SKALD: Against the Black Priory Update #11, $19,172 and Counting

The latest Kickstarter update for Scape-IT’s old-school RPG SKALD: Against the Black Priory announces a new stretch goal – an infinite procedurally generated dungeon where you’ll be able to try out new builds and test your mettle. With a total of $19,172 currently pledged and slightly over a day left to go, that goal has already been reached. So, with that out of the way, the update directs us to a developer diary that goes over SKALD’s design pillars when it comes to adventuring and combat. An excerpt:

Design Pillars

Just like in the “Classes and Stats” article, let’s start with some design pillars for combat and adventuring:

Respect the players time: SKALD is developed for a modern audience and this means allowing players to pick up the game, play a short session and still have a fun experience. This includes reducing book-keeping by adding features such as a journal system and auto-mapping, avoiding grindy areas of pointless content padding, making combat fast and having a forgiving save system that allows the player to save anywhere.

Allow the player to make informed choices: The game should be mostly transparent in how the rules work and how the characters class, stats and roleplaying choices interact with the world. If information is kept from the player there should be a good reason to do so.

Provide multiple solutions to quests: Quests should be solvable by non-combat means and players should be able to play non combat-oriented characters.

Choices matter: The world should be interactive and react to players choices.

And here’s a quick overview of the abovementioned stretch goal:

Stretch Goal Announced: Infinite Darkness

If we make the final (?) stretch-goal of 160.000 NOK / 18.400 USD we’re adding a procedurally generated murder-dungeon to the game as optional side content! The area will be completely optional and besides the main game, and will allow you to create a party of up to 6 custom characters and take them on a doomed descent into an infinite dungeon. This will allow you to keep enjoying SKALD long after you’ve finished the main game!