Frayed Knights: Bumping Off the Cart-Man
Of all the updates on the development of Frayed Knights, the indie comedic fantasy computer RPG, this one is sure to prove, for a time, to be the latest.

This chapter is opening up with a murder mystery. Well, a death, under vaguely mysterious causes. "Okay," you might say, "I already know that is a vampire story. We've already read / seen / heard the Dracula story a zillion times in different forms. The vampire caused the mysterious deaths. Is this any different?"

Well, yes and no.

In this case, it's a wagon that went over a cliff. No visible bite marks on the victim. He's got a broken neck, crushed chest, but no bite marks.

And back in town, nobody seems to know the victim. So did he fall before arriving?

He was undoubtedly a hardy, competent fellow - nobody braves these roads unless they know how to handle the wolves. And animated skeletons of an invading army that was wiped out in a single night twenty years ago...

Based on the feedback I've received from people about Frayed Knights, the dialogs between the characters was - stunningly (for me) - very well received, with the biggest complaint being that there wasn't enough of it. Yes, this complaint greatly outweighed the complaints that the dialogs were dry, boring, and un-funny. I guess this is to be expected - anybody who volunteers to be a guinea pig for a pre-alpha test of a game probably has some kind of masochist streak running through them, so AFAIK both criticisms are probably perfectly valid.

Nevertheless, I'm trying to add Yet More Dialog to the game. This also works to help focus my design --- more dialog means packing the areas with More Interesting Things for the party to talk about, interact with, and to dilly-dally with instead of pursuing the primary plotline. Just like my dice & paper games...

The "Defend" option in combat is getting changed to be the "Special Ability" / Feat button. Defend is an ability that all characters will have, but the rest are based on their starting class and the abilities they choose when leveling up.

Polly, our new concept artist, has been working on sketches for Victor the Vampire's Significant Other, as well as the Burgomeister. The black & white sketches are looking pretty awesome.

Thursday night is Demo Night - I'm planning on showing off the game to the Utah Indie Night crowd at the NinjaBee offices. I've scheduled to take Thursday off of the Day Job to help make sure I've got everything as ready as I can get it. We're not anywhere near where I'd hoped we'd be (and for "we" I mostly mean "me"), so I'm a little disappointed and frustrated on that front. But we have some new monsters, new spells, a new environment, and part of the new chapter to show people, so at least it won't be a retread of the Temple of Pokmor Xang.

Labels: Frayed Knights

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:14 AM (Permalink)