Fabled Lands News

A lesser known fact, even from fans of the books, is that you can get your very own castle in the Fabled Lands!

It's one of those moments I cherish and consider it as one of the small beauties of the series. Why? Well, your character starts as a nobody, washed up on the shore of an unknown land. You get your ass beaten at every corner in a foreign, hostile kingdom which you can explore freely. Caution is advised as would be in a real world scenario. And if you survive long enough, complete some quests and secure your flow of resurrection deals with the divine, you begin to amass your own fortune. There may be days when your actions will affect the kingdoms and their political intrigues. Or, you know, just live a simple life of fishing and gardening. It's up to you!

What better way to prepare against brigands, assassins and mercenaries than to have your own base where you can train knights and prepare your defences...



A certain wizard which you may or may not find is responsible for turning an old ruined castle into a magnificant fort that could soon draw a garirison of followers. Freeing that wizard involves beating one of the hardest combats in the game (unless you find a way around it as always!).

The chain of events leading to this moment I'll leave a secret for you to discover but it starts as a rumour in Sokara, leads you all the way through The Great Steppes and the land of the Uttakin!



What's so cool about having a castle? It becomes a central hub for you to rest, heal and rebuild. Where you have your own personal mage who can unlock one of the hardest quests in the game. Once news of the miracle spreads, various folk and men-at-arms would surely come from far and wide, and hearing the tales of your renown would pledge to serve you at your castle. Thus you'll be able to use the divine services of your own chapel or buy materials for your local blacksmith to forge weapons.

But having a wizard in your court would be rather dull if he couldn't help you in the arcane arts? Right? That's why, aside from removing curses and such, he can enchant you a weapon or an armour! Of course, there is the risk of destroying your item but who doesn't want that magic bonus? Another neat trick he teaches you is the Recall Spell which can save your skin in case of certain death.



Last but not least, having a new ruler appear all of a sudden near the borders of any kingdom 'smells trouble'. That's why you have to prepare your castle's defences if you are to withstand the pillaging of mercenaries.

That's one of the main differences between the books and the game. To improve your chances, you can reinforce the wall, the main gate, fortify the guard towers or enlarge your moat. You can also gather your knights for weapons practice and improve their fighting ability. Then you can rally your knights and men-at-arms to drive off any varlets who are trying to take the castle. But any battle is dangerous and could go south and it really depends how much you are inclined to invest in keeping what is yours.

Welp, that's it for this week, folks! See you around next time and do wishlist the game if you haven't yet! You don't want to miss the party ;)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299620/Fabled_Lands/

Another weekend and another update on how the development progresses! Currently in the game, the Skills & Spells dialogue is pretty much a placeholder I made back in the day when there were no spells in the game. It served its purpose but it was time to re-do it.

[h2]The Old Design[/h2]



First things first, it didn't convey much information besides some spells or skills that the character currently possesses. Why do you have a forget button? Can you learn more spells? If so, how much more? Those were some of the initial questions players had upon opening the spell 'book' that the tutorial arrow led them to.

Next, it didn't serve a good purpose for characters of higher rank either. By that time players would have figured out that you can have 7 slots for a total of 4 active spells and 3 passive spells. The only interaction with that window, however, would be if you want to learn a new spell after you have filled all of your slots. This required you to lose any knowledge of one of your already known spells or skills, and if you wanted to use it again, you had to reacquire the skill book and learn it from scratch.

The reason I made it like that back then, was forcing the players to spend currency for expensive skill books or skill scrolls at the later stages of the game in order to spend their piled up fortunes of Shards. How did that work, you say? Not as fun as planned.

The community suggested that it would be nice, especially for completionists, to be able to collect all the spells & skills in the game. You know, do the obvious and give players more freedoms rather than restrictions. Plus, what type of a 'book' UI is that anyway?

[h2]So, lights out, enter stage left... The New Deisgn.[/h2]



You can now learn and store all the spells in your spell book! IF you meet the requirements that is! You still have to safe keep and store your precious skill books until you find a way to increase your abilities and understand how to learn and use what's inside.

On the left-hand side are the ones you learn while on the right-hand side are the memorized ones which you can use in combat.

But once you learn it, it's there, even if you suffer a curse or a temporal loss of an ability.



With the new direction I believe it solves the two outlined issues above.

