Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Indie
Skara: The Blade Remains
Get ready for next week's Update!
Welcome again survivors,
As featured in the announcement title, we will release the Open Alpha Update 0.8.0 next Thursday the 11th of May.
Want to celebrate the 0.7.3 farewell with us? We are holding our weekly “Play with the Devs” event today, in 30 minutes (at 4:30pm CET). Play with us and watch yourself featured in our Twitch channel while hanging out with other survivors in our Discord channel. We will let you know more hot details about what is coming during the streaming.
Apart from the listed bug fixes, balancing issues and improvements; the new update will bring the following major features:
Lore event
Get a gift just for playing a match during our upcoming Persistent Lore event. In addition, if you are good enough to classify in the Top Ranking positions, you will earn a tasty prize in Karats to acquire your favourite skins, be featured in our medias and maybe even become a new Culture Leader!
New map: Zem
Explore the team tactic options that this new arena brings. Will new cultures rise as their skills become more strategical? Its set up and its own special mechanics will benefit the clever one, and not only the brave.
Progression rewards
Do you want a free skin? Keep playing until you reach specific levels to get some free rewards. These skins will allow you to customize your characters as you gain experience.
Early Access Skin
The previous Early Access backers that acquired the different available packs will receive their promised reward: the Vulkhän Skin, the limited-edition Early Access Skin, depending on their contribution.
Although the game will still have to evolve in many aspects until the definitive version, we think that this new content and mechanics will allow you, survivors, to feel more engaged than ever with what Skara represents. We learnt from experience, and we want you to enjoy this new build.
So don’t forget to join us now on Twitch to know more about the Open Alpha Update 0.8.0!
See you on the battlefield,
The Skara Team
Beware survivors, Skara will strike back after Easter
Welcome survivors!
For the last few weeks we have been focused on improving Skara and trying new ways to engage with our growing community (mainly through Twitch and Discord), and now we are ready to unveil fresh news:
We will soon release a big Update (the 0.8.0 one), which will bring a new Lore Event with granted gifts for all participants, apart from premium rewards for the best players. As always, winners will get a place in Skara’s Lore forever.
The main content featured in the upcoming 0.8.0 build will be a completely new map; it will force you to find new team tactic options to dominate the opposite team. You will also be able to automatically gain “loot” when achieving certain levels, so you will no longer have an excuse to not showing off your customized characters. Last but not least, the backers from our Early Access past stages that acquired the different packs available will receive their promised rewards: a limited-edition Early Access Skin depending on their contribution.
Due to Easter, this Friday (tomorrow) we won’t be streaming our usual “Play with the Devs” event. Stay tuned and join us next week to know more details about the upcoming build! Its release date will also be announced soon.
See you on the battlefield,
The Skara Team
Introducing Discord and Twitch events!
Haven't you already played the Patch 0.7.3 version with other survivors?
Don´t worry, we bring you two powerful tools!
First of all, we want to introduce in a more official way our Discord channel ( https://discord.gg/c63VQcN ). It is a great way to gather your team and find players to fight against. We are actively involved on it, feel free to join and play / talk with us!
We will also feature this channel during our new Twitch sessions called “Play with the Devs” that will be held every Friday at 4:30pm CET (Central European Time), where we want to create a hub for players to find each other. We will answer all your comments on Discord and in our Twitch channel ( https://www.twitch.tv/skarathebladeremains ), so it is intended to be a concurrent time slot for you to pack with in-game friends (or new ones) and fight against other survivors.
We will be pleased to see you in both channels!
Open Alpha Patch 0.7.3
Welcome back survivors!
