KickStarter Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - first-person open world RPG adaptation of Kickstarted board game - now on Early Access

[mediocrepoet]

Played a bit. IDK if the spell was added with the update or not but Icicle blast is amazing. A "frost fireball" with amazing AoE damage. My char. I really liked the game.

Of course you do, it features powerful mages and is letting you play a cryomancer. You'd talk about how Solitaire was the best game of all time if you could cast a firestorm that would clear the table of cards.

Can we get an unbiased opinion in here, please?

 

[Cryomancer]

Of course you do, it features powerful mages and is letting you play a cryomancer.

Nope. I would say that wizards are weaker than Morrowind in every aspect except in mana regeneration.

Wanna my honest opinion about the game? Imagine if Morrowind + Skyrim had a son in a a dark fantasy version of Celtic mythology and Arthurian legends. IS hard to detail much things that you will encounter in this game but one exotic thing which I found is People in a mine amputating their own hands and worshiping a bizarre statue, sadly the bizarre druid rituals only appears in books and dialog but I hope that they will include everything in the final game.

 

[Cryomancer]

Anyway, Sinitar gaming has a video about the game.

I recommend that instead of buying Starfield or any bugthesda game, people should buy THIS game instead.



------------------------

What really surprised me is. A game based in Celtic mythology where the people look like Celts? Then searched a bit more and was made by Awaken Realms, a Polish developer without ESG. And it speaks volumes. Around 5 hours of play of an early access game and zero bugs found. This game has everything to be high quality ie - no diversity hires.

 

[Cryomancer]

Anyway, just now realized that I was playing 0.5e instead of 0.6e, so far, a quick review of the pros and cons of the game so far in version 0.6 :

Pros :

• Very interesting setting - A very dark twisted Celtic mythology and Arturian legend inspired world.
• People in a Celtic mythology Island looks like Celts. This is quite impresive in this ESG world.
• Armor looks like armor, not something that I expect to see in Hell de Janeiro's carnival
• The combat is amazing, Takes inspiration from Dark Souls and Skyrim
• Magic has everything which I expect in a fantasy RPG, summon weapons, heal, debuffs, AoE, direct damage.
• Enemy AI is relative good. IF you ran out of mana and try to run, they will use throwable weapons against you
• Mana regen is extremely slow, if you missmanaged your mana as a mage, you will be forced to melee enemies
• Good variety of one handed weapons, maces, clubs, axes, swords
• Decent variety of ranged weapons, bows and throwable weapons with special arrows like flame arrow
• Many quests have multiple solutions
• The story seems amazing so far
• Exploration also amazing, every place that I go, I find something interesting, at least so far
• Mana/Health potions don't insta heal, they heal over time.
• The graphics are gorgeous
• Great attribute + attribute tree system
• Hybrid system where you advance char level by xp and skill level by usage.

Now Cons :

• The game is too heavy.
• Low two handed variety, so far I only found claymore as two handed weapons, they would should halberds and poleaxes
• All magic is only one skill. IE - No differentiation between summoning magic, offensive magic and buffs.
• The world so far is too tinny

So that is it.

I will have a job interview in few minutes but will go back to the game after my job interview is over. This game is incredible fun.

 

[notpl]

I'm so sick of "dark, twisted" reimaginings of Arthurian myth. How about you just let me play an actual fucking knight and save some maidens/smite the wicked for once? Beat faeries by solving riddles instead of by triggering a gory cinematic finisher? Let me see some fucking GREEN GRASS in a setting allegedly inspired by the British isles? Please?

 

[Cryomancer]

I'm so sick of "dark, twisted" reimaginings of Arthurian myth. How about you just let me play an actual fucking knight and save some maidens/smite the wicked for once? Beat faeries by solving riddles instead of by triggering a gory cinematic finisher? Let me see some fucking GREEN GRASS in a setting allegedly inspired by the British isles? Please?

It is 2023. If Arthur/Merlin is not a deficient Afro obese lesbian, that is already good enough.

If was up to me, the game would have a more Slavic mythology influence instead of Celtic.

