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Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: Serpent in the Staglands (Now on Kickstarter)

Zed

Codex Staff
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Codex USB, 2014
Tags: Serpent in the Staglands; Whalenought Studios

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It was just before this weekend when Whalenought Studios' Serpent in the Staglands caught the attention of the Codex by showcasing its lovely-looking pixel art graphics and name-dropping genre classics Darklands and Baldur's Gate in their Kickstarter pitch. It was a great pitch too, but it left us pondering about a few things, so we got in touch with Whalenought for an interview.

The interview mainly covers the game in question and its mechanics and design. Here's a few Q/As to wet your appetite:

Graphically, I would have a hard time trying to imagine a game looking more like a cross between Darklands and Baldur's Gate than Serpent in the Staglands. However, you cite these games as influences for the game's innards rather than how it looks. Let's start with Darklands. What have you drawn from this game?

Thank you! That was absolutely what we were going for (and budgeted for). We’re keeping the art gritty and ground in some amount of realism.

Similar to their classless skill system, our system involves building your character by selecting any combat, spell or aptitude skills you’d like. This allows for a vast amount of customization and personality — rewarding creativity with your own custom build types. The Darklands combat is frenetic and pretty ruthless and we’re trying to capture that as well. Nothing was more satisfyingly demoralizing than failing to best some bandits and getting told they stole all your equipment and money and left you for dead. Their story scenes were the original inspiration for our Aptitude creation and uses outside combat.

On the Kickstarter page, you mention a few locations such as Emerald Mines and the forest domain of the Wandering Lady. Will the player travel seamlessly between these areas or do you use a world map system like the one found in the Infinity Engine games? Is the progression linear or can the player choose which areas to visit and in what order?

We designed a system that’s completely open for the player to explore at will. Enemies and conflicts don’t level with you, so there isn’t necessarily an order, but general areas are safer out of the gate than others.

Similar to other crpgs, maps are individual scenes that you can exit near the edges that will bring you to an overworld map with markers that you manually traverse. You can have random events and ambushes take place while traveling, along with uncovering secret locations.

Where do you see Whalenought heading with Serpent in the Staglands? It's a certainly a departure from your earlier, perhaps more accessible, mobile games. Are you looking to become the next Spiderweb Software or Basilisk Games, focusing on throwback CRPGs?

Our plan is to continue to explore the world of Vol (where the Staglands lies) in future games. We have a lot planned for other continents to explore and are excited to continue unraveling the lore in other campaigns.​

If you think this game sounds balls-off-the-court awesome after having read the interview, be informed that the Kickstarter is still ongoing!

Read the full article: RPG Codex Interview: Serpent in the Staglands (Now on Kickstarter)
 

felipepepe

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I'm unsure on how well "higher level = higher RNG" will work, but their answers are good and they seem to be very competent and confident on what they are doing. :salute:
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Nice interview. I feel confident they are making something memorable. We'll see how good it turns out.

I'm unsure on how well "higher level = higher RNG" will work, but their answers are good and they seem to be very competent and confident on what they are doing. :salute:
That's how Savage Worlds works. If something has a difficulty of 4 and you roll a 1d4 vs a 1d20, your odds of accomplishing the task are better simply by having a higher RNG.
 

FeelTheRads

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These people talk to me much more than Obsidian ever did with PE, even if it's still RTwP.
 

Trash

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Always loved the Darklands combat for the exact reasons they give. It was deadly, highly detailed, versatile, tactical and offered lots of options. Heavy armor offered more protection but was also cumbersome and, well, heavy. Crossbow was deadly but slow to reload. Potions were expensive and needed to be thrown expertly but could change a battle. Do I arm my men with polearms, axes, heavy zweihanders, bastard swords or just a stick? And what works best in what fight? Taking on a robber knight and his heavily armored troops is different from tackling a bunch of lightning fast wolves or mad cultists. And do hold on to your hats when you engage a demon. Loved that.

