Skullstone - On Steam Greenlight

[HiddenX]

The dungeon crawler Skullstone is now on Steam Greenlight:

Skullstone - Official Trailer

Story:

After a most unusual earthquake in the middle of a raging thunderstorm, dangerous creatures started appearing near a small mining town. Attacks on locals and travelers started soon after. Hunters discovered that in the mouth of a mysterious rock formation, known as Skullstone, a passage appeared. Long and dark corridor leading down below, and tracks suggest it's the monsters' lair. The elders agreed to send messengers calling for mercenaries who'll walk into the mouth of Skullstone to explore the evil place.

The player picks four out of twenty pre-made characters. Each of them with an unique set of skills and abilities, and with advantages and disadvantages. The party of mercenaries is then sent into the underground to explore abandoned mines, dark dungeons, ancient temples and other mysterious environments. Variety of monsters await. From simple spiders and giant rats, through ghouls and golems, to beast so unique you’ve never seen them in any other title. Each and every creature uses not only attacks typical for it kind but also have access to a set of skills enabling them to harm you with various curses and area of effects attacks.

Gameplay:

Exploration combined with survival is on of main gameplay elements. The dungeon is full of secret rooms, switches, various puzzles and riddles, notes and ancient books (filled with tips and helpful information). Finding a powerful weapon, piece of armour or a magical artifact (to use in fight or a quest) will not be uncommon as well. Moreover, it’s possible to gather food to fight growing hunger and which might be used in formulas to create potions.

During short brakes from discovering secrets of the underground world, players will be able to visit the town above the dungeon, where the team can resupply, unconscious members are revived, important NPCs can be talked to, and, most importantly, quests can be received. Apart from you main mission a number of side-quests will be available.

Incoming features:

While core of the game is completed, right now we’re still working on few other gameplay elements:

• underground environments and object found in the dungeon
• quests and puzzles
• GUI
• magical effects
• increasing number of monsters, weapons, equipment and other models
• party members’ commentaries to various events

More information.

 

[luj1]

This doesn't spark my interest at all. Looks like a generic Grimrock clone.

 

[Carnifex]

I'm a big fan of dungeon crawlers so I'll be keeping an eye on this one for sure. I'd preferred a turn based game, but if it's decent I'll be ok with a grim-like game.

 

[Pongo]

Yeah looks potentially decent, albeit slightly generic. Perhaps a less Grimrocky wall texture would have helped - grid based game dungeons don't all need to look the same. But I could imagine sinking time into this.

 

[FrozenShade]

Perhaps a less Grimrocky wall texture

Some screens at Greenlight page actually presents different type of dungeon. Perhaps we should show more of them.

 

[rjshae]

Seems like this is feeding a pretty niche audience, so I don't expect it will get tremendous sales. *shrugs* It'd be nice to see some of these blobber-dungeon-crawl efforts get away from the blocky, rectangular dungeon topology and give us more interesting geometries to explore: ramps, curves, diagonals, spirals, platforms, &c. Bard's Tale IV looks good in that respect.

 

[Deleted User]

I'm doing an interview with these guys as we speak. They were nice enough to drop by my Steam group and chat a bit about the game, so we set up a little interview.

I didn't ask if the different dungeon levels look different, etc., so maybe a dev can just answer it here. How many total unique-looking levels will be in the game, and how will the various levels be distinguished from each other visually?

 

[Majnun]

It being a generic Grimrock clone isn't a bad thing.

I mean the first Grimrock game was just dungeon maps all rearranged (visually) and was still a good game. It was the same textures rearranged. So what?

I think I need more information.

 

[FrozenShade]

We plan to have 3 or 4 different styles of dungeons. All of them with different wall textures, different 3D models of doors, trapdoors, shelves, torches and other light sources. Every dungeon style has its own unique set of decorations - like spider's webs, roots, old barrels on currently developed one.
There are things that looks the same on every different style. For example keyholes and resurrection altars.

 

[Pongo]

I'm doing an interview with these guys as we speak. They were nice enough to drop by my Steam group and chat a bit about the game, so we set up a little interview.

Good work Fluent - I look forward to reading it.

I'd be interested to hear more about how how systems like magic and lockpicking etc work if included, and what the rationale was for having 20 premade characters rather than a character creation scheme. It sounds like the characters are being given personalities - will this affect the game world (eg character quests or character specific secrets)? And will the town be an explorable map, or more like an options/selection screen?

Anyway, I like these kind of games and it looks decent so its a purchase from me.

 

[Tomato]

Does anyone know if the combat is real time or turn based?

 

[Pongo]

Does anyone know if the combat is real time or turn based?

Real time.

 

[Carnifex]

I prefer turn based myself but for a real dungeon crawler I'll certainly give it a try. BTW being lumped with Grimrock is a huge compliment!

 

[Deleted User]

Hey guys. I posted the interview I did with Skullstone on my Steam group. Hope you enjoy and that it sheds some light on the game and its systems.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FluentsRPGWorld/discussions/0/133259227522572327/