Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Frayed Knights Voted One of the Most Promising CRPGs of 2011

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 4, 2011

I’m giddy. Overwhelmed. Thrilled. And feeling pressure…

RPG Watch announces the most promising / most anticipated RPGs of 2011.

They include the visitor’s poll, as well as the editor’s choice.

If you recall, Frayed Knights was one of the voting options. I’m extremely pleased to see it hit in the top 10 of the reader’s poll (thanks, those that voted!), and even more pleased – and overwhelmed, and all the other adjectives up above – to see it took second place as the editor’s choice for the most promising PC CRPGs of 2011.

Now to make sure that:

#1 – It actually does come out this year (that’s … well, not easy, but not at risk if I stay the course)

#2 – It doesn’t disappoint.

I’m also thrilled to see indie RPG Age of Decadence take third place.  I’ll tell ya, it’s going to be an awesome year for indie RPGs no matter what, but it’ll be especially impressive if both AoD and Dead State manage to ship this year. I’m not too optimistic about Dead State‘s release this year, but AoD sounds like a real possibility.


Filed Under: Frayed Knights, News - Comments: 10 Comments to Read



  • Greg Tedder said,

    Congrats! I am looking forward to both Frayed Knights and Age of Decadence. I have recently finished Fable 2 and had a great time playing a comic RPG. It made me want Frayed Knights just that much more. Though I think I will have more fun with your combat and “P A R T Y” system!

  • Xian said,

    Congrats! It has to be good to know that there is such a level of anticipation for Frayed Knights after putting so much time and effort into it.

    I have enjoyed the comic RPGs that I have played in the past. Both Deathspanks were fun, and if you could overlook the lineage of the title, I enjoyed the comedy and parody in the newest Bard’s Tale. I enjoyed the parts in Baldurs Gate II or Dragon Age where the party members would be talking to each other while you were adventuring. Those provided a welcome moment of comic relief in a more traditional RPG.

  • Zeus said,

    Comedy games must fight an uphill battle. Reviewers have no sense of humor. When The Simpsons poked fun at jumping puzzles, by featuring jumping puzzles, reviewers accused the developers of not getting it. Which is funny, because when Mel Brooks parodied Star Wars’ almost pornographic shots of slow moving space ships with possibly the longest space ship flyby in history, no one accused Mel of “including the very thing he’s trying to make fun of!”

    Game critics just don’t see comedy as a plus. It’s sad but true. They’ll never inflate a game’s review score, no matter how much it made them laugh, if the game mechanics are bad. Think about that for a second: imagine a film critic, who walked out of the theater wiping tears from his eyes, belly aching with laughter, then straightening his posture and saying, “The camerawork was terrible! Thumbs down!”

    So yeah, just make sure your gameplay holds up to scrutiny. As much as I love comedy games, few have been well received by the press.

  • Zeus said,

    And I’m in no way implying your project HAS technical problems. I’m just saying, comedy games are scrutinized in a way comedy films are not. People who’d laugh at “cinema snobs” that trash good comedy movies for technical faults nod their heads in agreement with game critics who do the same.

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    Oh, I’m absolutely certain any reviewer could find a million things to nitpick about the game on the technical / gameplay front. It comes from complexity, to a degree – the more complexity you add, the more opportunities for things to Not Work Right, or Not Work the Way the Player Wants It To. Game design is always about those trade-offs which are guaranteed to honk of somebody.

    But still, I’m trying to make it a solid, fun game underneath, even if the humor falls flat. Which it might, as far as I know. I’m definitely not writing every single line of dialog for yucks, either.

    I think comedy films get the fuzzy end of the lollipop, too. For example, comedies almost never get nominated for Best Picture by the Academy.

    Anyway – getting panned by the press but selling tens of thousands of copies would be preferable to the other way around. I’d rather the game be loved by players than by reviewers, if I *HAD* to make that choice.

  • Wheeeee said,

    Congrats. Not only is your blog one of my favorites but the game as well.

    THAT and I want to see how TGE will work/look on my PC after all this time. 😀

  • Ugly said,

    Coyote you happen to have any good links to news on latest indie games available etc… I used to go to gametunnel for my game fixes but they abandoned it 🙁

  • Gareth Fouche said,

    Well done Jay 🙂

  • Zeus said,

    @Ugly: I’ve got some links for you, man!

    Indie Games Blog usually has something worth playing at least every day or two. I check it out the most. It’s especially good for freeware or flash games: http://indiegames.com/blog/

    Rock Paper Shotgun has convinced me to buy more indie games than anyone else (classics like Mount & Blade, etc.) They also cover non-indie stuff, so I’ll link directly to their indie section: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/indie/

    TIG Source is updated less frequently than others, and tends to be a bit snobby about certain genres (JRPGs, etc.) That being said, they have a big backlog of posts: http://www.tigsource.com/

    Play This Thing also covers board games, but mostly indie titles for the PC. The have longer reviews than most other sites, so it’s good if you like to read about games before you play them: http://playthisthing.com/

    Then there are general collection sites, like http://www.indiedb.com/ and http://db.tigsource.com/ which are good for rolling in and mass downloading a year’s worth of indie titles.

    Incidentally, this month’s PC Gamer ran a two page article on where to find indie games. Check it out. Long live the printed page, and all that. 😀

  • Ugly said,

    Zeus Thanks!

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