Project Update: Beta 1.1.0

Hello everyone! Hope you all are enjoying your summer. July has been pretty sweet up here in Northern Norway for once, making it the perfect “stay at home” summer. But fear not: I’ve still gotten a ton done with SKALD, and it’s now time for a new (minor) demo update!

Beta 1.1.0 is up for Backers!

The demo is still pretty short and adds about 20 minutes of game-play to the first iteration. It’s still an important demo for me, since I’ve done a lot of work under the hood (as always) and now those features need play-testing.

I’ve also added some in-game features: Most notable is grid-based combat. That system is still pretty bare bones as I’m yet to add enemies, feats and spells that really take advantage of it, but you should non the less be able to get an idea and provide some feedback.

What do I need from play-testers?

Bugs first and foremost. This is by far the most important feedback you can provide for me at this point!

Typos are always welcome too. As are logical inconsistencies in dialogue and scene flows.

I also want to hear about game-play feature requests or feedback on existing features.

I’m not really super interested in stuff like “this was too easy” or “There needs to be more loot in the second area”. It goes without saying that a lot of this is unpolished at the time and pacing etc will get a second pass as the whole first chapter begins to come together 🙂

As always, my preferred way of receiving feedback is via the SKALD Discord chat. Once there, look for the feedback sub-channels.

A Word of Caution

The demos, at this point, will usually break saves and force a restart with each demo iteration. This might seem like a chore BUT for play-testing this is essential. The scripting of the game can only be truly tested if the game is played from the start each time and this is super important to the final quality of the game.

So please be patient with me (I know you will)! Also, is play-testing feels like a hassle, it’s 100% fine for you to just hang back and wait for the finished product!

What Else is Going on?

Currently we (me and the writers) are doing a lot of work writing and implementing narrative content. This is the main priority besides polishing the engine at the moment. As we finish writing for chapter 1, the artists will then get to illustrate the content and we’ll start work on chapter 2.

I’ve been working on fog-effects a bit. They are great for setting a somber tone and I can’t wait to use them. They were however not ready at the time of 1.1.0 so they’ll hopefully feature in the next update.

At some point in the near future I’ll probably start working of feats and spells as well so stay tuned for that.

Have a great Summer!

That’s it for now! Have a great weekend and keep enjoying the summer (try to get out in sun a bit)!

As always, feel free to follow me on Twitter or join the SKALD discord!

Cheers,

AL

Project Update: Early Access

Hello there SKALD fans and friends!

After careful consideration, I’ve made the decision to pivot from a September full launch to an “Early Access” launch late fall of 2020.

What does that mean?

“Early Access” (EA) is a type of distribution where customers buy access to a pre-release version of a game. For SKALD, this means that Steam-users (for starters) will be able to buy access to the SKALD Beta sometime in the fall of 2020.

Backers will of course receive these keys as part of their rewards as soon as we go live. Until then, closed Beta will continue for backers.

The plan is to finish the game’s narrative critical path before the EA release. This means that the game should be about 75% content complete in terms of content but still quite rough around the edges.

The plan is for the complete game to launch fully in the first half of 2021.

For those of you who backed the game on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, this means that reward fulfillment will be postponed until we get closer to the full release.

But why?

The plan initially was to accept a product that was a little rough around the edges upon release and then do post-release patches and content additions.

After talking to marketing-professionals and fellow game-designers I’ve realized that it is much healthier for the project to instead brand the “release” as Early Access. This clearly communicates my intentions and the state of the project.

The decision has also been expedited by the fact that the project is behind the initial schedule in terms of play-testing. The delay is partially due to current world events (enough said), partially because the demo->feedback->update cycle has been slower than expected and partially because an influx of money has allowed us to aim for a higher narrative ambition and great writing takes time.

No cause for alarm

Though the schedule now looks slightly different, the project is very healthy:

  • It is very well funded and I don’t have any reason to rush a launch for financial gain
  • Early Access will bring more play-testers which, in turn, will lead to a much more polished end-product
  • A less rushed launch will give us more time to create side-content and result in more fleshed-out world

All in all, this is the best for the project and I’m counting on the continued support and understanding of the community to help make SKALD an AWESOME game.

Believe me: Development is proceeding as fast as it is humanly possible and I’m super excited for the finished product!

Next Steps

I’m releasing an updated Beta-demo for backers in the next month or so. The demo is a bit delayed, but there is a good reason for this: Each Beta-demo at this stage will potentially corrupt save data. This means that currently, each demo-launch may force a restart and this will cause tester fatigue pretty fast. Since I rely on your feedback, I’d rather you have a bit more content to explore once you sit down with the demo.

Speaking of demo, I’ve made a pretty big change to the basic design of the game:

Combat is now grid-based.

Combat is as snappy as ever and even auto-resolves works great!

I’ve been going back and forth on this for a long time now and I don’t make changes like this lightly. However, the old system lacked a bit of the expressiveness and transparency I wanted for SKALD and working with it was too limiting. Being someone who plays the game EVERY day I can say the new combat system is a lot of fun. I can’t wait to really start fleshing out more feats and spells that interact with the physicality of the battlefield.

In Closing…

It’s back to work for me! I really hope you’ll stay pumped for SKALD and I can’t wait to bring you more sweet content throughout the summer and fall.

If you haven’t already, I wrote two game-design articles a while back and you might want to check them out if you’re interested in the subject:

Beyond that I’d like to wish you all a great summer! As always, feel free to follow me on Twitter or join the SKALD Discord “game development” sub-channel !

Cheers,

AL