Frayed Knights - Hits Beta!

Dhruin

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Frayed Knights: The Skull of S'makh-Daon has entered beta, according to a new update from Rampant Games:
It’s time for a long-overdue update on Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon:
We.
Are.
Beta.
Yes, that’s a new title screen. The previous one is somewhat more appropriate for game #2, so that’s where it’s going.
Now how about a really good question: What the heck does “Beta” mean?
First of all, it’s a game status thing. It means that at this point, there are no more big changes. There are no known game-crippling bugs. The game is fully playable from start to finish. All the features are working. There are still bugs, balance issues, a couple of places where we’re still using stand-in art, and room to fix things and change things. We’re down to only about 100 issues, and only half of them are serious (the others are “suggestions” or “nice to have if we can slip it in” changes). We’re down to the small things – small but important. And not always easy. Things like combat feats not always being available for unknown reasons. Or whether dual-wielding needs bigger penalties on attacks or damage to be balanced. Or renaming the “Balls!” spell to “Boot to the Head!” to match the visuals better (the boots come in a little high) and beefing it up a little more. Fixing some weapon visuals that don’t have their mount point quite right (as you can see in the pic to the right). Placing a few more hidden caches of goodies, and placing some last remaining magical gear as loot. Improving some of the spell visuals. Adding some missing sound effects. Making sure the story – and game – as a whole holds together.
And playing the game, start-to-finish. A Lot.
Head over for the full post, including news they have submitted the game to Indiecade.
More information.
 
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Woot! Looking forward to playing.
 
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Looking forward to having you play.

Part of the frustration at this stage is having it be SO CLOSE, yet not quite ready for prime time.
 
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Don't worry then, most released games aren't quite ready for Prime time or any other time for that matter!! :)
 
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Hey, cool. I must admit that even though I've had my eye on this game (even if in a casual way), I had no idea it was so close to being finished. Looking forward to it.

@RampantCoyote - now that systems etc are in place, does that mean any sequel is likely to have a quicker turn around? Assuming there will be one -- I mean, what is likely to be next?
 
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Congratulations @RampantCoyote - alpha didn't take all that long! Looking forward to playing the game!

@Shagnak: He split the game up into a trilogy, so first off there will be two more Frayed Knights episodes to look forward to. I assume finishing these parts will not take nearly as long as getting part 1 ready.
 
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Alpha was about three times longer than anticipated, so it felt like it took forever. However, it was probably far enough along to have called it beta a month or two ago. I just wasn't ready (especially with vacation coming up) to tackle all the other aspects of beta then.

@Shagnak - if not, I'm really screwed. I cannot spend 3+ years on each of the two sequels. So yeah, it won't be as quick as I would have liked, but I think I can turn around the sequels a lot faster. And they'll also have the advantages of hindsight.
 
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The graphics definitely look much improved over the demo I played many moons ago. Except for the shortcut letters(?) in the tool/compass on the bottom right. Maybe they should be integrated into the graphic?

Congratulations on your continuing success!
 
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Excellent news! I wasn't expecting FK Part 1 to be this close to release until much later this year (sorry, no offense). Gratz on hitting beta!

RampantCoyote said:
Or renaming the “Balls!” spell to “Boot to the Head!” to match the visuals better (the boots come in a little high) and beefing it up a little more.
No, no! I'd love it, if you kept the spell as is. (Can't you realign the boots lower?) That sounds hilarious. No tired old magic missiles or fireballs, have a magic boot to the family jewels!! :D
 
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If I want to release this year, I need the time for beta. It's still going to be a hard slog, though I'd hoped back in January that a miracle might happen and I might be able to release about now instead of just going beta. But I've had some great testing feedback and the game is in pretty good shape now.

It's not going to be perfect (what is?), but I think most folks around here will really get a kick out of it. While low-budget (and sadly, that will show), I do think it captures a good bit of what a lot of people remember fondly about older CRPGs, and it adds some new ideas to the mix. I'm really excited.
 
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If you need any more beta testers I'm currently available so PM me if you need any help.

EDIT: I created an account on your site under the same name.
 