After playing a bit more today, I found the "bound bow" spell an he is quite good. After tried a bit of non magical archery in the game and is amazing. Even without stat investments, if someone wanna to have a easy time in this game, try the stealth archer. The undead summon is quite powerful at early game but almost worthless now. Except as distraction and with the perk which makes him blast. I also got the Icicle blast, they increased a lot the mana cost and damage. Is doing 60 AoE damage. Almost as powerful as the strongest bow of the game which I found so far. And with AoE.

Another review. This time much more critical


He criticize the audio which I din't noticed as I play listening to random youtube stuff(including the review) and the animations mainly with swords. But tbh I really enjoyed the animation with blunt melee weapons.

 

[pickmeister]

He complains about completely servicable sound effects and then says about voice acting "Some performance is done really well", ignoring the terrible echo? This guy is a complete dimwit trying hard to sound interesting.

Not saying the game doesn't look very rough, because it does..

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1466060/view/3705956511784227080

Patch 0.6: Judgment of the Excalibur is LIVE!

Hey Everyone!

Today is the DAY! We are extremely happy to invite you to our first Major Patch - 0.6: Judgment of the Excalibur.

This patch improves the game on almost every single layer. Our team has worked tirelessly for the past 6 months to make "Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon" an awesome experience. This is BY FAR the biggest patch we have ever made - not only in Questline's history but also across all Awaken Realms games!

Now, the Patch is FINALLY out and we do hope you will enjoy it!
We will talk a lot more about the patch later, but let us start with a release trailer! :D

Early Access and future of Tainted Grail
We published Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon in March and thanks to your support we were able to commit right away to our dreams of creating an amazing RPG experience. As we have said in one of the updates - we fully understand that by taking part in Early Access you guys are giving us credit for trust. And we do not take it for granted!

Patch 0.6 took us a while, but it was definitely necessary. Before adding next chapters we needed to:
> Make sure the core gameplay is as good as it can be
> Add more systems that will be present throughout the game
> Lay a better technological foundation for a big open world game
> Work on optimization and graphical presentation

You can think of Patch 0.6 as the almost-final version of the first chapter - next patches will focus much more on adding next parts of the adventures ahead!

So, what is new and is it worth coming back to Avalon…?

First of all - with Patch of this magnitude, unfortunately all previous saves will be corrupted. As we have warned before - Major patches in this Early Access might have this effect.

But, we have prepared for you a special “skip Island Asylum” option if you want to start exploring the mainland right away and see what is new. And boy, there is a lot of
NEW
.

NEW LANGUAGES
First, in addition to English and Polish, we have 4 new language translations added to the game: German, French, Chinese Simplified and Traditional. We are really excited to share our game with more people!


NEW CONTENT
We have added quite a lot of new content to find in the area of the Horns of the South. From wired, travelling merchants, to Red Priest representative and even a whole new section with Galahad or hidden garden of the druids.

But there is much more to find - whole new areas and dungeons, items and a lot of awesome secrets to discover.
A lot of new loot too!
Our team has hidden a lot of smaller and bigger things to find, too

BIG PERFORMANCE BOOST
We have worked hard on the technological backend of the game and we are happy to report that the game looks better, has better terrain, more NPCs and AI improvements optimization should be visibly better. It will greatly vary depending on your exact PC specs, from a few extra frames to even 30-40% better performance.

There is still some room for improvement and our team will definitely work on it, but the game is in a better place than it was on launch for sure.

LESS BUGS
We were able to fix a lot (but probably not all ) bugs that were happening in the Early Access. From un-finishable quests, to perks that did not work as intended - a lot of those are ironed out, so your fun will not be interrupted.

COMBAT REWORK
We have vastly improved combat. From visual and audio feedback, through new sets of animation up to enhancing Enemies AI and move sets. Right now combat is challenging, but much more enjoyable!

TERRAIN RE-DESIGN
We have worked through the whole map redesigning it. Firstly - for visuals, right now it is much more pleasant to the eye.
Secondly - to enhance optimization and lightning processes.
Thirdly - to work on level design, make some paths more intuitive and progressing through the map more rewarding.

