Eschalon: Book I

By: Derek Yu

On: November 19th, 2007

We first posted about this game over a damn year ago! Well, it seems it was worth the wait.

I haven’t played very much of Eschalon: Book I, but what I have, I’ve been pretty impressed by. The presentation is definitely top-notch. And I can see the creators took some inspiration from Diablo for their user interface. It’s not a bad thing – the game is incredibly easy to get into for a CRPG. I like how quickly you begin adventuring.

The story thus far feels a bit clichÃ©d (amnesiac hero, war between humans and Orc-equivalents, etc.), and hasn’t really pulled me in yet. The dialogue is also slightly contrived, in my opinion. These issues haven’t really gotten in the way of my good time with the game, but they are worth noting. The developers have promised some big surprises in the storyline, too.

Anyway, give the demo a go and see for yourself (Windows users only, at the moment). If you’re looking for a traditional fantasy RPG, and a well-made one, at that… well, it’s here, and it can be yours for $28 US. I can already say that I’ll probably plunk some cash down for this one myself!

Hit the jump to see an example of the character creation screen.

(Tiger Sauce is an atheist because there can be no god greater than Tiger Sauce. Tiger Sauce beats things to death with swords. Such is his way.)

Posted in RPG, Windows | Tags: BasiliskGames

pnutz

There’s still a mod community around Unlimited Adventures. There’s Neverwinter Nights (the first one is much easier to use). People do crazy things with AGS, so you might get an RPG out of that.

You won’t be able to make anything on any of these systems without getting your hands dirty with a lot of scripting. The choices, conversations, and quests of the simplest RPG will at the very least require many if-then’s and variable checks. You may want to dust on simple “programming” like that.
Gr.Viper

Uh… my other post with link got kinda lost. There’s an engine/editor called Legendary Tales which comes with a couple of demo games and allows creation very old school RPGs which rely mostly on text descriptions rather than graphics. I don’t know how suitable the engine is for mimic-RPG, though. Google for Legendary Tales and don’t be put off by “we’re going online” announcement – the editor is still in downloads section.
Skyleak

Patch out for retail version
http://basiliskgames.com/patches/eb1_101_update.exe

Update log-
Patch version 1.01: (FINAL)
FIXED: Pressing “T” while holding a shield crashes game.
FIXED: Skill point exploit in Character Editor.
FIXED: Typos…I won’t list them all, but any posted in the support thread or emailed to me are fixed immediately.
FIXED: Pressing “J” while the inventory window is open no longer causes text to overflow from the Quest Journal.
FIXED: Map barrier errors…I won’t list them all, but any posted in the support thread or emailed to me are fixed immediately.
FIXED: Several skill description inconsistencies.
FIXED: No longer lose items left in mixer when pressing Esc.
FIXED: Magick Journal should display all spells properly.
FIXED: Space bar exploit.
FIXED: Inventory tooltip focus problem.
FIXED: Creatures on edge of screen occasionally not responding to attacks.
FIXED: Camping on beach no longer hangs system.
FIXED: Bashing object while container window is open no longer crashes game.
ADDED: Keystroke ‘x’ opens Inventory, Equip Window, and Stats window all at once. Oh yeah, this is nice!
BALANCE: Made a small change to allow the maximum recovery rate for MP to be 1/3 rounds, rather than 1/4 rounds.
BALANCE: Increased arrow quantities for merchants.
BALANCE: Balanced empty-handed bashing/Fire Dart bashing/Lock Melt to be a bit more even.
Skyleak

That didn’t come out like I wanted,
Zoggles

@jeb:

“I got stuck in the first dungeon, though. There are two green slimey monsters in my path, which appears unkillable by my PC. Could somebody give me a hint, please? :)”

If you are refering to the two I think you are.. just grab their attention and pull them out of the room.. when one is in the doorway, just pull that lever and drop the portcullis on it.. Squish. rinse and repeat for the other one. :)

-Z-
Gr.Viper

Did anyone notice, you can steal torches from walls? Even right in front of NPCs in their homes. You can put torches back but better wait until the next evening when all the torches in town grow back :) And can be harvested yet again.