As always, we have prepared the list of changes that this Patch 0.7.3 brings:
New content
Added an option to change the sensitivity of the camera
Added an option to modify binding of Lock-on mode
Various crashes when entering the arenas have been solved
Changes and updates
Reduced the invulnerability time of all the characters when rolling of by 30%
Improved Shinse’s head
When joining a game, the matchmaking system adds you now to the team who has less human players
Gameplay
Fixed stamina not regenerating when being poisoned
Fixed the death animation not reproducing in some situations
Fixed the spectator cam following the last targeted enemy
Fixed characters beginning to slide after receiving a hit
Fixed Celea block animations not playing when receiving a hit (networking issue)
Fixed the Vilkai VFX being still shown at the end of a round in some situations
Fixed the Vilkai VFX being still shown when Shinse is invisible
Fixed the trails of Shinse’s dash being still shown when she is invisible
Fixed the characters being able to block while stunned or attacking
Party / Friends
Fixed players not seeing a recently added friends if these last ones are online (while this friend can see if the player is online)
Fixed friends remaining in your connected friends list after having removed them
Matchmaking
Fixed infinite matchmaking process when other player/s suffer/s a disconnection in the internal room
Fixed crash when cancelling matchmaking process in a specific internal state
Fixed players not joining any match after cancelling matchmaking
Fixed players not joining any match after the “match found” message
Fixed players not allowed to click the game mode buttons after cancelling a matchmaking process
Fixed issues related to the characters when joining a started match
General
Fixed mouse cursor not appearing in rewards screen
Fixed some scroll bar on the in-game chat issues
Fixed scroll bar on the main menu chat issue
Fixed some news didn't appear
Fixed some problems with the rankings titles
Fixed some issues with key bindings in the in-game menu
Fixed some navigation Pad problems in the character selection screen
Fixed some localization problems
Fixed the proper friend level account not being seen in some places on the main menu
Fixed players being able to use some special characters in registration process
Fixed players being able to use some special characters in-chat
Fixed players being able to use HTML tags in-chat
Fixed Tamvaasa’s beard not appearing with all his helmets equipped
Fixed “Tamvaasa’s Wolf” skin not being able to be equipped
Fixed the characters having no hair when playing the Tutorial
Fixed the game freezing when players type quickly some special characters
Fixed the South America label not being displayed properly
Fixed some UI elements not being in proper place
Fixed equipped elements on menu not appearing in-game
Open Alpha Patch 0.7.2
After the “Cataclysm” event, new heroes have awaken among the Skara survivors, you probably already know them, otherwise you can always check their dedicated story in the Skara Wiki and the spread of their feats among our medias.
Since the release of our Open Alpha build, this 3rd of February, we have been working hard on polishing every aspect of our game. We still have many known bugs that we are solving right now but we are sure that this new Patch will improve your game experience.
Here there´s the list of the Patch changes:
Technical notes
Social and Party features bug fixing
Matchmaking improvements
Various crashes when entering the arenas have been solved
General game bug fixing
Gameplay
Tweaked All characters stamina consumption for sprint
Fixed some stamina cooldown problems
Improved weapon trails
Rig / Animations
The Kharn animations have been polished
The Celea animations have been polished
Arenas
Tutorial: improvements, better lighting and material
Tutorial: small assets have been added
Coliseum: Lever Bugs fixed
General game bug fixing
Jaarvi: improved collisions
General: Victory Pose displays usernames
Menu
Tutorial: improvements, better lighting and material
Tutorial: small assets have been added
Blinks have been added to the characters
The character selection page has been reskinned
Fixed some localization problems
New Reward screen
Finally, check out our new Gameplay Trailer and let us know what you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJqW2r2MIj0
See you on the battlefield,
Pablo and the Skara Team
Working on servers issues
To all Skara survivors:
We are aware of the dificulties to find matches - with humans or bots - for the last 72 hours. Servers started to fall down on Sunday and we are still detecting a lot of issues with our them.
Our team is working as fast as we can to release a patch that will solve this and other crashes and minor bugs. Thanks to all players who reported their crash logs - that's the best way for us to replicate the problem and find a solution. Our estimate release date for this patch will be Friday February 10th.
Please, accept our most sincere apologies for all the troubles on finding matches. Hope you can play Skara soon and join our community!
Pablo and the Skara Team
Skara's Open Alpha is live!
The moment is finally here: today “The Time of the Two Suns” begins in Skara, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback about this Open Alpha build and event.
