SKALD: Against the Black Priory will launch in Spring 2024!
Greetings, and happy Rawcember everyone!
Let’s dive straight into our big announcement for the end of 2023: The launch of SKALD: Against the Black Priory is now officially set for Spring 2024!
Over the past year, Anders and the team have been hard at work on the game in order to craft a memorable adventure that we know you’ll enjoy, and we truly can’t wait for you to see and experience it by yourself.
To give you a glimpse of what to expect in the final game, we have put together a new trailer that you can see below:
Every system in the game has undergone meticulous polishing and significant enhancements since we last showcased it back in January 2023. But that's not all—additional features and improvements are still in the works to ensure that you’ll have a blast playing through the final game, whilst exploring its world and uncovering its mysteries.
Our free demo has been updated and now features an early look at some of the new features mentioned above, including font customization options, difficulty settings, and other accessibility or quality of life improvements.
As we gear up for the launch, you can expect more frequent updates and new content drops from us, so stay tuned by wishlisting the game on Steam and following us on social media!
Also, don't hesitate to drop a comment to share your reactions or questions about the game if you have any.
We can't wait for you to experience SKALD when it launches in Spring 2024!
The Raw Fury team
Project Update: Let There Be Light!
Hello there one and all!
In classic AL fashion I’m long overdue with another project update! That means there is sooo much to show off and talk about. So much in fact that I’m not even going to try. Instead, today I’ll focus on one of the flashier updates: An improved lighting system!
The Issue
There is a lot of level-design and building going on at the moment. Company is doing good as well and I’ve been able to get a lot more professional art assets in the last year without having to worry about cost (see some of the gorgeous environments below).
The issue I was running into however, was that I wasn’t able to fully convey the mood of the the environments I was making with the tools I had at the start of 2023. For a game that aims to have a bit of a darker tone, this was actually kind of a big deal.
The dilemma I was wrestling with was that I had committed to a 16 color palette; Adding a more complex lighting system would result in more than 16 colors being shown on screen at any given time.
None the less, I was feeling pretty strongly that something had to change so I set aside two weeks in April, cracked my knuckles and went into a coding frenzy! Turns out there are some advantages to having such a large proprietary code-base. Since I know every in and out of my draw pipeline it was surprisingly easy to set up what I needed.
As for the result, I’ll let this image speak for itself:
The Solution
The first thing to keep in mind is that Skald is built as an “engine inside an engine”. In other words, the Skald engine lives inside Unity but it is 99% self-contained. For instance, it draws its graphics by baking sprites at run-time, completely independently of Unity. Once all the drawing operations are done and the complete screen image is baked, it makes a Unity texture and lets the Unity camera “photograph” it.
The advantage here is that it’s very easy to perform very precise operations on individual pixels. In other words, we can do pretty cool stuff that is still 100% “authentic” pixel art.
We leverage this in the lighting system: A lighting value is calculated for each 16×16 tile and based on this, the sprite for that tile is shaded with a bluish tint (pixel per pixel). As you can see on the floor inside the cabin above, this means the lighting is overtly tiled but in my opinion, this works beautifully with the tile-based nature of the game.
That is not all however! Light-emitters also have pre-baked “auras. These can have different shapes and colors: Note how the ritual candles in the GIF above have a green and purple tint. It also allows me to do stuff like god-rays.
Anyways, I’m pretty proud of the system and the result. It’s changed how I make levels and my only regret is not making it sooner. If you have questions about the system or its implementation, feel free to DM me!
In Other News
As I said initially, I have so much to show off that I don’t know where to begin. However, the finish-line is coming into view so for what it’s worth, you’ll all be playing the game pretty soon. That also means, stay posted for a release-date announcement.
Unity
Many of you will have noticed that Unity has been going through dire straits the last weeks. The engine revealed a new pricing model a few weeks ago that was extremely controversial and caused a mass-exodus of players.
For a lot of companies, this had the potential to be catastrophic. Skald was however, never in any direct danger due to the game’s pricing model etc.
That being said, it also appears Unity has rolled back their updated policies in the recent days. In other words: Skald was and still is, 100% safe.
The Lost Sector
I did an interview with Chris Freeman last week for the Lost Sector Youtube channel! I love the Lost Sector and if you’re reading this, so will you!
We talk Skald, retro-gaming and Unity (if you want to understand more deeply why the pricing change was so controversial). Chris also has a loop of the updated game build running in the background so if you want to see the new lighting-system in action, here’s a chance for a sneak preview of a very rough production build (Chris twisted my arm)!
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That’s it for now! I’ll do my best to keep you posted but I also need to make a game so if you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s because I’m making cool stuff.
To stay posted, be sure to follow the Skald Twitter and Discord and wishlist on Steam if you haven’t already!
