Druidstone - new tactical RPG from makers of Legend of Grimrock - out May 15

[Sly Boots]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/1 ... -rpg-hard/

Little preview on this from RPS, sounds balls-hard and not sure that's my bag really, but daresay there's a few suitable masochists on the forum

Out Spring 2019 apparently.

[Wrathbone]

Grimrock 1 was good, Grimrock 2 was great, and I'd buy their next game on that basis alone.

[Mantis]

I didn't really enjoy the previous games because I'm not so keen on the first person dungeon crawler genre. This, however, looks excellent.

[DjchunKfunK]

I'd take the difficulty of the game with a pinch of salt as it is Mr JW.

I don't like the idea of abilities that can only be used a few times per level though. How are you supposed to know when and where you can use them the first time you play the level? I'm not really interested in having to play levels multiple times to work out when I need to use the limited abilities I have.

[Sly Boots]

Release date for this, May 15th:

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/druidstone-a ... ext-month/

[Wrathbone]

Nice, that's sooner than I expected. Canary reporting for duty.

[Sly Boots]

Yeah, thinking I may go in for this as well, depending on launch price. Anything around the £20 mark and I'm in.

[Sly Boots]

Just seen you can pre-order now from their website with a 10% discount, so comes out at $22.49, which equates to £17.39 at current exchange rates.

https://druidstone-game.com/

Think I'd certainly give it a go for that.

Does anyone know if the Steam key you get will work in the UK region? Just wondering as don't think I've bought a game in that way previously, and the fact it's in dollars concerns me a little.

Edit: Actually it says as well as a Steam key you get a DRM-free standalone version of the game, so pretty sure that means it would be fine.

[DjchunKfunK]

It looks like it works the same way as Humble Bundle so it should be a universal Steam key.

EDIT:

if you pre-order from our site, you get Steam key and standalone installer.

[Sly Boots]

Cool, cheers.

Will pick this up, I reckon.

[Sly Boots]

FYI the 10% pre-order sale on their website ends tomorrow I think (with the game out on the 15th), so might be a good idea to take advantage (I just have) if you're planning on dipping your toes into this.

[Sly Boots]

Had a quick play of this this morning, did the opening two battles (the first a pretty short tutorial, the second a little bit more involved), and first impressions very positive. Feels really nice and polished to play, the art is nice and it's a lot of fun.

You can change the difficulty at any time, and even replay previous missions on a lower or higher difficulty... each map has secondary objectives that provide rewards when completed, in the form of XP and/or gems you use to upgrade your abilities, so it's worth trying to hit those if you can.

Playing on easy as from what I've read the harder difficulties are very challenging, and even then while I've not been in danger of dying I had to play each map a second time to hit all the objectives.

Will play more later on, but from what I've seen so far, recommended if you like turn-based, strategic combat type games.

[DjchunKfunK]

How does the combat compare to something like Divinity: OS?

[Sly Boots]

How does the combat compare to something like Divinity: OS?

Similar, in a sense, but from what I've seen so far anyway you aren't setting up environmental combos and the like. I played one just now though where there was an environmental hazard I lured a mini-boss close to and then detonated for big damage, so the maps can also be tactical in that sense.

It's turn-based but you can move your party of three (I don't know if that number increases as you progress) in any order, while for each character they can move and act in any order. In fact, because movement points and action points are separate, you can move a bit, fire off a spell (for example), then move again until you're out of movement points. You can move one character, switch to another to move them and take an action, then switch back to your first for their action... or any combo thereof. Basically, you can use all your partys' movement and action points in whatever order you see fit until you manually end your turn, when it switches to the enemies to do the same.

It's a pretty flexible system, and the way it plays out with some of the mission objectives it's closer to a puzzle game at times, trying to see the optimal solution from the tools at your disposal, than a straight combat-RPG.

You can also undo your most recent move (although only until you switch to another character, at which point it's seen as finalised), and one of your characters also has a one-use per mission turn reset ability, which allows for a certain amount of experimentation, while the gems you upgrade your skills with between missions can be switched around at will, so again experimentation is encouraged and you're never locked into what may be a sub-optimal build.

It's really neat, enjoying it.

[DjchunKfunK]

Cheer for that. In the preview I read it talked about spells being one time use in missions, how are you finding that side of things and how does it work exactly?