DUNGEONS RE-DESIGN
We have also redesigned almost all dungeons in the game, so that all playstyles will be more viable. Now, you can very effectively play stealthy or at the distance.
Also, they look cooler and have a better placement of enemies and loot

NEW EPIC MUSIC
We are super excited to once again include some amazing tracks by Danheim to the game as well as adding a lot of new sounds of our own. In total, audio overlay of the game is greatly improved!

DUAL WIELDING
We have also added dual wielding options in the game and it is really fun to play it this way! You can either use two 1-handed weapons or for example two spells. Or two shields :D

STEALTH / THEFT
As previously mentioned, we have increased the viability of the stealth playstyle. Want to rain some havoc as a sneaky archer or stab some enemies in the back? Now you can do it in style!
On top of that, we have introduced the first iteration of the theft system. While definitely not the final form - it changes the interactions and brings more realism to the game (no more stealing items in front of NPCs with no consequences :D)

IMPROVED CRAFTING / COOKING / POTION BREWING
All crafting systems in the game have been overhauled. You can expect easier interfaces, more impact from perks / talents and better balanced items.

IMPROVED VFX, LIGHTING ETC.
Generally, the game looks better - we have worked on many levels. From big ones - like lighting or VFX effects of spells, up to capes finally moving in the wind :D

REBALANCE OF ITEMS AND SKILLS
We have also worked through rebalancing the game. Some items got nerfed, some were upgraded and a lot was added. Generally, our target was to increase the number of different playstyles that you can enjoy and give us the ingredients that we could use to create some amazing combinations!

…and least, but most importantly:

ADDED FISHING
Yes, you heard it correctly! Now you can start your fishing adventure in Tainted Grail! There also MIGHT be some horse that you can find and ride… :D

OK! So, there are tons of more details everywhere, but those would be the most important highlights of this patch. We deeply encourage you to play this refined version of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - Patch 0.6: Judgement of the Excalibur is OFFICIALLY OUT!

As always, we are super grateful for your continued support. This is the game we always have dreamt about making and being able to do so… it is awesome.
If you want to help us - leaving a review on steam, sharing your feedback and spreading the word about the game would go a long way!


Thank you and we hope you will have
TONS
of fun with the new patch!

Best
Questline team

 

[Jinn]

Still interested in this despite the lukewarm feeling the demo gave me. My top concerns are rewarding character building, character progression, equipment progression, and challenge. If anyone ends up playing more in the coming months and can provide me with any context on these items, let me know please!

 

[Lord_Potato]

Looks decent. Is the world still tiny after the recent patch?

 

[toro]

Empty world, generic quests, slow updates ... a small developer without experiece trying to do Morrowind!?

This has zero chances of success. I just removed this from my wishlist. Good luck to the devs.

 

[Cryomancer]

Looks decent. Is the world still tiny after the recent patch?

Yes, but is a small developer and honestly, I rather quality than quantity like Starfield where there are hundreds of empty with nothing planets to ""explore"".

My top concerns are rewarding character building, character progression, equipment progression, and challenge. If anyone ends up playing more in the coming months and can provide me with any context on these items, let me know please!

IMO is quite good. There is attributes and skill levels, each attribute has a small tree. Progression is similar to TES games but with less power curve, you would't become a God-like entity(at least in 0.6)

a small developer without experiece trying to do Morrowind!?

They made other game and do have experience.

And Morrowind was made by a small dev. As for empty world, I disagree, every place which I go, I find something at least a bit interesting, underwater, in one of the starting locations, I found a very weird shit people amputating their arms and worshiping a statue

 

[cyborgboy95]

Patch 0.6: Judgment of the Excalibur is LIVE!

Hey Everyone!

Today is the DAY! We are extremely happy to invite you to our first Major Patch - 0.6: Judgment of the Excalibur.

This patch improves the game on almost every single layer. Our team has worked tirelessly for the past 6 months to make "Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon" an awesome experience. This is BY FAR the biggest patch we have ever made - not only in Questline's history but also across all Awaken Realms games!

