Knights of the Chalice - Steam Release

Knights of the Chalice is now available on Steam:

Knights of the Chalice

Knights of the Chalice is a 2D RPG with turn-based combat for Windows. The game uses the OGL 3.5, the set of rules at the root of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, a role-playing game from Wizards of the Coast. Create a party of four adventurers, explore the Crimson Coast of Mindrel and fight valiantly against the evil Council of the Slaver Lords, domineering Giants, fiendish Demons and scheming Dragons.

• Turn-based, party-based tactical combat similar to that found in the old Dark Sun Shattered Lands game made by SSI and in Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil.
• User-friendly interface. Launch a charge, full-attack or coup-de-grace with a single click - the computer will automatically look for the best option available.
• Well-developed artificial intelligence. Enemies act as a group and use special actions like Grapple or Charge and tactics like taking a five-foot step before casting Maximised Fireball.
• Omnipresent help files and clear in-game feedback (a feature also found in Temple of Elemental Evil) on the results of each dice roll, saving throw, attack roll, modifiers, etc.
• 175 magic spells, most of which were taken from, or inspired by, Wizard of the Coast's open game content. The list of spells is available from the developer's website.
• Craft your own weapons and apply enchantments like Wounding, Speed, Flaming Burst and Keen. The lists of weapon enchantments and feats are in the developer's website.
• Multiple-choice dialogue allowing you to resolve situations in unexpected ways.
• A large campaign largely inspired by the classic Dungeons & Dragons modules Scourge of the Slave Lords and Against the Giants.
• Enjoy collecting 100 Steam achievements designed to challenge the best tacticians.

Free Demo/Tutorial: this is a unique adventure.

A haunted forest. Strange ruins. The villagers call this place "Devil's Lair". The ruins may be dead, so they say, but the sinister, malevolent creatures that lurk underneath most certainly are not.

Tightening your packs, you reflect upon this. The devil's lair, Hah! How could any self-respecting adventurer shy away from the golden opportunity? In this short adventure, the player characters are pre-created and start at level 3.

For more information, please visit the developer's website. Thank you for reading!

More information.

I tried the demo and couldnt' figure out hte interface (more specifically which hot keys i can use to do things without constant clicking). Maybe it is there and maybe they don't exist - but in the above blurb the author has:
--
User-friendly interface. Launch a charge, full-attack or coup-de-grace with a single click - the computer will automatically look for the best option available
--
I would not call this a user-friendly interface with the lack of hotkeys - i would call it extremely annoying tedious interface - but that is just me - it is fine to learning the basic of a game but i would not want to play the entire game this way.

This game is fantastic!!! I brought it from his site years ago. Probably the best D&D retro-style game in this genre! Reminded me of the glorious days of SSI Gold Box adventures. I have an A5 pen tablet and its of course super sensitive and I love in the dungeons how I can make the party follow my "mouse cursor" in a beautifully harmonious fashion: simply letting the pen fall onto the tablet, which equals constant mouse-button press and as I effortlessly move the pen around ==> the party follows my pen movements in a wonderful harmony. I love it!!!

You will need to invest some time in learning how the keys work and function, and all of that time and effort will pay off in huge dividends when you realize what a fantastic game this is. No other game has ever come this close to recently capturing the awe and depth that the gold box games did for me in the eighties.

Played and finished KOTC back in 2011. An absolutely excellent game in its tactical possibilities. I just downloaded the latest update and might play it again.

Maybe it's a good candidate for an Indie Showcase, for all those people who didn't know about it when it was originally released?

Originally Posted by mercy
This game is fantastic!!! I brought it from his site years ago. Probably the best D&D retro-style game in this genre!

Probably? Please.

Thank you RPG Watch for posting about the game's launch on Steam!

Which hot keys i can use to do things without constant clicking

Hello there, I did reply to your questions about hot keys in the earlier thread. Let me repost here please:

About hot-keys for casting spells in KotC 1: there is a key to open the spellbook and another to activate a magic wand. There are no hot-keys for specific spells, but the game keeps track of the spells recently used by a character, so that shortcut spell icons can be displayed in the main view below the normal combat actions.

About using the keyboard to move: yes actually you can, you just have to use the numeric-keypad arrow keys. This allows you to move in the eight directions.

Are there any other specific actions that you wanted to do with the keyboard?

This game is fantastic!!! I brought it from his site years ago. Probably the best D&D retro-style game in this genre!

Thank you for the outstanding praise, mercy! Also big thanks to screeg, Notorious and Carnifex!

I would like to be able to do most actions via keyboard. What is common these days is to allow the user to map nearly all available combat actions to function keys (F1,f2,f3). Not sure if you played D:OS (or D:OS-2) but that provides a good example). You just drag the action to the hot keys (which are shown in a line on the screen) and presto you can then excute it by typing the key. You can replace an action by dragging a new action to the key. Other games do it differently by allowing you to configure the keyboard and then list many actions and you press a key next to the action to configure it. It is a lot easier on the wrist to have less clicking

Originally Posted by BlueSalamander
Thank you RPG Watch for posting about the game's launch on Steam!

Hello there, I did reply to your questions about hot keys in the earlier thread. Let me repost here please:

About hot-keys for casting spells in KotC 1: there is a key to open the spellbook and another to activate a magic wand. There are no hot-keys for specific spells, but the game keeps track of the spells recently used by a character, so that shortcut spell icons can be displayed in the main view below the normal combat actions.

About using the keyboard to move: yes actually you can, you just have to use the numeric-keypad arrow keys. This allows you to move in the eight directions.

Are there any other specific actions that you wanted to do with the keyboard?

Thank you for the outstanding praise, mercy! Also big thanks to screeg, Notorious and Carnifex!

Thank you you for the suggestions. I'll definitely take this into account for KotC 2.

At the least, I think I should be able to allow the player to map certain actions to the function keys (though F1 usually opens up the help), or to a combination of keys such as Alt + number.

I guess this would be most useful for spells, as other actions already have shortcut keys.

The only thing that may complicate the key-mapping interface is that spells in KotC 2 can have a metamagic effect like Empower or Maximise applied on them, or they can be cast at a higher spell level than normal, or they can be psionic powers with a set power point expense.

Ideally, we should be able to set F1 to launch a Maximised Fireball, or a psionic power like Energy Wave at the maximum available power-point expense. Cheers, best regards!

It's a great game and deserves to be on Steam, where people will see it.

It should have been on steam a long time ago already . I bought the game a while back…? I think I remember reading posts by Watch members (Screeg, Archangel and some others) pitching ideas for Kotc 2 already on the game's forums back in late 2009 so I guess I must have bought the first one around then.

Anyway, a really epic game. Absolutely loved it…in fact I'll probably grab it again on steam just because .

Oh I agree, it should have been available on steam/gog years ago, but that choice isn't up to us. I'm just glad it finally arrived, and now even more people will get to enjoy this masterpiece!!!

Thank you for the great praise and kind words everyone! :-)