It was also cluncky to control and rough, though I suspect that's not what they liked about it. :) Stuff like this was very much evolving at the time and I can see how people not used to the more crap control schemes of yesteryear would have a problem with it. Like the artstyle. Sounds like this one has potential to become a pretty cool and memorable rpg. I'm intrigued. Looking forward to see more of this and especially what they'll do with the overland map. Darklands is one of the few rpg's that managed to get that portion of the game right. Wonder if they're inspired by that part as well. Anyway, pledged.
 

Gozma

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The (basically only) ...interesting... thing about Darklands combat is how brutal the rules for an individual fighting multiple enemies are. If one character gets 3 guys on him he's gonna be dead in seconds. Combine that with the ultra-clunky pathing control and every combat has a couple of seconds of suspense when the moment of melee engagement happens and you see if anyone fucks up and tries to walk twenty seconds out of his way to try to attack the furthest enemy they can find. Then by the magic of Rtw/P you pause a thousand times reissuing orders to try to get that guy to engage somebody before the enemies roll up your whole group with successive 3v1s. Jesus Darklands combat get your shit together
 

Murk

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This is one of those "half erect, wish to see more" type of reactions.

I think a solid 30 minute "here's some guy playing" video without precanned exposition would be dope. Still, I am of a positive view -- the stuff they say (tho much of it is typical "more good, less bad") and the art/content they have shown is looking good. Good to see actual gameplay right out the bat too -- speaks greatly, IMO.
 

CrustyBot

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Codex 2012
Good interview, they're pretty optimistic about their ability to finish the game and have it live it up the hype, but I like a lot of what I see in the pitch and info I've read so far.

Considering waiting a week or two and putting down $75, though I'm not sure how that will work since I live in Australia (international shipping for the handbook).
 

felipepepe

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This thread is harsh? People saying they liked the interview and some debating about Darklands combat? Damn, I wonder what he would think seeing the W2 thread.... :lol:
 

t

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Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
How likely is it to see the light of day and be any decent? I'm in the mood to drop a couple of bucks on something Hivemind approves of.
 

hexer

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I can't find any info on how many hours of gameplay is planned. Anyone knows?
 

Durwyn

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I can't find any info on how many hours of gameplay is planned. Anyone knows?
Creator Whalenought Studios about 19 hours ago

6. We haven’t calculated the extension of the entirety of the game yet, but the main campaign planned out, with minimal side quests, and exploration, we’re aiming to net the player around 20 hours. We have this planned out, and are going to begin planning more side stories, quests, special map markers, more secret markers, and much more intrigue and bounties. The main quest has many choices you can make that depart you completely from parts of the story you would otherwise see - replay value is important to us, and to telling the story from different angles.
 

Guilhem

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Good interview, they're pretty optimistic about their ability to finish the game and have it live it up the hype, but I like a lot of what I see in the pitch and info I've read so far.

Considering waiting a week or two and putting down $75, though I'm not sure how that will work since I live in Australia (international shipping for the handbook).


As per the developer, shipping is free to anywhere (presumably that includes the Southern Hemisphere).

As far as Dawn's comment, Kickstarter backers can get rather protective of projects they get emotionally attached to.
 

Dr Schultz

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I'm unsure on how well "higher level = higher RNG" will work, but their answers are good and they seem to be very competent and confident on what they are doing. :salute:

I'm pretty sure, instead: horribly.
And it's a shame, considering that I really like the idea of passive melee skills in a RTwP game.
Backed, anyway.
 

Boxer

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Bladders Gay and Derplands combat as an influence pretty much instantly puts this into the worthless vomit bin.
To top it of, you get a 2 "man" team of wife and "man". The wife is the coder monkey who used to dabble in webdev, writing, etc... Olololol.
A target of 10k for 2 people to work on cements this as a shitty techdemo.

Was there a single game on Shitstarter that is worth my time? Shadowrun has broken combat and Bioware CnC with worse! than Emoware writing. How is that even possible?
That other Bioware waste product that got split into 3 parts, havent tried yet...
Do you people have zero selfrespect?
 

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