Frayed Knights Reaches Beta, Screenshots

To celebrate the party-based RPG's transition to beta, Rampant Games' Jay Barnson has released a handful of new Frayed Knights screenshots depicting a few outdoor areas and "an early version of the new hobgoblin model". Head over to our image gallery to have a gander, and then read on for a snip from his beta announcement:
I've had to do this (picture to the right) a couple of times, too: Limp back to town with the party one nasty encounter away from wipe-out. Benjamin is incapacitated able to mumble in dialog, but not much else. Chloe is near death, and Dirk isn't that far away himself. I've returned to the safety of town and a stay at the inn. One nasty encounter on our hurried flight from the tower, and it would have been a real challenge. I could have revived Benjamin with drama stars in combat, or pre-combat with a potion (and removed most of his exhaustion with drama stars or potions), but it was really time to return to town and sleep and trade equipment anyway. The whole party is pretty exhausted. And I'm only halfway through the dungeon.

The humor of the game well, I've lived with these jokes so long that they don't amuse me much anymore. I still keep my eye out for some additional sources of humor or at least a little bit of wryness. But part of the reason I've worked so hard to make this a real, hard-core RPG is that I want a game that I can enjoy playing. That means giving it the heart and soul of a good ol' fashioned hard-core RPG that is still fun even when I know the jokes and storyline and maps like the back of my hand. I feel like I've achieved that.

And now we are fer sher in the home stretch. Finally. It's been a long time coming. Another part of (going beta) is psychological, for me. It's a threshold where we can stick a stake in the ground and say, (This is it this is progress, and we're almost done.) And seriously, compared to about every other beta I've participated in, Frayed Knights seems to be in the best shape of all. Much of this is due to the incredible efforts of the testing team. I'm going to single out DGM again, '˜cuz he's done an amazing job. (Now we just need to find out why he's got a problem with his new computer / video card / driver combo.) I don't think that this means we have a lot less work to do Frayed Knights is by far the biggest and most complex game I've ever worked on (including several hit and not-so-hit (mainstream) games). There's a lot of little moving parts to check, fix, and polish. But I hope this means things can progress quickly.