SKALD: Against the Black Priory

The vibe that comes off the SKALD launch trailer perfectly summarizes what you can expect from Anders Lauridsen’s latest dark cosmic horror game: an authentic 8-bit role playing experience flashed on a Commodore 64-like cartridge that somehow was left undiscovered back in the day. Luckily for us, the game comes with a few modern ease-of-play enhancements that makes playing these eighties cRPGs less rough around the corners.

In SKALD, you’re a mercenary who was hired to retrieve Embla, a princess gone rogue. She was last spotted heading to the Outer Isles, an archipelago where strange things happen. Before you know it, your ship that was heading towards the isles was violently broken into thousands of pieces by a giant Kraken-like monster, killing most of the crew in the process. You awake ashore and try to piece together what you can, recruiting up to five NPCs along the way that each have their own interest in trying to lift the veil of madness lingering on the isles.

Mechanically speaking, SKALD stays true to its roots: it can be seen as a classic eighties computer role playing game akin to Ultima IV: you move in (x,y) “hops” in the overworld, enter dungeons and towns, do turn-based combat and roll lots of D20-system dice across a screen that is divided into sections (character sheets, actions/info, battle/overview) exactly like the early Ultima games, issuing commands by using keyboard shortcuts.

That also means there’s no automap, nobody tells you where to go, you can easily die by sticking your head in the wrong cave, and everything is a bit more cryptic than your modern RPG. If you’re used to having a game hold your hand, you won’t enjoy SKALD. That being said, its modernist touches also make it much less hard than early Wizardry and Ultima games where without hand-drawing maps you were pretty much screwed. By tuning down the difficulty all the way to story mode, you can even sit back and enjoy the show without worrying about attributes, equipment, feats, or those dice rolls, which is a nice touch. I was a bit weary and didn’t dare to start at higher difficulty levels but easy really is (too) easy. You can bump it up as soon as you get comfortable with its mechanics.

I really enjoyed SKALD’s atmosphere that really hits home in the the 8-bit department. The CGA colour palette, the gritty music done by Surt R. (see the battle tune in the launch trailer linked above)—of which the soundtrack is available at Bandcamp and included in GOG’s Deluxe Edition—the interface, the way you interact with the world, … Everything matches perfectly.

Not that everything is perfect, though. As an RPG, I expect the world around me to react as I make a conscious choice. Sometimes, the small details are ignored, such as breaking open a chest in front of someone’s nose and yanking everything out of it, only to say Can I help you with anything? a second later. Stunts like that won’t fly in games like Baldur’s Gate or Arcanum.

At one point, we entered a rogue compound where black market sellers tried peddling their wares at a high rate. I just ordered Kat, our thief, to steal everything she could see. Every single die roll was successful, which seemed odd, as the vendors I’m stealing from are thieves themselves! Finding cool equipment can also be problematic, depending on the weapon type. My ranger specialized in axes as I already had two people equipping swords but that was a bad idea, and I never really found an attractive two-handed sword for Roland, meaning I let him smash things the entire game with the plain sword he was carrying when he joined our band. That felt like either a missed opportunity or a big oversight on my account, even though I did my best to finish all side quests I could get my hands on.

The stealing thing and not very exciting equipment renders money and picking up regular items a bit useless. There’s more to pick up though, as you’ll have to cook your own food and craft your own potions. Unfortunately, picking the whole area clean nets nothing but reagents that will rot in your pockets as healing spells are easier to deal with and food is only needed during sleep which can also be easily foraged. I liked the idea but after chapter 2 never bothered to do anything with it. That does mean that pressing SHIFT to highlight objects in the world one can interact with will draw a lot of yellow strokes that ultimately don’t really matter. Oh well.

How about combat then? The sounds made by the slashes of your weapons sound like very satisfying squishes that, combined with a screen shake after a critical hit, sends YES! shivers down my spine. I was a bit disappointed that the most effective way to get rid of enemies was just hitting them again and again and again with the biggest thing you can get your hands on. My champion—a paladin-like do-gooder with ample melee experience and also a bit of divine knowledge—did a pitiful amount of damage compared to Roland, your standard burly fighter that as he levelled gained traits allowing him to hit even more baddies within the same round.

As for magic and the spellbook choices, most of them were a bit underwhelming. I ended up just spamming area-of-effect Fireballs until my attunement ran out—the game’s version of mana. Magic is (not) broken in the game, it just does less damage compared to a weapon swing. Luckily, my champion’s buffs did matter a lot. The whole system and spell tree looks promising but overall fails to deliver, which is a bit of a bummer.

Depending on your fascination or familiarity with cosmic horror and eldritch horror RPGs, the ending could also be called a bit of a bummer. Spoiler alert: it ends (really, really) badly. The last chapter ended in a great deal of confusion for me, and after scouring fan forums, I clearly wasn’t the only one looking for answers. Then again, me trying to get hold of answers proves that the twenty-something hour long game had a tight grip on me.

I’m really glad indie developers still dare to put out more obscure games like SKALD that definitely cater to a small crowd. If you grew up with these kinds of games or have a soft spot for old school RPGs, you owe it to yourself to check out SKALD. Just don’t expect a perfectly balanced experience and be prepared to face a bit of partially unexplained dark twists.