Much love,
AL
Project Update: The Calm Before the Storm
I’ve been much less active on social media for a few months and believe me when I say it’s been necessary. I truly wish I had more time to interact with all you amazing people but there is only so much bandwidth in my head and social media can potentially eat up a substantial amount of it so I need to be very careful.
Such is the life of a solo-developer!
Give us some news!
I’m really biting my lip here as I try not to spoil any of the cool, new stuff I’ve been stuffing into the game! My brand manager made me promise that I was going to be patient.
However, I won’t be spoiling anything if I say the late summer and early fall of 2023 will be really busy for us in terms of marketing. This means we want to save as much of the cool stuff for about another month or two. HNNNGGGGGG!!!!
Instead of showing off the game, here is some corporate news (“Yay!” said no one).
Current State of Production
Internally we have a release date set and we are fully committed to hitting it!
In other words, we’re currently pumping out content! That means levels, graphical assets, game-objects and writing. It’s hard work but we have an amazing team of freelancers and what we’re making looks fantastic.
We’re also doing an important job of adjusting scope to make sure that what we put out is as high quality as possible. Some side-content that was intended to be in the day-one release will get postponed and released in free updates post launch.
This one is all on me: Making RPGs are insanely complex and it has been very hard to predict the amount of time that goes into making different types of content. Some are much faster than expected, whilst other types (especially branching quests) are much more time-consuming – expected for small teams.
Nonetheless, we’ve cracked the code at this point and though it has taken trial and error, we will be delivering a retrogasmic RPG experience!
The Norwegian Film Institute
The Norwegian Film Institute (NFI) is backing the Skald project. This means we get to put more art in the game (focusing especially on environmental art and creature design) as well as hire more help with writing, editing and audio design.
This is honestly a pretty big deal. NFI is a fantastic partner to have on board that offers substantial long term support to projects and companies without any creative constraints whatsoever (sweet, sweet social-democratic tax policies). What’s more, NFI is VERY enthusiastic about Skald. Turns out they’re pretty big nerds with a lot of love for bespoke, artsy games.
In other words, this bodes well for the future of the franchise and company.
Studio Name Change
The company has changed its name from “Scape-IT” to “High North Studios”! The old name was a legacy name and it feels really good to get a name that more accurately reflects the company. I wish I had a fancy logo to show as well but this is just another item in a very long “to-do” list.
A Storm is Coming
At this point I’d rather say less and save the sexy stuff for when we ramp up marketing this summer. I truly hope and believe it’s going to be worth the wait.
Thank you so much for your incredible patience so far. Believe me when I say that the future is looking really exciting and pixelated for us retro RPG fans!
To stay posted, be sure to follow the Skald Twitter and Discord and wishlist on Steam if you haven’t already!
Much love,
AL
Season of Giving: Demo and Contest!
Ho ho ho!
That special time of year is descending upon us and uncle Andy’s coming in hot with red cheeks and smelling vaguely of Christmas schnaps. He’s also bringing gifts!
DEMO UPDATE
By the time you’re reading this, we should have updated the demo online. This is a pretty chonky update that more then doubles the amount of content. It includes a bunch of never before seen areas and narrative content as well as a new recruitable NPC.
It also adds in a lot of new features, like the option to build your own character. We only have a handful of the classes, feats, portraits and backgrounds available yet but this still adds a lot of variety so go nuts!
Needless to say, we’ll be adding a ton more of everything in the final product so no need to worry.
Adventurers and treasure hunters have been searching for her ever since. None have succeeded. Lately however, a rumor has begun to spread in dockside taverns and brothels:
The Santa Fury has been located. The rush to recover her is on. Will you partake? Yes we hid an entire ship in the latest demo and you get to go on a real treasure hunt FOR REAL TREASURE!
How to enter
Download the demo and start playing. You’ll soon enough find someone who’ll tell you the legend of the Santa Fury and you’ll be off!
Once you find the treasure and see the phrase “amorphous shape of eyes, mouths and tentacles” take a screenshot.
Amble over to the Skald Discord and DM the screenshot to our lovely community person, Fiona (Discord name “Feeona#0001″) . Do NOT post the screenshot in one of the public channels.
Contest is open until January 9th and once it closes we’ll draw five winners who’ll receive a free key to a game of their choice from the Raw Fury catalogue!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL
I’ll be lurking a bit and seeing how the contest is going but I’ll also try to take a few days off. In other words, I’ll see you all on the other side of the year in what will surely be the year of Skald!
I’m so grateful to have been given the opportunity to pursue my passion and I hope this is a project that will bring joy into people’s lives for years to come. Be kind to each other and please be mindful of those who find the holidays difficult. A kind word or gesture might go a long way.
What remains is to wish you all a very happy holidays and good luck on the hunt for the Santa Fury.
