SKALD: Against the Black Priory News

Ho ho ho!

That special time of year is descending upon us and uncle Andy’s coming in hot with red cheeks and smelling vaguely of Christmas schnaps. He’s also bringing gifts!

[h3]DEMO UPDATE[/h3]
By the time you’re reading this, we should have updated the demo online. This is a pretty chonky update that more then doubles the amount of content. It includes a bunch of never before seen areas and narrative content as well as a new recruitable NPC.



It also adds in a lot of new features, like the option to build your own character. We only have a handful of the classes, feats, portraits and backgrounds available yet but this still adds a lot of variety so go nuts!



Needless to say, we’ll be adding a ton more of everything in the final product so no need to worry.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160

[h3]THE QUEST FOR THE SANTA FURY[/h3]


Adventurers and treasure hunters have been searching for her ever since. None have succeeded. Lately however, a rumor has begun to spread in dockside taverns and brothels:

The Santa Fury has been located. The rush to recover her is on. Will you partake?
[hr][/hr]
Yes we hid an entire ship in the latest demo and you get to go on a real treasure hunt FOR REAL TREASURE!

[h3]How to enter[/h3]

• Download the demo and start playing. You’ll soon enough find someone who’ll tell you the legend of the Santa Fury and you’ll be off!
  
• Once you find the treasure and see the phrase “amorphous shape of eyes, mouths and tentacles” take a screenshot.
  
• Amble over to the Skald Discord and DM the screenshot to our lovely community person, Fiona (Discord name “Feeona#0001″) . Do NOT post the screenshot in one of the public channels.
  
• Contest is open until January 9th and once it closes we’ll draw five winners who’ll receive a free key to a game of their choice from the Raw Fury catalogue!
  

[h3]HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL[/h3]
I’ll be lurking a bit and seeing how the contest is going but I’ll also try to take a few days off. In other words, I’ll see you all on the other side of the year in what will surely be the year of Skald!

I’m so grateful to have been given the opportunity to pursue my passion and I hope this is a project that will bring joy into people’s lives for years to come. Be kind to each other and please be mindful of those who find the holidays difficult. A kind word or gesture might go a long way.

What remains is to wish you all a very happy holidays and good luck on the hunt for the Santa Fury.

Love you all,

AL

Greetings all! It’s update time!

I try to get one update out per month and this one was slated for November but the weeks are just flying by. You’ll have to forgive me and rest assured the time not spent writing this was well spent elsewhere!

Human models are now slightly taller. I love the more natural proportions.

If you’re reading this and somehow don’t know what the game is about yet, check out the Steam page and demo before reading on: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160
[h2]News[/h2]

[h3]Rawcember DEMO[/h3]
We’re doing a major update to the demo around the 20th of December as part of Raw Fury’s Rawcember promotions.

This means a bunch of new demo content including a character creator, a new recruitable NPC, several new map areas and… *drum roll*… a special Rawcember contest:

[h3]The Hunt for The Santa Fury[/h3]

Uncover cryptic clues and mysterious leads as you embark on a quest for the mysterious missing vessel the “Santa Fury”.



If you uncover the secret at the end of the puzzle, you are eligible to enter into the Skald Rawcember lottery and compete for three Steam gift cards!

We’ll be dropping another devlog update when the demo goes live and you’ll find all the details in there!

[h2]Development[/h2]
In preparation for the upcoming Rawcember demo I’ve been doing a lot of work on the character creator. It was noticeably absent in the latest demo builds but it’s coming home for Christmas.

Even though only a few of the character options (classes and backgrounds) are playable at the moment, we’ll be showing them off in the demo to at least give you an impression of what we’re aiming for in the final game!



Classes in Skald are each tied to one of five archetypes which, in turn, are tied to on of the five primary attributes. Behind the curtain, each archetype conforms somewhat to the classic tank / DPS / support trinity



Note that the archetype role is a rough guideline. The different classes may vary greatly in how they actually play. I’ll say more about the individual classes as we go so stay posted for this in the upcoming devlogs.



Backgrounds are much lighter than classes and help flesh out the character in the context of the world. They will add bonuses to skills and may affect starting condition (such as starting gold and equipment). I also intend to use these to provide world interactivity as certain NPCs may react to your background in dialogue etc.

Say what you want about the UI but if it doesn’t give you a retro vibe, I don’t know what does!