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if your game was an MMO, beta would mean you barely made it past the 'Hello World!' part.
 
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We'll see how it goes with beta testers. When the current crop is providing us with bugs faster than we can fix 'em, there's not a whole lot of sense about adding more very quickly. But with each release, I'd like to add an extra tester or two if for no other reason than to get some "first-time player" feedback. But I'll put you on the list, guenthar!

Yeah, the whole "beta" definition thing is weird. Which is why I tried to answer what my vision (subject to change) of it is in today's world of digital distribution and regular updates. I'm still a little shaky on what it means today (back in the day, in the waterfall development model, it meant "integration testing." Hah! Anybody who's not integration testing from the get-go in modern development is making a lot of problems for themselves).

But it's at a "finished enough state" for full start-to-finish testing, though I fear I may already have another save-game change that may screw that up. It's a psychological milestone for us - which helps a lot, given the protracted development schedule (but hey, not as bad as Duke Nukem Forever or Grimoire!). And it's pretty much a signal to me that it's time to go into high gear on the marketing and business side of things - which I've been keeping minimal because it can consume all my time that should be spent working on the game if I let it.

I still haven't decided yet if I want to do a 'soft launch' for late beta... but a lot of folks have been requesting beta access on pre-orders, so it's pretty tempting. We'll see how the early beta goes over the next month.
 
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Just a suggestion, but TRY to ensure changes don't mess up save games as much as possible. Nothing frustrates players more than having to re-start a game every time there is a change or patch. On the marketing side, I'd suggest we schedule an interview at the very least and I'm open to any suggestions you may have to employ the resources here to assist. Perhaps a contest with the game as first prize. Let us know.
 
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Corwin I think he's talking about a savegame change for us beta testers not for the finished product. :) I really don't mind if I would have to restart before I finished it. Sorta goes with being a tester.

BTW, for anyone who is interested I have been playing the game and if you liked the pilot then you will love this. I won't go into any story details even though I'm dying to tell you about one that I literally was laughing out loud about. That doesn't really happen that often in the games I play anymore, but Jay has got a healthy imagination and great sense of humor.

The mechanics are great even for a beta. I expected a lot of things to be unfinished and while there are a lot, it is hardly as much as I expected. Heck, he even has most of the monster descriptions done in your journal. I really didn't expect that to be done till much much later.

The game is really stable too. I've been trying my darndest to crash this sucker by doing all kinds of weird things that the game wouldn't expect and not once has it crashed. Not even when I alt-tab out of it to write something down and I do that a lot. I've played AAA games that have been released to the public in worse shape than this beta. However, with that said there are still a lot of little things that need to be done.

All of you who played the pilot and enjoyed it well multiply that experience by a factor of ten and you'll have a better idea of how much fun this game is.
 
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All of you who played the pilot and enjoyed it well multiply that experience by a factor of ten and you'll have a better idea of how much fun this game is.

Good stuff. I could definitely see the potential in the pilot

@GhanBuriGhan & RampantCoyote - thanks for the info re: splitting it into three (I must have missed or forgotten that bit of news) and development times. It's nice to know that two more will be on their way. Assuming I like the first one of course ;)
 
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Thank you for putting me on the list and thank you for making the type of game that I love and haven't seen in years.

skavenhorde: I know what that is like (AAA games being really buggy) especially when you beta test a game and then the developer ignores all bug reports and then releases the game in a buggy state.
 
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I still haven't decided yet if I want to do a 'soft launch' for late beta… but a lot of folks have been requesting beta access on pre-orders, so it's pretty tempting. We'll see how the early beta goes over the next month.

Pre-orders? Is that available yet or are you speaking in the future-tense?
 
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Nope. Not sure it's gonna happen - it makes a little less sense with a story-driven single-player RPG than other games. But enough people are requesting it that I'm considering it an option. It's just tough because - effectively - it's has to be handled almost the same as as a regular launch, with customer support and all that good stuff.

And yeah, like Corwin said, I don't want to be changing the save-game format or anything after launch and after paying customers have the game. I can do it - just have some sort of import utility for older format saves - but everything gets a little more challenging to "fix" after launch, even for pre-order / beta access.
 
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