Frayed Knights - The Interview!

I was just interviewed at RPGWatch about Frayed Knights, the indie RPG of high fantasy and low humor...

Frayed Knights Interview at RPGWatch

If you guys have been following my weekly diaries or monthly updates here, you'll be pretty familiar with most of what's going on there. They do ask some intriguing questions, though.

The big news this month has been:

* ALPHA! Yes, we've been alpha for over three weeks now. The testers have found an amazing quantity of bugs, goofs, usability issues, quirks, confusing points, missing pieces, and plain ol' bad design. I've been working on addressing these issues even as we've been starting work on the full (post-pilot) game.

* CRUNCH MODE! Crunch mode sucks. The day job decided to subject me to 12 - 15 hour days, including a Saturday, the last couple of weeks. That particular nightmare is over, but it did delay Frayed Knights' development for a couple of weeks. Bummer. Although that OTHER game I work on during the day is looking pretty cool. And no, I'm STILL not allowed to talk about it.

* RELEASE! Not yet, but soon. I was hoping for an initial public release on April 1 (for a comedy-based RPG, it would only have been TOO appropriate). But at this point, courtesy of the development delay, that looks highly unlikely. I'm still trying to get Alpha 3 out, which was supposed to be out two weeks ago.



I tried to release the game without a Save Game function. I thought - hey, the pilot is short, right? Will anybody really NEED to save their game when the whole thing only takes less than 2 hours to complete?

The testers convinced me of the error of my ways without causing me any permanent scars. At least none that would have been admissible in court. So alpha 3 WILL have full saved game implemented.

The game is coming along very nicely at this point. It is fully playable, and most of the effort has gone into polishing up what we've got and beginning some of the new stuff for the post-pilot development.

If you'd really like to see more of the nuts & bolts action, here are some of the "game development in the open" blog posts I've muttered over the last few weeks:

Frayed Knights: Save Me!

Frayed Knights: Be 'Fraid. Be Very 'Fraid

Frayed Knights: When One Door Closes...

Frayed Knights: Alpha 2 Laundry List

Frayed Knights: Going Alpha
Have fun!

Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
Tales of the Rampant Coyote