Now, the Patch is FINALLY out and we do hope you will enjoy it!
We will talk a lot more about the patch later, but let us start with a release trailer! :D

Early Access and future of Tainted Grail
We published Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon in March and thanks to your support we were able to commit right away to our dreams of creating an amazing RPG experience. As we have said in one of the updates - we fully understand that by taking part in Early Access you guys are giving us credit for trust. And we do not take it for granted!

Patch 0.6 took us a while, but it was definitely necessary. Before adding next chapters we needed to:
> Make sure the core gameplay is as good as it can be
> Add more systems that will be present throughout the game
> Lay a better technological foundation for a big open world game
> Work on optimization and graphical presentation

You can think of Patch 0.6 as the almost-final version of the first chapter - next patches will focus much more on adding next parts of the adventures ahead!

So, what is new and is it worth coming back to Avalon…?

First of all - with Patch of this magnitude, unfortunately all previous saves will be corrupted. As we have warned before - Major patches in this Early Access might have this effect.

But, we have prepared for you a special “skip Island Asylum” option if you want to start exploring the mainland right away and see what is new. And boy, there is a lot of NEW.

NEW LANGUAGES
First, in addition to English and Polish, we have 4 new language translations added to the game: German, French, Chinese Simplified and Traditional. We are really excited to share our game with more people!


NEW CONTENT
We have added quite a lot of new content to find in the area of the Horns of the South. From wired, travelling merchants, to Red Priest representative and even a whole new section with Galahad or hidden garden of the druids.

But there is much more to find - whole new areas and dungeons, items and a lot of awesome secrets to discover.
A lot of new loot too!
Our team has hidden a lot of smaller and bigger things to find, too

BIG PERFORMANCE BOOST
We have worked hard on the technological backend of the game and we are happy to report that the game looks better, has better terrain, more NPCs and AI improvements optimization should be visibly better. It will greatly vary depending on your exact PC specs, from a few extra frames to even 30-40% better performance.

There is still some room for improvement and our team will definitely work on it, but the game is in a better place than it was on launch for sure.

LESS BUGS
We were able to fix a lot (but probably not all ) bugs that were happening in the Early Access. From un-finishable quests, to perks that did not work as intended - a lot of those are ironed out, so your fun will not be interrupted.

COMBAT REWORK
We have vastly improved combat. From visual and audio feedback, through new sets of animation up to enhancing Enemies AI and move sets. Right now combat is challenging, but much more enjoyable!

TERRAIN RE-DESIGN
We have worked through the whole map redesigning it. Firstly - for visuals, right now it is much more pleasant to the eye.
Secondly - to enhance optimization and lightning processes.
Thirdly - to work on level design, make some paths more intuitive and progressing through the map more rewarding.

DUNGEONS RE-DESIGN
We have also redesigned almost all dungeons in the game, so that all playstyles will be more viable. Now, you can very effectively play stealthy or at the distance.
Also, they look cooler and have a better placement of enemies and loot

NEW EPIC MUSIC
We are super excited to once again include some amazing tracks by Danheim to the game as well as adding a lot of new sounds of our own. In total, audio overlay of the game is greatly improved!

DUAL WIELDING
We have also added dual wielding options in the game and it is really fun to play it this way! You can either use two 1-handed weapons or for example two spells. Or two shields :D

STEALTH / THEFT
As previously mentioned, we have increased the viability of the stealth playstyle. Want to rain some havoc as a sneaky archer or stab some enemies in the back? Now you can do it in style!
On top of that, we have introduced the first iteration of the theft system. While definitely not the final form - it changes the interactions and brings more realism to the game (no more stealing items in front of NPCs with no consequences :D)

IMPROVED CRAFTING / COOKING / POTION BREWING
All crafting systems in the game have been overhauled. You can expect easier interfaces, more impact from perks / talents and better balanced items.

IMPROVED VFX, LIGHTING ETC.
Generally, the game looks better - we have worked on many levels. From big ones - like lighting or VFX effects of spells, up to capes finally moving in the wind :D

REBALANCE OF ITEMS AND SKILLS
We have also worked through rebalancing the game. Some items got nerfed, some were upgraded and a lot was added. Generally, our target was to increase the number of different playstyles that you can enjoy and give us the ingredients that we could use to create some amazing combinations!