This 72 hours event, called “Cataclysm” will define Skara Lore forever and will take place from today at 4:30pm CET (Central European Time) until monday 6th at 4:30pm CET . We arranged two ways for players to be part of this adventure:
First of all, you will be able to earn rewards by reaching the top positions of our rankings. The best ranked players on each culture will be forever registered in Skara Lore as Heroes, Generals and Chiefs of those cultures. Furthermore, the best global ranked player of each day during the event will have an in-game news written by our team and will be featured in our social medias.
Second, we will turn your best plays videos into Skara Stories to be incorporated in the Skara Universe. We will share them as video stories in our Social Media channels and in-game news.
After the event, we will keep adding pieces to Lore based on the result of the event battles.
Now, let’s talk about current build, that has been in the making for several months now. We have been working really hard to polish the core features and to implement several things that our community asked for. Here they are!
Social features: Play with your friends
Please try the new social capabilities around Skara, including:
A friends list where you can see your current ones and invite new ones.
A party system to fill with your mates to fight matches.
A chat feature to talk with friends before, during and after matches.
Let us know how this new system works for you.
New Game Mode in the Lava Coliseum
Skara has redesigned the “Free-for-All” in the Lava Coliseum to become faster, more frenetic and more tactical. Now it is called “Last Team Standing”.
The new game mode features 3v3 combat in 3 rounds. Players can only die once. The last team standing wins the round and the team that wins the most rounds wins the match.
This new game mode is brand new for our player base. Please provide us with lots of feedback!
The return of the Khärn
Fear comes from the belly.
So Khärn cut the belly to let it out.
The Khärn return to Skara’s battlefields with an improved look and new abilities. The most important changes are a new area attack that combine with other combo-chains and a new aggressive defense ability we call ‘Push’. They say attack is the best defense…
Changes to look out for in the Duel Arena
Fighting in Jaarvi has changed for the better to make duels more competitive.
Now there’s a best of five rounds system that are common in other versus fighters, instead of a single round with three lives. No more defending what is left of your remaining life after finishing an enemy off, every round begins fresh!
New Match Flow and Matchmaking
The Create Match process has been streamlined.
You can now play solo or with friends. You can easily create a Party with your friends from the social menu.
Survivor selection is now done before the match. Team tactics now start at the beginning of the match as you can choose the survivor that best suits your team. Team formations are key to winning.
We’ve also complete redesigned how players enter, leave and earn rewards in a match.
Re-match has been added, so you no longer have to wait long periods of time before finding a match.
Accounts reset
This build comes with major changes in the way we manage the accounts and the characters (now called survivors as you may have read). One of the main points is the fact that in this version you will have access to all the survivors from the beginning. In order to achieve it we needed to reset all the accounts.
Your previously purchased cosmetic items won’t be present in your account, but don’t worry: we already gave you back the Karats you spent with some extra ones for you to repurchase the cosmetic items that you previously had or to purchase some of the new ones available!
We apologize for the inconvenients.
We rely a lot on your feedback and can guarantee we reply to all messages, so don’t be shy and write to us on the Steam Forums, Social Media or the new Skara Forum on our website.
Video contest Send us your gameplay video and become a Skara Legend.
To do so just follow these simple steps:
1) Play Skara and record your best actions with any record software (OBS, Nvidia Shadow Play etc.). If you don’t know how to use them we have selected an OBS videotutorial for you here and another Nvidia Shadow Play written tutorial here. 2) Upload your video/s on your Youtube channel (it can be private or public)
3) Just make sure to send to contact@playskara.com -A- “Best plays contest” as subject -B- your YouTube link (you can set the exact second you want us to look at it from), -C- your Skara Displayname and the -D- exact second from which you want to highlight your video (if you haven’t sent your link starting from it)
Then, you will be eligible to have a narrated piece on our social media channels describing your character’s feats with an edited video by our own studio.
Moreover, the best survivors of each Skara Culture will appear in the “Skara Heroes’ compilation video” that we will create with the best plays. These survivors - now turned into skara heroes, will have their own role in the future Skara History that you will find in the Skara Lore’s Wikia.
