A Tabletop-RPG at heart
First and forthmost, Skaldsong is to me a TTRPG that you can play at anytime with anyone. With a party, by yourself, it doesn't matter because you will always have a DM and the actions of the world don't rest solely on your shoulders.
Have you read Ender's Game? I guess the movie counts too, but it was borne of the idea of the Giant's Game- You have a scenario and have any infinite number of ways to solve it. Except in this case, you aren't limited to one specific scenario but rather anything you can really come up with. Skaldsong started as Fenris, then Skald, and now Skaldsong- This is the fourth iteration of the project which has been on-going for about two years now
What makes Skaldsong different?
That's a good question, and I may be a bit biased, but here are my thoughts: I've seen a lot of projects try to sell their game as 'infinite worlds' 'infinite choices' 'Super powered by AI!' whatever you'd like to see; however, the reality has always been oversold by the promises. Consistently the experience is vapid, non-sensical, and limited heavily. Kill an enemy? Oh, look, he stabs you in the back (Looking at you AI Dungeon). Try to move to the next town? Better hope the AI even remembers the town still exists in two actions. To put it bluntly, they suck. And worst of all, some of them have horrible graphical interfaces- Like a splatter of paint over a collage of random newspaper clippings.
But what's different about Skaldsong? To put it simply: Skaldsong isn't a game ran by AI. It's a game that works alongside AI. To put some meaning to that, in most of these 'AI DM' games, they just pass the entirety of your 'character sheet', what's happened, and what's happening in a recursive loop. They essentially play a game of telephone where information gets whittled down and dilluted until it no longer truly knows what has already happened and what is happening.
On the other hand, there is an entire game behind Skaldsong. It holds all of the data, Locations, Characters, Items, Quests, Notes, World map, AI Notes- Everything. And it intelligently gives this information, as needed, to the AI for context. For example, nearby locations, characters, quest objectives, etc, but only when it's needed. It also exposes commands the AI can run to add these things or make changes or to do actions, such as damaging or healing a character.
Essentially, what this means is that everything that happens in the game, stays in the game. Every detail noted, stats for characters, histories for anything and everything, appearances of characters, items, currency amounts, etc. There's actual permenance. And this game system gives a set of rules to the AI as to how to 'play the game'. These rules define to the AI how to interact with the game, set the pacing, react to actions, and provide an experience tailored to the players playing.
Multiplayer and Customization
From the very first tests, Skaldsong was always going to be a multiplayer experience. I'm one of those guys who finds it hard to play games solo anymore, and I gotta say, Skaldsong is like no other experience. I'll be honest, I've played games like Dungeons and Dragons for well over a decade and a half and in all of that time, nothing has quite come close to this.
When I run campaigns in Skaldsong with buddies, I usually keep it to three players max- It seems like a good number to me. And the rules are the following: 1) Out of combat, you can take up to two actions per turn (messages in the chatbox). You don't have to take both, but you can without question. 2) In combat, you can only take one action per turn. And lastly, 3) You may ask the other party members for an action at any time, the decision up to them. With these three rules, the game runs fantastically, ensuring everyone has fun and gets some spotlight.
Moving on to customization, I will dive further on this in another Dev Diary about the UI customization, but regarding campaign customization, it has always been the intent for players to be able to set up the game as they wish. Players hosting games have access to a lot of different options, but to explain some of the bigger ones, when creating a campaign you have these major variables: The Setting it takes place in (Ex. Low-fantasy medieval). The Genre of story (Mercenary Company Management and Warefare with Small Skrimishes). The Game Loop, the 'loop' the story will generally follow (We are a mercenary group trying to take over a settlement or keep of our own and to manage our own trade, army, and kingdom.)
And your most powerful tool of all... The Game Rules. The Game Rules is a place where the host can input rules that the AI must follow in the campaign. From testing and experience, you can use this to have the AI, for example, be able to do all of the following:
Add a management layer onto a campaign. Receiving reports of financials, long-term projects, decision making, strategic largescale actions.
Run a simulation of a school day, moving all student characters from classroom to classroom in their proper individual schedules in a slice of life campaign.
Create a colosseum arena, management to train, purchase gear, and other actions for your gladiators then go through a series of 3 combats, each progressively harder than the previous, and each day the fights continue scaling in difficulty and reward until you eventually succumb.
To put it simply, you are not just limited to an 'Adventure Game'. Horror, Slice of Life, Romance, Management, Strategy... All of these I've tried and have had fantastic results with. On launch, there will be a few campaigns pre-built and available for you to try out.
Until Next Time
Leading up to release, I'll write up more Dev Diaries. If there's a specific topic you would like to hear about, feel free to come visit the Discord and let me know. Otherwise, I'll likely go in-depth about some of Skaldsong's fundemental systems, just to name a few: The World Map, the Sticker system, Passage of Time, UI Customization, Content Creation Tools, and Steam Workshop Integration...
Regardless, I'll see you next time!
Skaldsong Discord