SKALD: Against the Black Priory News

[h2]Development[/h2]
All the following updates are featured in the new demo.

[h3]Inventory[/h3]
Inventory system has gotten a huge update where I converted it to the new UI system. It’s far from done but it’s still a huge update! It looks a bit noisy, but I promise it plays well and feels snappy and responsive.



I’m also going to do more tooltip stuff where you can hover over stats on the different character sheets for explanations etc but didn’t have time to do that as fully as I wanted for the demo so you’ll have to wait a bit to see that feature in action.

[h3]Crafting Confirmed![/h3]
Yup! I put crafting in the game! For now you can cook stuff and there are just four recipes. The system of course still needs polish as well but it’s technically sound and I love it.



I’m going to delve deeper into crafting and consumables in an upcoming devlog when I’m less sleep deprived. Stay posted!

[h3]Stealth[/h3]
Stealth was very wonky in the prologue. Who knows how it even worked! I’ve updated it now to a more active system, where you can choose to enter “Stealth Mode” Your model then goes transparent and your see a stealth meter. As you move around the meter drains. Having a high stealth skill, wearing light armor, sticking to shadows etc, all influences how fast your stealth meter drains.



All in all it works really well for all it’s simplicity and I’m pumped to see the hijinx it will lead to in the final game!

Last but not least... We’re going in 2023! The team has taken the decision to move the release date in order for us to realise the visions we have for the game. 2023 just became more epic!

Preface: I’ve been crunching for too long and I’m very ready to take a day off. Forgive the typos! XOXO

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Hang on to your helmets! This one’s going to be big!

Holy crap these are exciting times. First of all, I finally get to reveal the new key art for the game:



It just blows my mind how awesome this looks! Here’s the original:



Original is done by Tuandat Phan and pixel conversion is done by MementoMoree.

Hats off for the stunning work!

[h2]—News—[/h2]
[h3]New Demo![/h3]
Skald is participating in the Steam Nextfest starting Monday October 2nd! This means you get to play the brand new demo of the game! I can’t wait! You will be able to find the demo on the game’s Steam page come Monday!

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

Please note this is NOT the prologue page. In fact, as of next week, the prologue will be unavailable going forwards as we phase it out for the new and updated demo.



As for scope, the build you’ll play on Monday, is much shorter than the current prologue. It should take you about 20 minutes to finish and it recycles quite a bit of dialogue content.

However, as Nextfest progresses, we will be adding content to it so be sure to stay posted and follow our development as the demo grows.

[h2]Testing[/h2]
I just thought I’d give a short update on this as well! We’ve invited a small subset of the community to start testing builds and I fully intend to get keys distributed to all the other testers in the coming weeks. I’ve just been so swamped with demo development that it has had to wait.

However, if you backed the game at the Freeman level or up, your key IS coming!

[h2]Development[/h2]
All the following updates are featured in the new demo.

[h3]Inventory[/h3]
Inventory system has gotten a huge update where I converted it to the new UI system. It’s far from done but it’s still a huge update! It looks a bit noisy, but I promise it plays well and feels snappy and responsive.



I’m also going to do more tooltip stuff where you can hover over stats on the different character sheets for explanations etc but didn’t have time to do that as fully as I wanted for the demo so you’ll have to wait a bit to see that feature in action.

[h3]Crafting Confirmed![/h3]
Yup! I put crafting in the game! For now you can cook stuff and there are just four recipes. The system of course still needs polish as well but it’s technically sound and I love it.



I’m going to delve deeper into crafting and consumables in an upcoming devlog when I’m less sleep deprived. Stay posted!

[h3]Stealth[/h3]
Stealth was very wonky in the prologue. Who knows how it even worked! I’ve updated it now to a more active system, where you can choose to enter “Stealth Mode” Your model then goes transparent and your see a stealth meter. As you move around the meter drains. Having a high stealth skill, wearing light armor, sticking to shadows etc, all influences how fast your stealth meter drains.



All in all it works really well for all it’s simplicity and I’m pumped to see the hijinx it will lead to in the final game!

[h2]In Closing[/h2]
In short: Play the demo on Monday! Keep checking in as we add more content!



I’m exhausted now – this is me looking for a bottle of wine to knock me out!

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

Cheers,

AL

Hello there!

As I mentioned in one of my recent devlog updates, we’re now starting to ramp up community testing! We’re moving testing from Itch.io to Steam and this will be our primary platform for testing going forwards.

Note: This is not an open call for testers. At this point in time, test keys will only be sent to backers from the crowdfunding campaigns according to their backer tiers.

Note: The following build is for Windows only. I’m working to get the Mac build up to date and in any case, the following guide and key should apply to Mac once it’s available.

[h2]For this phase of testing we’re looking for the following: [/h2]

We need to make sure the game:

1. Starts
   
2. That the game fits the screen fully (see below)
   
3. Pixels look crisp (see below)
   
4. The game feels snappy and seems to run at about 60 fps.
   

The build is VERY short (takes 5 min to finish) and some features are mid development (Inventory and character sheet UI has not been reimplemented in the new GUI system for instance). I DO NOT WANT FEEDBACK on this yet.


