development of the game.

 

[Fedora Master]

Finished.
It does hold up for the most part. Certainly for a Unity game it is very stable and runs well.

With the 1.03 patch I didn't think the last act falls apart. it's just rushed, not "bricks your progress" levels of Owlcat last acts.

This needs polishing and maybe a DLC worth of content to be really good.

Also the setting itself needs a bit of aesthetic balance, it veers into Saturday Morning Cartoon territory.

 

[Tyranicon]

Looking forward to playing this in six months

 

[Readher]

 

[Vasya]

I played it up until the first town, and it already feels like playing anything other than melee breaks the game. The AI can’t properly pressure you when you’re kiting. The first two spells you get include a percentage-based DoT and an infinitely stacking DoT, which makes it easy to cheese higher-level fights.
Does this change later in the game?

 

[Orange Clock]

I played it up until the first town, and it already feels like playing anything other than melee breaks the game. The AI can’t properly pressure you when you’re kiting. The first two spells you get include a percentage-based DoT and an infinitely stacking DoT, which makes it easy to cheese higher-level fights.
Does this change later in the game?

Yes, it gets easier

 

[cvv]

I played it up until the first town, and it already feels like playing anything other than melee breaks the game. The AI can’t properly pressure you when you’re kiting. The first two spells you get include a percentage-based DoT and an infinitely stacking DoT, which makes it easy to cheese higher-level fights.
Does this change later in the game?

Yes, it gets easier

Yeah a mage build gets OP in the first map, as soon as you find the fireball or lightning. Then you just walk all over the game.

Except that fucking spectral knight. I didn't kill that asshole even at the very end when my OPness was disgusting. His magic resist is stupid. (Only talking about the one that stalks you during the night, his clones in the final dungeon got blasted just fine).

 

[Mauman]

I played it up until the first town, and it already feels like playing anything other than melee breaks the game. The AI can’t properly pressure you when you’re kiting. The first two spells you get include a percentage-based DoT and an infinitely stacking DoT, which makes it easy to cheese higher-level fights.
Does this change later in the game?

Yes, it gets easier

Yeah a mage build gets OP in the first map, as soon as you find the fireball or lightning. Then you just walk all over the game.

Except that fucking spectral knight. I didn't kill that asshole even at the very end when my OPness was disgusting. His magic resist is stupid. (Only talking about the one that stalks you during the night, his clones in the final dungeon got blasted just fine).

He only attacks you when you get close. Otherwise he just slowly walks towards you. So just blast him with fireballs and chug mana potions from a distance till he keels over (blood ring helps). It's that simple. Alternatively, use one of those "instant kill on sneak attack" items you're probably hoarding for no good reason and one shot him the second he shows up

ANYWAYS....

I like T-pose glitches

Spoiler

And I sketched another one for the hell of it.

Spoiler

 

[cvv]

I played it up until the first town, and it already feels like playing anything other than melee breaks the game. The AI can’t properly pressure you when you’re kiting. The first two spells you get include a percentage-based DoT and an infinitely stacking DoT, which makes it easy to cheese higher-level fights.
Does this change later in the game?

Yes, it gets easier

Yeah a mage build gets OP in the first map, as soon as you find the fireball or lightning. Then you just walk all over the game.

Except that fucking spectral knight. I didn't kill that asshole even at the very end when my OPness was disgusting. His magic resist is stupid. (Only talking about the one that stalks you during the night, his clones in the final dungeon got blasted just fine).

He only attacks you when you get close. Otherwise he just slowly walks towards you. So just blast him with fireballs and chug mana potions from a distance till he keels over (blood ring helps). It's that simple. Alternatively, use one of those "instant kill on sneak attack" items you're probably hoarding for no good reason and one shot him the second he shows up

Tried blasting him with the big fireball, motherfucker dodges them like fucking Neo. He did get hit now and then but it was a very slow and annoying process, plus his teleport-and-hit move is very hard to avoid. Also he doesn't drop anything amazing so fuck him, life is too short for that shit.

 

[Mauman]

I played it up until the first town, and it already feels like playing anything other than melee breaks the game. The AI can’t properly pressure you when you’re kiting. The first two spells you get include a percentage-based DoT and an infinitely stacking DoT, which makes it easy to cheese higher-level fights.
Does this change later in the game?

Yes, it gets easier

Yeah a mage build gets OP in the first map, as soon as you find the fireball or lightning. Then you just walk all over the game.