Love you all,
AL
Project Update December 2022 - Have Some Class!
Greetings all! It’s update time!
I try to get one update out per month and this one was slated for November but the weeks are just flying by. You’ll have to forgive me and rest assured the time not spent writing this was well spent elsewhere!
Human models are now slightly taller. I love the more natural proportions.
If you’re reading this and somehow don’t know what the game is about yet, check out the Steam page and demo before reading on:https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160
News
Rawcember DEMO
We’re doing a major update to the demo around the 20th of December as part of Raw Fury’s Rawcember promotions.
This means a bunch of new demo content including a character creator, a new recruitable NPC, several new map areas and… *drum roll*… a special Rawcember contest:
The Hunt for The Santa Fury
Uncover cryptic clues and mysterious leads as you embark on a quest for the mysterious missing vessel the “Santa Fury”.
If you uncover the secret at the end of the puzzle, you are eligible to enter into the Skald Rawcember lottery and compete for three Steam gift cards!
We’ll be dropping another devlog update when the demo goes live and you’ll find all the details in there!
Development
In preparation for the upcoming Rawcember demo I’ve been doing a lot of work on the character creator. It was noticeably absent in the latest demo builds but it’s coming home for Christmas.
Even though only a few of the character options (classes and backgrounds) are playable at the moment, we’ll be showing them off in the demo to at least give you an impression of what we’re aiming for in the final game!
Classes in Skald are each tied to one of five archetypes which, in turn, are tied to on of the five primary attributes. Behind the curtain, each archetype conforms somewhat to the classic tank / DPS / support trinity
Note that the archetype role is a rough guideline. The different classes may vary greatly in how they actually play. I’ll say more about the individual classes as we go so stay posted for this in the upcoming devlogs.
Backgrounds are much lighter than classes and help flesh out the character in the context of the world. They will add bonuses to skills and may affect starting condition (such as starting gold and equipment). I also intend to use these to provide world interactivity as certain NPCs may react to your background in dialogue etc.
Say what you want about the UI but if it doesn’t give you a retro vibe, I don’t know what does!
As for attributes you’ll of course be able to edit these as well in the character creator. I’m doing my best to keep the rules as transparent as possible and visualizing the interrelationship between the attributes helps a bit. Note how updating a primary attribute causes the rest of the sheet to update etc.
Some players might be a bit off-put by the wall of numbers but we’ll try to add options for them as well (maybe an “auto complete” function?).
In general however, I think RPG fans enjoy a bit of rules crunch and I intend to deliver that.
Customize your characters appearance or let fate decide! Note the the portraits are place-holders!
Finally, here is a peek at the character editor. Nothing revolutionary here but I am proud of how modular the character models are. You can pretty much edit any aspect of them and this carries over to any outfit you might equip etc. It’s a small thing, but I think customization is a pretty big deal to a lot of players.
—In Closing—
Be sure to check out the updated demo as it drops December 20th! I’m excited to see it any of you manage to learn the fate of the Santa Fury!
Hey everyone and happy spooky season! I for one love this time of year and I couldn’t help myself from sharing some love with the Skald community!
—News—
Halloween Update for Demo
There’s now a new area to the demo for you to explore. It even has a creepy little Halloween-encounter in it! And I promise: It’s still very much Skald-themed.
We’ll be expanding this area quite a bit further in the time to come as we try out and test “new” features (more on this below) so keep checking in.
Mac demo is finally live on Steam
This is criminally overdue, but it’s finally here: The Skald Mac demo! To all my awesome Mac fans, I’m so sorry for the wait and hope this makes it up to you!
The new area that we’ve added to the demo will be used as a little sandbox for us to add in all the secondary mechanics that need to be (re)implemented. For now we’ve added in trading and leveling up, and next on the list is the character builder and camping mechanics.
New Biomes
Quite a bit of dev-time the last few weeks have gone into redrawing tilesets for some of the biomes that feature in the new demo content.
Caves are a staple of any self-respecting CRPG:
… and this part of the game features a lot of costal areas so costal cliffs and shore lines are a must as well:
I’ve done some work on making the submersion into water look all nice like but the GIF above has too low FPS to do it justice. You’ll just have to see it yourself in the demo.
Next Weeks
We’re spending the next three weeks fixing bugs and reacting to feedback as well as increasing the size of the current build to be as big (or bigger) than the prologue.
Some of this might be featured in the demo (though we might keep it shorter than the old prologue) and all of the content will of course be available to testers.
Still waiting for your tester’s key? It’s coming once I get Halloween out of the way.
—In Closing—
Keep playing the game and as always feel free to reach out to me at any time. Note however: The last weeks have been insanely busy and I’m behind on all my social media. I 100% indend to catch up though so please just be patient with me.