As for attributes you’ll of course be able to edit these as well in the character creator. I’m doing my best to keep the rules as transparent as possible and visualizing the interrelationship between the attributes helps a bit. Note how updating a primary attribute causes the rest of the sheet to update etc.

Some players might be a bit off-put by the wall of numbers but we’ll try to add options for them as well (maybe an “auto complete” function?).

In general however, I think RPG fans enjoy a bit of rules crunch and I intend to deliver that.

Customize your characters appearance or let fate decide! Note the the portraits are place-holders!

Finally, here is a peek at the character editor. Nothing revolutionary here but I am proud of how modular the character models are. You can pretty much edit any aspect of them and this carries over to any outfit you might equip etc. It’s a small thing, but I think customization is a pretty big deal to a lot of players.

[h2]—In Closing—[/h2]
Be sure to check out the updated demo as it drops December 20th! I’m excited to see it any of you manage to learn the fate of the Santa Fury!

[hr][/hr]
To stay posted, be sure to follow the Skald Twitter and Discord and wishlist on Steam if you haven’t already!

Cheers,

AL

Hey everyone and happy spooky season! I for one love this time of year and I couldn’t help myself from sharing some love with the Skald community!

[h2]—News—[/h2]
[h3]Halloween Update for Demo[/h3]
There’s now a new area to the demo for you to explore. It even has a creepy little Halloween-encounter in it! And I promise: It’s still very much Skald-themed.



[h3]Download and play the new Halloween-demo here:[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160

We’ll be expanding this area quite a bit further in the time to come as we try out and test “new” features (more on this below) so keep checking in.

[h3]Mac demo is finally live on Steam[/h3]
This is criminally overdue, but it’s finally here: The Skald Mac demo! To all my awesome Mac fans, I’m so sorry for the wait and hope this makes it up to you!



Once again, check out the demo here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160

[h2]—Development—[/h2]
[h3]Some “New” Features[/h3]
The new area that we’ve added to the demo will be used as a little sandbox for us to add in all the secondary mechanics that need to be (re)implemented. For now we’ve added in trading and leveling up, and next on the list is the character builder and camping mechanics.

[h3]New Biomes[/h3]
Quite a bit of dev-time the last few weeks have gone into redrawing tilesets for some of the biomes that feature in the new demo content.

Caves are a staple of any self-respecting CRPG:


… and this part of the game features a lot of costal areas so costal cliffs and shore lines are a must as well:


I’ve done some work on making the submersion into water look all nice like but the GIF above has too low FPS to do it justice. You’ll just have to see it yourself in the demo.

[h3]Next Weeks[/h3]
We’re spending the next three weeks fixing bugs and reacting to feedback as well as increasing the size of the current build to be as big (or bigger) than the prologue.

Some of this might be featured in the demo (though we might keep it shorter than the old prologue) and all of the content will of course be available to testers.

Still waiting for your tester’s key? It’s coming once I get Halloween out of the way.

[h2]—In Closing—[/h2]
Keep playing the game and as always feel free to reach out to me at any time. Note however: The last weeks have been insanely busy and I’m behind on all my social media. I 100% indend to catch up though so please just be patient with me.

To stay posted, be sure to follow the Skald Twitter and Discord and wishlist on Steam if you haven’t already!

Love you all,

AL

SKALD: Against the Black Priory is a retro-style RPG set in a grim-dark fantasy world of tragic heroes, violent deaths, and Lovecraftian horror. The short trailer highlights gameplay, and reveals brand new key art – check out the game's updated demo featuring improved visuals and UI today!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Are you hungry for more? Yes? Seeing that your eyes have now awoken to the horror that awaits pleases us.

Now go, play the demo today! Oh, but do try not to trip over any rogue pumpkins; they seem to be everywhere these days...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160

Want to keep updated on the game? Of course, you are always welcome back here, but why not check out our other channels?
Discord: https://discord.gg/6wrFFdW Twitter: https://twitter.com/SkaldRpg Web: https://www.skaldrpg.com/

[h3]Welcome to (the soon to be spooky) SKALD: Against the Black Priory![/h3]



We invite you all to explore our world during the Steam Scream Fest. The world is already dark and foreboding, so if you continue to join us throughout the week, you'll see some spooky shenanigans.

So take a deep breath, try not to trip over the new pumpkin fields and watch for black cats crossing your path.