Let me know if the game does not fill the screen like the image above. The actual game screen should not have black bars.


Pixels should look super crisp - no fuzz.

[h2]How do I Report Bugs?[/h2]
Use our Discord channel! Report bugs in any of the sub-channels that start with the “feedback” prefix!

You can also use the Steam forums.

You can also send bug reports from inside the game! Just mouse over the thing you wish to indicate and press F2! This takes a snapshot of the screen. You can add a short message as well and when you press Enter, this sends the screenshot and message directly to the Discord! Pressing Escape returns to the game.


[h2]So how do I activate my Steam key? [/h2]
The Steam key is formated “XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX” and for crowdfunding backers, it will be sent as a message through Kickstarter or IndieGOGO.

To activate the key, open your Steam client and just click the “Add a game” button in the lower left corner. Then, select “Activate a Product on Steam”:



Good luck and happy hunting!


AL

Greetings all!

It’s time for a new update already. I get to nerd out hard in this one, so let’s goooooo!



[h2]—News—[/h2]
TESTERS AWAKEN!
We’re getting pretty close to sending out a round of builds to our testers to get some more eyes on the upcoming demo!

WHEN: Within the next week!

WHAT: The builds we’ll be sending out will be VERY short (about 5 mins of gameplay). It’s critical that we get a first round of testing in to see how the project works on different setups. More info on what to look for will follow as the test builds get sent out.

WHERE: We are moving testing to Steam (from itch.io). This means you’ll need a Steam account to continue as a tester at this point.

WHO: Steam beta keys will be sent out to crowdfunding backers who serve as our primary testers. We’ll start by sending out keys to a small subset of testers to begin with just to see if this is a good workflow (sending out keys takes time and I don’t want to send out 500 keys before realizing something is wrong).

[h3]STEAM SUBSCRIBERS[/h3]
As I mentioned in my previous post, we have quite a few fans who are subscribing to our Prologue Steam page instead of the main game page. Our intention is to move all of our Steam activity to the main game page and we’ll only be publishing updates there from now on. We’ll still nudge the Prologue followers when we post stuff but be sure to make the swap if you’re following the Prologue instead of the main game.

The same goes for wishlisting: Be sure to wishlist the main game – NOT the Prologue!

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

[h2]—Development Update—[/h2]
As I’ve talked about before, a big emphasis for this period of development has been to add interactivity to the game world. Allowing players to interact with objects encourages exploration.

I needed a UI feature for interacting with objects that was different from the dialogue UI that I’ve used as a catch all so far. The solution was a pop-up box.



They are super easy to work with and flexible enough to offer anything from an interface for interacting with objects to adding more fourth-wall breaking stuff such as giving prompts (“Are you sure you want to attack this friendly NPC?”

I’ve also used them to help make skill-tests more transparent and interesting:



I personally think the dynamically animated dice are a cool touch. It adds a bit of a tactile feeling and ties the game closer to its tabletop roots. Here we see an early draft of interacting with locked doors:



And don’t worry: I’ll be super careful to not make this take too much space. It’s reserved for when you actively use your characters skills to interact with the world and the reason I like this system is that it makes it more explicit what your skills actually do in the game.

[h3]SAVE OR SUCK?[/h3]
In general, skill tests in RPGs can be tricky. I’ve written about the challenges before but in short the issue comes down to the fact that a lot of skill tests in RPGs are “save or suck” meaning the game penalizes the player so badly for failing tests that the player is incentivized to reload every time they fail a test. I’m very cognizant of this problem and I think the best way to solve it is to:

1. Avoid having save or suck tests be random. If a test is save or suck, then the test should be static (not based on a random dice roll).
   
2. When random rolls are used, failing should be as interesting as succeeding and the player should feel “going with the result” is as viable as save scumming.
   

Of course the problem cannot be fully avoided but I feel pretty confident that I can strike a balance the allows for the best from both worlds.

[h3]DICE MECHANICS[/h3]
Warning: We’re about to go down a pretty nerdy RPG-rabbithole here.

Observant readers will have noticed that the game seems to use 2d6 as a basis for the tests above. This is correct! I may tune this before launch but I feel like emulating tabletop dice mechanics has a few advantages to the old (more abstract system):

1. It is easier to explain the rules for the skill test mechanic: Roll over a difficulty number (typically around 10) with 2d6 + skill
   
2. It is easier for both me and players to assess what is an easy vs a hard test: A roll of 2d6 + 3 vs 7 is easy. A roll of 2d6 + 3 vs 15 is pretty hard.
   
3. It is self-explanatory how good you rolled on a test
   
4. It ties the game more closely to it’s tabletop roots and makes a tabletop conversion MUCH easier.
   
5. Dice-rolls can be visualized (as in the GIFs above).
   

2D6 is also an interesting base-dice (compared to, say, a D20) since it has a bell-shaped probability distribution. You are much more likely to get a result close to the average roll (7) versus very high or low rolls:



Numbers are the percentile chance of achieving a given result.
This makes play feel a bit more predictable. Superior skill will win the day more often and unexpected results are, well, more unexpected. This will make it easier to play around you character’s strengths and weaknesses whilst still retaining a potent element of chance and chaos.

