Frayed Knights - Editorial @ Rampant Games

The developer of Frayed Knights Jay Barnson has a new post about the games skill trees, and how he will handle them in the games sequel.

Making Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon was a learning experience for me, of course. It’s funny how you can think you know what you are doing after decades of playing games, and even years of experience making games, but when it comes down to actually implementing a design and making it fun… it throws you. Some things that sound like the best idea ever on paper don’t work out. And then there are some design ideas that you look at much later and wonder what the hell you were thinking of when you did that.

And sometimes you just have something that started out simple that grew way out of control.

In Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon, the “Feat” system was that latter sort of beast. I’m not exactly sure where it all came from, to be honest. By what I can recall, it started out as just a supplement to increasing your main attributes (Might, Brains, Charm, Luck, and Reflexes – which sounded funnier when I first designed the stats). It was perhaps a misguided attempt to make sure the non-spellcasting characters had something to do other than just attack and defend in combat, and ways of adding a little bit of customization to their party. I opted not to do a full-fledged, detailed skill system. While that’s great if you are only controlling a single character, with a whole party of characters it gets to feel micro-manage-y. So I opted for doing a small list of one-off “feats” that could be purchased on leveling up in addition to raising your stats.