Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Frayed Knights Takes Home the RPGWatch Indie Game of the Year Award!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 26, 2012

That loud “WOOT!” you just heard emanating from the Wasatch Mountains a little while ago? That was me.

Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon just won the Editor’s Choice Award at RPGWatch for Indie Game of the Year.

Read all about it here:

RPGWatch Game of the Year Awards 2011 – Best Indie RPG

I’ll let you read the whole thing.

While we came in fourth in the Reader’s Choice polling, the race was VERY close (all four of the top choices came within 5% of each other), and the other three titles were all on Steam and had about 100x the exposure of Frayed Knights. So I still feel pretty good about that, too.

So now what?

Well, I definitely have my sights set on winning these awards (and more) with the sequel. I don’t want to talk too much about that yet, because there are some plans that are still in flux. Not whether or not it will happen, but some of the changes that are being made to the game. I will say at this point Frayed Knights 2 is shaping up to be more of a true sequel than just a “part two.” There’ll be a lot of improvements to the game mechanics and interface side of things.

More importantly, though – this first game was really an experiment. By the time I was finishing up the last of the quests and plotlines, I felt like I was finally getting the hang of how to write a Frayed Knights game. I hope to take all of that experience and really apply it for the sequels. The stories may have a little bit more serious-ish drama mixed in with the comedic plot. If you’ve played the original through the end (or at least through the part where Shiela and Florentine play a major role), you know what I’m talking about.

On the Mac front, we’ve run into some technical and life-related issues that are delaying the release of Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon on that platform a bit, but things are still progressing. I’d originally hoped to release the Mac version by the end of this month. I’d originally intended to release the PC version before the end of 2009, too, so I’m notorious for missing my internal milestones like that. I don’t think we’ll be that far delayed on the Mac release, however. But at this time we don’t have an ETA. I am taking steps which I *hope* will make the Mac release of the sequels far, far easier and faster – ideally simultaneous with the PC release.

In the meantime, however, I’m gonna take a moment to look back. This was a long, hard journey, and it was made possible by the help and encouragement of friends and the community here. So here is a hearty thank-you to all of you here for the suggestions, feedback, beta testing, interest, promotion, words of encouragement, words of constructive criticism, contribution of ideas and even art assets (!!!) (including the Frayed Knights: TSOSD logo!), and a constant reminder of who I was writing this game for. You guys rock!


Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 15 Comments to Read



  • nyxalinth said,

    Grats!

  • jzoeller said,

    Major Contratz!

  • Greg Squire said,

    Major Congrats! Well deserved. When does the major award arrive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJSmmbmJCLw)? 😉

  • jwmeep said,

    Did the Steam guys every say why they didn’t accept the game?

    It’s a shame that Frayed knights didn’t do better in the Reader’s Choice division, but hey, I know it’s good, so I guess that works.

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    @Greg – It must be Italian!

    @jwmeep – Nope, they said it’s their policy not to comment on their reasons for rejection. I have several educated guesses, and it’s probably a combination of factors. But ah, well.

  • Rubes said,

    Sweet! Great job, man!

  • OttoMoBiehl said,

    Wow, Congratz!

  • Xian said,

    Congrats!

    @jwmeep I have wondered why games get rejected on Steam too but they never say why they were rejected. Why did they take Depths of Peril, but not Din’s Curse since both were from Soldak?

    @Coyote I really feel guilty now 🙁 You were only 2 votes away from third place. I had bought FK, but hadn’t got around to really playing it until this week, so I voted for the only 2 on the list that I had played, Bastion and Avadon. If you had taken away my vote for Avadon and added one for FK, they would have been tied for third. I reasoned that I couldn’t really vote for something as best of the year if I hadn’t played it.

    /me wanders off to hide his head in the corner.

  • Spaceman Spiff said,

    WOOT! Huge congratulations are due.

  • UDM said,

    That’s amazing, congratulations Jay!

  • Jay K. said,

    Congratulations.

    About that Mac version. You should probably fire that guy. What a bum!

  • GhanBuriGhan said,

    You have won the two awards that count for the Hardcore RPG crowd – congratulations! I hope it gets the game a little more attention. And I hope it makes the Steam gatekeeper feel a little stupid 🙂

  • Brian 'Psychochild' Green said,

    Hey, congrats! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. 🙂

  • Barry Brenesal said,

    Congrats, guy. 🙂

  • Michael77 said,

    Congrats, looking forward to FK2!

top