Skald: Against the Black Priory - Now on Kickstarter

SKALD: Against the Black Priory is a tile and turn based roleplaying game where you lead a party of up to six characters on an epic and perilous quest.

The game features:

• Vintage graphics using the glorious Commodore 64 color palette
• Complex level-based character development with abilities, skills and features
• Grindless tactical combat
• "Choose-your-own-adventure" system and dynamic, tree based dialog.

As a party based RPG, SKALD puts heavy emphasis on both roleplaying- and mechanical interaction between party members.The current leader of the party can be swapped by the push of a button and the skills and abilities of the current leader will influence interactions with the game world. But be warned: Managing the party can be challenging with members having private agendas and motivations.

Combat in SKALD is turn- and menu-based. This leads to fast and grind-less combat (that can be automated). The design emphasis is on having interactions between abilities, tactics and situational circumstances create unique and challenging combat every time.

The game will feature a rich and highly interactive world with both scripted and systemic ways of interacting with the hundreds of NPCs, items, objects and plot points. The game will allow for, and encourage, a large range of player expression and roleplaying.

Interacting with the world takes place through tree-based dialog, "choose-you-own-adventure sequences", combat, tile-based exploration and interaction with in-game systems.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory will feature level-based character development with both numerical stats and special abilities. I also intend for roleplaying choices to affect character development by taking a leaf from classics such as Fallout 1 and 2.

As a game of dark, gritty fantasy, magic is a huge part of the world building. It will play a huge part of the game and designing a system that is both mechanically and narratively appealing is a challenge I can't wait to dig into! More on that down the line.

The game will release on PC (Windows) first with releases for Mac and handheld devices down the line. NOTE: Backer rewards are PC only.

Estimated release date is June 2020.

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TheMadGamer said:

Something about those kinds of ultima-ish graphics always gets me interested… going to go take a closer look at this one.

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KeepitClean said:

Only thing I need to investigate for SKALD is the way it's gonna handle maps, automapping etc etc..

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KeepitClean said:

One of the few games I'd back on Kickstarter after a huge while.. I first backed way back an Andrew Plotkin text adventure and then it escalated later quickly.. Last thing I backed I think was Wasteland 2….

Only thing I need to investigate for SKALD is the way it's gonna handle maps, automapping etc etc.. I really do hope on this aspect it strays away from Classic Goldbox and have some quality of life improvements for us too old to bother with handdrawn maps anymore.. If it is already the case, I'm even more happy about it!!

Edit: It seems dungeons are also top-down so I'm already in love with it, good call..

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screeg said:

Same. I just have zero sense of direction, in real life and in games.

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Pongo said:

Hey SkaldRPG congratulations on getting funded! I like the look of the mountains of madness stretch goal, especially as you've listed John Carpenter's the Thing as an inspiration. I'm hoping for isolated snowy areas and plenty of paranoia . Good luck with the rest of the campaign.

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screeg said:

EDIT: just about to make the Mountains of Madness stretch goal!!

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