We’ll see how it does. Nothing is written in stone.

[h2]—In Closing—[/h2]
Phew, that got real nerdy real fast. I hope it made sense! As always, I love interacting with the Skald community and please reach out to me on one of the sites below if you have questions or comments!

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

Cheers,



AL

Hello everyone!

Time for a summer update! Hope you’re all well and enjoying your summer. Here is a GIF of a procedural fountain effect to cool you off in the summer heat.

Cat gives zero f–ks about the wonder that is Imperial plumbing!


[h2]—News—[/h2]

[h3]THE DEMO[/h3]
As you know, we’re working on an updated demo for testing and promotional purposes. We were originally planning to enter it in an event in late June. However we elected to go for a different venue and now we’re aiming for late September. HOWEVER, the community will be getting builds in late August for testing so stay posted for more info!

[h3]YOUR STEAM ACCOUNT REQUIRES ACTION[/h3]
Maybe. As you know we have two Steam pages: One for the main application and one for the prologue. As we move towards the new demo and eventually launch, the prologue page will have outlived its purpose. But the thing is, a lot of you guys have subscribed to, or even wishlisted (!) the prologue!

If this is you, I’d love to see you subscribe to, and wishlist the main application instead.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160/
[h3]SOME COOL VIDEO CONTENT[/h3]
I just did a roundtable with a bunch of fellow indie RPG developers! I’m sure you can recognize some faces and names below. We had a great talk about the art and craft of making indie RPGs and I can’t wait to bring you the vid! We’re going to edit it a bit and then I’ll be sure to let you know the moment it goes live.



[h2]—Development Update—[/h2]
Currently development is all about making content, evaluating the workflow and then updating the tools and engine to become faster and safer. This is the only way we can keep the code and data manageable as the project grows.

[h3]PROPS[/h3]
Props are the most important piece of the puzzle right now. They represent all interactable objects in the world that are not characters or inventory items. A huge priority has been to make the game world a lot more interactive by adding lots of interesting objects for the player to interact with (hidden secrets, loot, workbenches, lore-heavy decorations etc),

Now your character is constantly using their perception skill to try and spot hidden doors etc but also containers that may contain minor loot and fun secrets. I loved how “Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous” had a lot of hidden loot laying around, really incentivising you to put points in the “perception” skill and explore the environs.

Nothing says “hero” like rummaging through random trash!

Doors and chests can now be locked and you have to decide between looking for a key or picking or forcing the lock. Be careful however, props can be trapped

Thought you’d pilfer a bit, ehh? Have at thee ye blackguard!

All of the above might sound like stuff that has always been in the game though? Yes and no. The change is that this stuff was always possible (more or less) but it needed to be scripted on a case by case basis. Now it’s all been streamlined and standardized so that creating a trapped chest is as easy as two clicks on a dropdown menu.

[h3]EDITOR UPDATES[/h3]
On the same note as above, a lot has also happened on the editor side. I’m putting a lot of effort into limiting manual data entry and instead focusing on creating objects for all kinds of data that is then linked together. This makes the data a LOT more error proof and also a lot faster to work with as so much data can now be reused.

A good example of this are “loadOut” and “appearancePack” objects. It used to be that I had to manually enter each item that I wanted to add to a character or a container. This a surprising amount of work if you want to carefully place items by hand as there are thousands and thousands of items in a game like Skald (and a big reason why the old demo had so much randomized container content). Same goes for character appearances: I had to manually pick primary, secondary, hair and skin color as well as hair styles and animations for each character and the work adds up quickly.

Now I instead create loadOuts and appearancePacks which are collections of data that can be referenced by several other types of objects. I can create a “Fighter loadout” and add in, say, a leather armor, a long sword and a shield. I can then assign it to the fighter class meaning that the items will be given to all characters with that class. I can also add that loadout to a container if I want to let players find that collection of items somewhere or even set it as a reward for a quest.



The same goes for appearances! I can assign appearancePacks to characters directly but also add them to objects like factions. That way, each character from the same faction can have the same colored livery etc. The cool part is that appearance packs can also be assigned to props so that props in certain areas can dynamically change color to reflect factions and so forth.



This will go a long way towards letting me customize the look of areas without having to create separate art assets to reflect different color schemes. And again: Doing so, is as easy as selection an appearancePack from a drop-down menu.

I’ve also done a HUGE job of creating meta data for all the game data. This means the editor now knows stuff like allowed ranges for numeric data, what objects can be linked to which, it can add tooltips and even to some auto-completing. This was a pretty huge job (I had to write a separate program to automate a bunch of the coding to get it done) but once again: It will make the game data sooooo much easier to work with and debug.

[h2]—In Closing—[/h2]
There is a lot more that has happened but I’m already running long so I think I’ll round it off there! I’m actually taking more or less a week off starting tomorrow so huzzah I guess. I’m also a little less active on social media in the summer since I try to limit non-essential screen time so expect me to be a bit slower in responding to messages etc.

Have a wonderful summer and try to spend some time outside!

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

Cheers,

AL