Except that fucking spectral knight. I didn't kill that asshole even at the very end when my OPness was disgusting. His magic resist is stupid. (Only talking about the one that stalks you during the night, his clones in the final dungeon got blasted just fine).

He only attacks you when you get close. Otherwise he just slowly walks towards you. So just blast him with fireballs and chug mana potions from a distance till he keels over (blood ring helps). It's that simple. Alternatively, use one of those "instant kill on sneak attack" items you're probably hoarding for no good reason and one shot him the second he shows up

Tried blasting him with the big fireball, motherfucker dodges them like fucking Neo. He did get hit now and then but it was a very slow and annoying process, plus his teleport-and-hit move is very hard to avoid. Also he doesn't drop anything amazing so fuck him, life is too short for that shit.

Weird, for me he literally just slowly walks torward me unless I move up close to him. So with a long range spell I can just back up and blast him. Wonder why he acts differently for you.

 

[Orange Clock]

^For me he usually runs away and disappears as soon as I reduce 20-30% of his HP

 

[Sibelius]

I played it up until the first town, and it already feels like playing anything other than melee breaks the game. The AI can’t properly pressure you when you’re kiting. The first two spells you get include a percentage-based DoT and an infinitely stacking DoT, which makes it easy to cheese higher-level fights.
Does this change later in the game?

Yes, it gets easier

Yeah a mage build gets OP in the first map, as soon as you find the fireball or lightning. Then you just walk all over the game.

Except that fucking spectral knight. I didn't kill that asshole even at the very end when my OPness was disgusting. His magic resist is stupid. (Only talking about the one that stalks you during the night, his clones in the final dungeon got blasted just fine).

He only attacks you when you get close. Otherwise he just slowly walks towards you. So just blast him with fireballs and chug mana potions from a distance till he keels over (blood ring helps). It's that simple. Alternatively, use one of those "instant kill on sneak attack" items you're probably hoarding for no good reason and one shot him the second he shows up

ANYWAYS....

I like T-pose glitches

Spoiler

And I sketched another one for the hell of it.

Spoiler

There is a quest that takes the piss out of T-Poses as well. A guy is cused and stuck in a T-Pose and you need to find a way to lift the curse, pretty funny.

 

[processdaemon]

^For me he usually runs away and disappears as soon as I reduce 20-30% of his HP

I could only consistently get him to stop running away by getting a bunch of summons to attack him around the time he'd usually run until the end of the fight, I suppose it might feel cheap if you were dedicated to going solo but it's too frustrating to whittle down that health pool repeatedly only to miss out on the rewards most of the time.

 

[cvv]

^For me he usually runs away and disappears as soon as I reduce 20-30% of his HP

Yes, that happened once or twice too.

 

[Cryomancer]

Is act 3 playable? I want to know before I resume my run.

 

[cvv]

Is act 3 playable? I want to know before I resume my run.

For some reason my game started crashing a lot as soon as I got to the 3rd map. No other bugs or glitches or performance problems, just very frequent crashes, like twice an hour. Extremely annoying. I'd probably wait a bit. I think they're planning a massive patch aimed mainly at Act3 problems, apparently should be out by the end of the summer.

 

[GloomFrost]

Is act 3 playable? I want to know before I resume my run.

Its playable alright its just very dull and empty compared to the first two acts. Quests, dungeons, characters, monsters, environment, reactivity, everything is significantly worse. Personally I am waiting till August content patch before doing the second playthrough.

 

[Mauman]

The side quests in this game are something else.

Spoiler

Found a random talking hanging corpse that wants me to kill some kind of druidic spirit that rises from the grave that shags dryads in front of him every night

wat.

There is a quest that takes the piss out of T-Poses as well. A guy is cused and stuck in a T-Pose and you need to find a way to lift the curse, pretty funny.

In this particular case the bug is coming from freezing them. Still amusing.

edit - and then I met Red Hat. I love this game.

 

[Nikanuur]

To those who own and like the game, would you be so kind as to give the OP of the following thread a small award, or at least write that you agree?
We're trying to further the cause of cancelling the forced hand-holding in this game. That is, an option to turn off/on the quest markers visible in the main view whenever you get closer.
Not a terribly big deal, but one that's important to me.
So, if you can find it in your heart and help out a fellow codexer it'd be appreciated.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1466060/discussions/2/6273018183373380342/