We will accept video links until Wednesday the 8th at 11:59pm CET.
Best “Cataclysm” ranked players
During the “Cataclysm”, each fight will give, at the end of the match, a certain amount of points depending on certain in-game criterias. You will have three ways to earn rewards:
1) If you are at the Top of our General Ranking on any of these days at the time indicated: Saturday 4th at 4:30pm CET, Sunday 5th at 4:30pm CET or Monday 6th at 4:30pm CET, we will write an in-game news about you and feature you in our social medias.
2) If you are strong enough to reach the Top Position of one of our 4 Culture Ranking at the end of the event, monday 6th at 4:30pm CET, you will be forever registered in Skara Lore as Heroes, Generals and Chiefs of those cultures.
3) If you reach a Top 10 Position in our general ranking at the end of the event, Monday 6th at 4:30pm CET, we will reward you with Karats (the in-game premium currency).
Top 1 → 3100 Karats
Top 2 → 1750 Karats
Top 3 → 1100 Karats
Top 4-5 → 525 Karats
Top 6-10 → 255 Karats
Sharpen your weapons, the Skara Open Alpha build is coming
“Then Lôm, The Maiden of the Heavens, engaged Celem in a terrible Celestial contest… and in the time it takes to draw a breath, everything was lost.” –from the Chronicles of Durno People
The Time of the Two Suns is finally here. The sun of Skara has split in two, causing a cataclysm that will forever modify the course of history. From Friday the 3rd of February, launch day of our Open Alpha build, everything that happens in the game will forever modify the future narrative of Skara: instead of creating a story for our players, we will create the Lore based on Skara players’ feats.
A big event will take place during the first 72 hours after the release, called “Cataclysm”, which will be the beginning of something bigger. It will influence the future of Skara’s World, and the best players of this event will forever be remembered as its first heroes and villains.
We are proposing several ways for you to be involved in this event: top players of each culture will be turned into Skara’s protagonists and incorporated in the Skara Official Lore for everyone to follow. We will also compile your best plays in video and create short video stories narrating your feats. Final stories and best plays compilations will be incorporated into Skara Official Lore and shared via the game and the Skara’s social media accounts.
This information will be updated on a daily basis during the event on the “Warlog” section in the game menu.
Want to become a Skara protagonist? Gain your right on the battlefield and leave your mark in Skara!
In this February build, we’ll release several new features and propose new game modes for you to test and enjoy. A new social system has been implemented, the match flow has been completely reviewed, the game has been optimized and game modes for “Jaarvi” and “The Lava Coliseum” have been modified. Stay tuned to our Steam Page to be aware of what’s new in this version and, like always, leave your comments and feedback - we reply to all your messages!
Pablo and the SKARA team
See Skara in 2017
Work continues apace on SKARA - The Blade Remains, and we promise that team-based PvP gaming will never be the same!
We are currently finishing work on the server infrastructure, polishing the combat system, optimizing the graphics and perfecting the match-making system to insure that SKARA is the frenetic close combat multiplayer we have been dreaming about.
Want to know some details? Our team of indiedevs have supplied them below!
Improving gameplay
After being mainly focused on perfecting the feeling of the basic combat, we have now worked on how to add back the signs (skills).
One of the big changes we will be working on throughout the coming months is changing the scope of skills. Instead of the primary system players use to attack, they will only be an aid for the combat. Team-collaboration will be needed to make full use of them. This process is in it early stages, so when the beta is released we will look forward to your feedback.
Other changes include:
Removal of any “unstoppability”: Skills can now be canceled and countered, so you better watch out for the best moment to use them, and stop them!
Skill cast timings and animations have been adjusted so they match the faster pace of the combat system.
Balance: Major changes to damage, range and cooldowns to fit the previous requirement.
We’ve also changed how some skills work:
Shinse’s Invisibility skill (“Seeming Empty”) makes her completely undetectable at long ranges.
Tamvaasa’s “Vilkai Song” skill has been completely reworked… you’ll see it.
Many others are still being tested… we’ll talk more about them soon.