My aim was to convey to the players that they can find and learn more spells than what they have and how much extra space they can fill. Also, hint that a character can learn skills from other professions too!

And, aside from the neat looks, it gives the best option so far, experiment with different combos! You can quickly switch your memorized active and passive skills to try out different combinations instantly.

[h2]Exit stage left[/h2]

As I observe Snagglepuss leaving the scene, I feel more confident with the presented UI and improved UX. The next part of the spells rework I am planning to is:

1) Add at least one more active skill per profession and an additional passive which will take me to 32 skills in total. I think this is a good number of variations for the initial content on the mainland of Harkuna, preparing the players for the higher stakes across the oceans.

2) Rebalance the skill progression, give access to new skill books via quest rewards for profession specific quests, etc. For instance Slippery Oil is so much fun and I want to give access to it to players the sooner, the better! Essentially it means more options and choices during the tactical combat which is more fun in my book.

As always, do wishlist the game if you haven't yet!

See you next time.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299620/Fabled_Lands/

[h2]Happy 2022 from Prime Games, everybody! [/h2]

Wishing you loads of health and happiness in the new year. Hopefully, time for more gaming and hobbies!

I always make sure that I get enough time spent with family and friends, creative work, and hobbies and that forms the trifecta of my wellbeing. Especially hard in recent years, I know. I got Covid back in November, and unfortunately my wife and the baby got sick too. Three hard weeks later we recovered, and I even succeeded in patching the game mid-December. After that it felt as if I had to take some time off from being sick... I needed to recharge the batteries big time.



I personally dug deep into ‘hobby world’. I completed some of the gamebooks that were waiting patiently on my shelf. Still not enough though… I never seem to beat the ratio of obtained new stuff to finished/played things. I read some books too. Re-read several Sherlock mysteries including The Hound of Baskervilles and A Night in the Lonesome October by Zelazny. Managed to sneak in some comic books as well! Spiderman Blue that I received as a Christmas gift and You are Deadpool, the latter being an interactive gamebook-like comic! Even got my hands on a Nintendo Switch and enjoyed some quality Mario time.

Enough sentimental gibberish though! I am very glad to kick off this year with…



[h2]A Roadmap Update[/h2]

2022 is the Year (with capital Y) for Fabled Lands, folks! The release of the full game is nigh. Aiming for the first half of it as I don’t want to go beyond one year of Early Access. That's the plan at least.

[h2]Story[/h2]

The biggest area of the Harkuna continent (covered by book 5 in the series) is coming. At the Court of Hidden Faces, no one is who they seem. The sinister lords of the Uttakin go masked to hide their treachery. The secret police of the god Ebron kill those who flout their fanatical codes. In this tyrannical realm of betrayal and assassination, life is cheap. But rich rewards await the adventurer courageous enough to penetrate this hostile land.

Will you uncover the secrets of the High King’s citadel, where no mortal has trod for ten generations? Or wrest the holy sword from the crypt of Kizil Irmak, the Harbinger of War? Or find the key that unlocks the greatest secret of all – the means to open the gate of Time and travel back into the past?

Also… who doesn’t want to have their own castle? With knights, a smithy, temples, and their own magus? ;)

Of course, the new area comes with new enemies, new interesting items and quests.

[h2]Customization added to Character Creation[/h2]

A heavily requested feature from the community the artist and I are going to invest in. Character customization both visually (themes and colors) as well as starting abilities, items, and skills. Bring that special RPG feel from session 0!

[h2]Combat[/h2]

I want to continue my iterations on the combat system. Enhancing the enemy AI to utilize special skills and apply de-buffs such as stun or poison would be huge for adding both flavor and challenge to those mini boss-like combats. Especially for the uniqueness of the enemies in Uttaku. Anyone out there geared enough to handle a huge Toad Demon, eh?



But improving the overall usability of the Combat screen is also a priority. I still observe players who struggle initially with figuring out what the cost per every different action is. For example, adding Action Points calculations directly besides the pointer when hovering on things would help (toggle on/off from the options of course). Also, minor things such as highlighting the portrait of a unit in the turn order lane to easily figure out which enemy’s turn is next in the queue when facing multiple enemies of the same type.