Watch the new SKALD: Against the Black Priory trailer!
SKALD: Against the Black Priory is a retro-style RPG set in a grim-dark fantasy world of tragic heroes, violent deaths, and Lovecraftian horror. The short trailer highlights gameplay, and reveals brand new key art – check out the game's updated demo featuring improved visuals and UI today!
Are you hungry for more? Yes? Seeing that your eyes have now awoken to the horror that awaits pleases us.
Now go, play the demo today! Oh, but do try not to trip over any rogue pumpkins; they seem to be everywhere these days...
Celebrate Scream Fest in SKALD: Against The Black Priory
Welcome to (the soon to be spooky) SKALD: Against the Black Priory!
We invite you all to explore our world during the Steam Scream Fest. The world is already dark and foreboding, so if you continue to join us throughout the week, you'll see some spooky shenanigans.
So take a deep breath, try not to trip over the new pumpkin fields and watch for black cats crossing your path.
SKALD at Steam Next Fest!
Development
All the following updates are featured in the new demo.
Inventory
Inventory system has gotten a huge update where I converted it to the new UI system. It’s far from done but it’s still a huge update! It looks a bit noisy, but I promise it plays well and feels snappy and responsive.
I’m also going to do more tooltip stuff where you can hover over stats on the different character sheets for explanations etc but didn’t have time to do that as fully as I wanted for the demo so you’ll have to wait a bit to see that feature in action.
Crafting Confirmed!
Yup! I put crafting in the game! For now you can cook stuff and there are just four recipes. The system of course still needs polish as well but it’s technically sound and I love it.
I’m going to delve deeper into crafting and consumables in an upcoming devlog when I’m less sleep deprived. Stay posted!
Stealth
Stealth was very wonky in the prologue. Who knows how it even worked! I’ve updated it now to a more active system, where you can choose to enter “Stealth Mode” Your model then goes transparent and your see a stealth meter. As you move around the meter drains. Having a high stealth skill, wearing light armor, sticking to shadows etc, all influences how fast your stealth meter drains.
All in all it works really well for all it’s simplicity and I’m pumped to see the hijinx it will lead to in the final game!
Project Update September 2022 - New Demo Launching!
Preface: I’ve been crunching for too long and I’m very ready to take a day off. Forgive the typos! XOXO
Hang on to your helmets! This one’s going to be big!
Holy crap these are exciting times. First of all, I finally get to reveal the new key art for the game:
It just blows my mind how awesome this looks! Here’s the original:
Original is done by Tuandat Phan and pixel conversion is done by MementoMoree.
Hats off for the stunning work!
—News—
New Demo!
Skald is participating in the Steam Nextfest starting Monday October 2nd! This means you get to play the brand new demo of the game! I can’t wait! You will be able to find the demo on the game’s Steam page come Monday!
Please note this is NOT the prologue page. In fact, as of next week, the prologue will be unavailable going forwards as we phase it out for the new and updated demo.
As for scope, the build you’ll play on Monday, is much shorter than the current prologue. It should take you about 20 minutes to finish and it recycles quite a bit of dialogue content.
However, as Nextfest progresses, we will be adding content to it so be sure to stay posted and follow our development as the demo grows.
Testing
I just thought I’d give a short update on this as well! We’ve invited a small subset of the community to start testing builds and I fully intend to get keys distributed to all the other testers in the coming weeks. I’ve just been so swamped with demo development that it has had to wait.
However, if you backed the game at the Freeman level or up, your key IS coming!
Development
All the following updates are featured in the new demo.
Inventory
Inventory system has gotten a huge update where I converted it to the new UI system. It’s far from done but it’s still a huge update! It looks a bit noisy, but I promise it plays well and feels snappy and responsive.
I’m also going to do more tooltip stuff where you can hover over stats on the different character sheets for explanations etc but didn’t have time to do that as fully as I wanted for the demo so you’ll have to wait a bit to see that feature in action.
Crafting Confirmed!
Yup! I put crafting in the game! For now you can cook stuff and there are just four recipes. The system of course still needs polish as well but it’s technically sound and I love it.
I’m going to delve deeper into crafting and consumables in an upcoming devlog when I’m less sleep deprived. Stay posted!
Stealth
Stealth was very wonky in the prologue. Who knows how it even worked! I’ve updated it now to a more active system, where you can choose to enter “Stealth Mode” Your model then goes transparent and your see a stealth meter. As you move around the meter drains. Having a high stealth skill, wearing light armor, sticking to shadows etc, all influences how fast your stealth meter drains.
All in all it works really well for all it’s simplicity and I’m pumped to see the hijinx it will lead to in the final game!
In Closing
In short: Play the demo on Monday! Keep checking in as we add more content!
I’m exhausted now – this is me looking for a bottle of wine to knock me out!