Improving Skara’s visuals while optimizing the game
Last month we showed off some of the visual improvements. This month we decided to talk about how many assets we have been working on.
Here you have a simple summary table about the status of the development as of the time this post has been published:
As you can see, we are close to finishing all the assets, finally :)
The ones that have been following us for a while may remember that the Khärn were present in builds prior to the 0.6.0. That’s the reason why 5 assets have been reworked for this version, you will see a strong improvement!
Concerning the new cosmetics… here is one of them. We will keep the rest a secret!
New Match Flow and Matchmaking
One of the main focuses right now for the design team is to make the game more “fluent” and easy to play. Menus have always been a big problem and over the coming months we’ll plan to make huge changes to them.
The First Time Experience (FTUX) of SKARA is now free (it can be skipped). You can play whatever you want with any character you want, no longer having to wait to unlock slots. Tutorial steps and other progression features are now reward-based and you can decide what to do and when to do it.
The Create Match process has been streamlined.
You can now play solo or with friends. You can easily create a Squad with your friends from the social menu.
Character selection is now done before the match. Team tactics now start at the beginning of the match as you can choose the character that best suits your team. Team formations are key to winning.
We’ve also complete redesigned how players enter, leave and earn rewards in a match.
Re-match has been added, so you no longer have to wait long periods of time before finding a match.
Match presentation and endings: We are aware that some game events may not be clear, including messages of Victory/Defeat and Match presentations, so we are working hard on this area. We’ll comment more on this in future announcements.
Those changes include massive internal alterations to matchmaking, interface, error management, including a new set of rules to penalize quitters and the possibility of rejoining a current match if players have internet problems.
As you can see - we have been very busy! We’ll keep up the hard work and let you know the release date… soon!
It has been a fantastic 2016. Can’t wait to see you on the battlefield in 2017!
Pablo and the Skara Team
Skara Dev Update: Clearing the Beta launch pad
It has been some weeks since our last update, but, as they say, no news is good news! Right?
It turns out there IS a lot of news to share as we work to get the game ready for a beta launch.
We currently are working on four fronts:
1) Improving gameplay
Improving overall combat feeling: We are shortening the attack delay and adding tactics to enter combat and counterattack.
Differentiating character-classes:
Shinse are now quicker and more lethal, but are also less armored than their fellow inhabitants of Skara.
Tamvassa are also quicker. They can be in the middle of a team battle formation and get in/out of combat easily.
Celea are more versatile and useful at keeping enemies at range, with an improved defense.
Khärn. These tank-like character have been completely reworked, but saying more would be giving it away...
New Defense types: Each character-class utilize a unique defense system that suit their combat style.
Better Dueling in Jaarvi: We looked at all the duels during our Alpha and used that data and your feedback to refactor the game mode.
Better Melee in the Lava Coliseum: This is a completely new game mode, instead of all against all plus a boss fight, the Lava Coliseum has become a 3vs3 fight for your (single) life… more coming soon :)
2) Improving Skara’s visuals while optimizing the game (yes, this is actually possible!)
We are implementing the PBR (physically based rendering) logic to all our skins. This logic is used by most AAA studios in order to improve the visual aspect of their games.
We are also updating the textures, adding more details and improving the visual quality.
Here are some examples of the improvement:
We are applying the same logic to our maps while reducing their geometry by half. This will optimize the game without a noticeable visual downgrade!
3) Adding to Skara’s meta-game
Yes, we know--one of the hardest parts of playing the alpha was a lack of social infrastructure to find friends and organize matches. The good news is Skara’s beta will have this infrastructure, including:
New social mechanic features (a friends list, menu and in-game chat, grouping with your friends before joining a game, and more...)
Smooth match flow, so you don’t have to wait long to get into the battle.
Error control on match flow, so the game doesn’t completely fall apart while organizing matches.
{*]This plays into the game combat as well. We have dramatically improved the Parry/Defense network system making it faster and more lifelike.
4) Here come the Khärn...
Finally, the Khärn will be making their comeback to Skara... We can’t wait to hear what you think!