…and least, but most importantly:

ADDED FISHING
Yes, you heard it correctly! Now you can start your fishing adventure in Tainted Grail! There also MIGHT be some horse that you can find and ride… :D

OK! So, there are tons of more details everywhere, but those would be the most important highlights of this patch. We deeply encourage you to play this refined version of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - Patch 0.6: Judgement of the Excalibur is OFFICIALLY OUT!

As always, we are super grateful for your continued support. This is the game we always have dreamt about making and being able to do so… it is awesome. If you want to help us - leaving a review on steam, sharing your feedback and spreading the word about the game would go a long way!

Thank you and we hope you will have TONS of fun with the new patch!

Best
Questline team

 

[sebas]

a small developer without experiece trying to do Morrowind!?

Morrowind had 35 people in the development team.

 

[Lord_Potato]

a small developer without experiece trying to do Morrowind!?

Morrowind had 35 people in the development team.

Hard to believe today, when AAA teams grow to thousands of people

 

[Cryomancer]

Hard to believe today, when AAA teams grow to thousands of people

Today dev teams are mostly bloat. Like chief diversity officers and diversity hires which only produce bugs.

But this game is particular, I don't think that will be better than Morrowind but in its current state is imo much better than fl4/76, starfield and etc.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Hard to believe today, when AAA teams grow to thousands of people

Today dev teams are mostly bloat. Like chief diversity officers and diversity hires which only produce bugs.

Diversity officers do not represent a significant portion of a 1000-people team. There are dozens of programmers, hundreds of artists, lots of people employed in QA, voice actors etc.

 

[sebas]

You don't need that many people to make a Morrowind type game in Unity. AAA game development nowadays have these huge teams because of the production value they implement. But if you stick to no VA, no Videos and a small amount of gear and enemy types then what you're left with is mechanics and quests which a dozen people can certainly handle.

To give you an example, Dark and Darker has a 20man development team.

 

[Cryomancer]

Diversity officers do not represent a significant portion of a 1000-people team. There are dozens of programmers, hundreds of artists, lots of people employed in QA, voice actors etc.

The Chief Diversity officer in commiefornia can cost in wages alone US$300/year; How many talented devs such money coudl pay in Poland? And if he "works" censoring good ideas, preventing talented people from getting hired, forcing artists to draw females as ugly as possible because everything against standards needs to be celebrated but everything which the average male likes is heresy and so on, a single one of them can destroy the quality of the game and if you disagree with such moral, you are a incel(**they call even Dan Bilzerian an incel, I'm not joking)

You don't need that many people to make a Morrowind type game in Unity. AAA game development nowadays have these huge teams because of the production value they implement. But if you stick to no VA, no Videos and a small amount of gear and enemy types then what you're left with is mechanics and quests which a dozen people can certainly handle.

Yep. Mainly nowadays, game developing nowadays is much easier than in the past.

 

[Cryomancer]

For those who are in doubt between pickign or not the game, a amazing first areas gameplay exploring melee, magic and questing on the beginning of the game.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Is optimization a priority? How is performance overall?

 

[Jinn]

Good video! The game seems to be coming along very nicely. Kind of wish it wasn't a year away from release, but I hope the time is utilized well and they come out with something fantastic. For a projected 70+ hours of content, a year almost doesn't seem like enough. Is there about 20 hours of content available so far in Early Access?

Kind of makes me want to play their first game, actually, despite generally despising its genre (roguelike deck-builder).

 

[Cryomancer]

Is optimization a priority? How is performance overall?

Honestly, in my pc, the game runs too poorly but I'm using Linux Debian which is not exactly the best gaming distro as it prioritizes stability and my GPU is much bellow the requirements, but I can play.

For a projected 70+ hours of content, a year almost doesn't seem like enough. Is there about 20 hours of content available so far in Early Access?

I imagine that they din't launched the entirety of content. Like baizuo's gate 3. Only act 1 was available in ea but they worked in all 3 acts.