[h2]Economy[/h2]

I want to improve on the existing marketplaces by adding trading goods in Golnir similar to how cargo works in harbors. Something like that was introduced exactly in book five with the Ice obtained from the Ice Mine in the north changing its market value as a direct consequence of your actions in the world.

Also, I still have on my list to create a dedicated UI for all Merchant Guilds instead of the choice book view it now has.

[h2]Rebalance[/h2]

I gather more and more insight from players over the course of the Early Access which helps immensely and gives me great ideas how to tackle some issues. I.e. I still need to focus on that starting area and the initial playing experience.

[h2]UI and Other Improvements[/h2]

Other things requested by the community include a Personal Notes dialogue, auto-succeed ability rolls that have 100% chance of success, more keyboard shortcuts, buying whole stacks of arrows, quick save/quick load.

Once I am done with the skill system, both active and passive, the Skills & Spells dialogue is to be reworked as well. Some expressed their desire for skill slots, so we’ll see!

Last but not least is the sugar and salt of any game, that is, more sound and visual effects.

[h2]But what do we say to our plans? Not today![/h2]

If something is not listed here it doesn't mean I am not going to work on it. There were specifics discussed in the forums or the Discord community that are quite interesting and possible. Some might appear early on; some might be worked on after the release. Nothing is final or concrete yet aside from my gratitude to all who choose to support the project, give feedback, or just enjoy fun hours with the game as is!

Thank you and don't forget to wishlist the game if you haven't! :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299620/Fabled_Lands/

[h2]Incremented version to 0.16.4[/h2]
---
[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Reworked how Critical Hits work.
  Critical Hit Chance is now the probability to land a successful hit (whatever the attack roll) that inflicts maximum weapon damage.
  
• Buffed Archery passive.
  Changed to +30% Critical Hit Chance (up from 20) for Bows and +2 Offence (up from 1) for Crossbows.
• Active Weapon choice is now only remembered while in Story mode to address the issue of forcing the player to constantly weapon switch after each combat.
  
• Fixed Genie loophole that can potentially max out all abilities. Adjusted as a one time reward.
  
• Fixed Crippling Strike not working properly which resulted in deducting damage from the hero instead of the enemies.
  
• Fixed Rod of Teleportation having 1 charge instead of 3 due to a bug introduced in patch 0.16.1
  

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Moved Objectives tracker on top of dialogue overlay to avoid confusion when it is clickable or not.
  
• Dialogues are now closed if already visible and their respective button or hotkey is hit.
  
• Fixed mini map animation getting clunky and out of bounds when spamming the Quests shortcut key.
  

[h3]Tutorial[/h3]

• Added Help button at the main bar for easy access of the Tutorial Log.
  
• Added new tutorial message for accessing the tutorial log.
  
• Added new tutorial message for the removal of Diseases and Curses.
  
• Updated 'Welcome' tutorial message.
  
• Fixed an occasion where multiple tutorial arrows can be visible at the same time.
  
• Fixed tutorial arrow for Inventory button appearing out of place on some resolutions (such as UHD).
  

[h2]Incremented version to 0.16.3[/h2]
---

• Crippling Strike: increased damage reduction from 1 to 2. Updated Numbing Traps to be applied on Dazed enemies.
  
• Skill books and Skill scrolls are now sold at different markets.
  
  All Scouting skill books are sold at the City of Trees.
  All Magic skill books are sold at the City of Mystery.
  All Combat skill books are sold at Castle Ravayne.
  All Thievery skill books are sold at Yarimura.
  All Sanctity skill books are sold at Marlock City.
  All Charisma skill books are sold at Metriciens.
  
  
• Nerfed Gathering treasure from the Tower of Despair to avoid gathering endless amounts of Shards in one go.
  
• Added missing support for Ctrl + Left Click on Mac OS X for Right clicks.
  
• Fixed Resilient companion bonus stacking up resulting in undefeatable Animal Companion.
  
• Fixed an issue when modifiers are not applied to stats (such as Damage) when value is greater than 12.
  
• Fixed White Sword having higher max damage than displayed.
  
• Fixed Sonic Boom calculating damage differently than what tooltip shows.
  
• Fixed Sonic Boom critical error when killing an enemy and attempting to set dazed status afterwards.
  
• Fixed Brawler passive skill applied multiple times.
  
• Fixed Defence calculation not taking under account curse and disease debuffs.