 

[Tyranicon]

a small developer without experiece trying to do Morrowind!?

Morrowind had 35 people in the development team.

Hard to believe today, when AAA teams grow to thousands of people

If you have thousands of people working for a game studio, you're no longer making games. You're making corporate profit vehicles wearing the skin of a game.

 

[koyota]

a small developer without experiece trying to do Morrowind!?

They made other game and do have experience.

And Morrowind was made by a small dev. As for empty world, I disagree, every place which I go, I find something at least a bit interesting, underwater, in one of the starting locations, I found a very weird shit people amputating their arms and worshiping a statue

Tainted Grail: Conquest was amazing in how they limited scoped.

Obviously was a low budget game, but they spent the resources in places where it was matters, and made an outstanding, unique game under those limitations.

Was so unexpectedly good that it made me purchase Fall of Avalon unseen.

Quoting Rustys (RIP) review as agree with it entirely and is more coherent than I could ever write.

Rusty mini-review
Positives:

• Lots of different playstyles via classes. You start off with one class and unlock the rest pretty quickly, I believe there's about 10 total. I haven't played them all, but the ones I have played are mechanically very different.
• Well written story that was designed around the 'roguelike' game mechanics. The story is told through a persistent, changing world. You playing a different 'character' is how the narrative is designed, sidestepping spoilers as much as possible.
• The narrative seems to have a lot of choices that actually matter, to some degree anyways.
• Much like the story, there's a lot of persistent progression. You have a small village that you're building up, unlocking things, finding people to populate it, unlocking perks for your character, unlocking talents, etc.,
• Combat is good. I'm not a fan of card-based games at all. It's not a deckbuilder like say, Slay the Spire, it felt much more natural and RPG-y in terms of 'card'(ability) acquisition. There's no deck editing going on here, very infrequently can you drop a card from your deck. Acquiring new 'cards' is much closer to acquiring a new ability in an RPG, frequently when you level up or through ingame events.
• I found the combat difficulty to be acceptable. Nothing unfair, often challenging. The game doesn't hold your hand, so think twice about being overconfident when you talk to people. The difficulty increases the more you play, so I'll see how it goes.
• Lots of events in the explorable areas. These are basically the bread and butter of the game. Much of the narrative that's not explicitly part of the main quest plot will be unfolding here. Many of these, despite appearing otherwise at first, aren't one-off things. There's a bunch of interconnecting "side quest" plots.
• Music is fantastic, it stood out immediately. Matches with the game's surreal theme perfectly. I believe some(?) of it was done by the Danish band "Danheim" if anyone has heard of it.
• Nothing negative to say about the graphics.
• All the dialogue/story is fully voice acted, the English voice acting is high quality.
• Performance is acceptable/good. After loading into the game itself there is only short transitions between combat/exploration.

Negatives:

• The playable area isn't very big, and it seems like it might get repetitive. It does shift around a good bit in terms of style and what's actually there though.
• Not much in the way of equipment customization. Your character has slots for "runes", you start off with 2 and can unlock more. There's a ton of different runes, and you get 3(or 4/?) slots on your weapon, and 3(or 4?) on your armor. What the runes do depends on whether you have them in the weapon or armor slot. Not to be confused with cosmetic equipment, because it does seem to have a lot of unlockable cosmetics.
• ? The game is very tight and limited in scope so I'm having trouble coming up with flaws. They did a good job limiting scope/feature creep.

This definitely wasn't what I was expecting when I installed this, nor what I thought it would be from looking at the screenshots ages ago. Feels like a good storyfag RPG hidden inside a good roguelike. Very strong narrative themes tying the experience together. Also, the quality is significantly higher than I expected.
I really hate the term 'roguelite', but I believe that's what they refer to it as.

AFAICT, there's very little procedural generation going on here at all. Mostly just placement of some story elements on the world map. As I said above, the story/world is persistent and advances.

Verdict: Highly Recommended.
If I were asked whether it's worth the USD price it's listed at on Steam($19.99), I'd say absolutely yes. It's a very unique, well-designed experience, I've gotten $20 worth of enjoyment out of it and will continue playing it.