About This Game Frayed Knights: The Skull of S'makh-Daon is a 3D indie computer RPG for Windows featuring turn-based combat, old-school sensibilities, and a story of high adventure and comedy. Who says RPGs have to be so serious?In a world of jaded heroes and veteran adventurers, you play a team of misfits: Arianna, a dainty warrior with an attitude problem; Dirk, an adrenaline-junky rogue who doesn’t seem to understand the word ‘subtle;’ Benjamin, a nature-priest and an ill-suited newcomer to the adventuring lifestyle, and Chloe, a ditsy sorceress with a love of cute, fuzzy animals and setting her enemies on fire.Adventuring is always a dangerous profession, but recently things have gotten bad. Very bad. Teams of expert fortune-hunters are getting "morted," suffering great losses against enemies that are better prepared than ever. In the taverns and Adventurer's Guildhalls, whispered rumors speak of the return of an evil that once all but destroyed civilization. But as many great and famous adventurers fall to this growing threat, perhaps this bunch of losers - called "The Frayed Knights" (but never to their faces) - might just be the heroes the world really needs:The wrong people at the wrong time.Features:30+ hours of gameplay.Challenging, turn-based combat in a game that plays at your pace.A unique "Drama Star" system that rewards the player for playing through tough situations instead of reloading and replaying.A spell named, "Power Word: Defenestrate."Over a hundred base spells, most with several upgraded variants.An innovative trap-disarming / lockpicking system using character skills and items to disable a device one component at a time.Over 80 feats to customize your party as they progress through the game.A detailed, "stats-heavy" rules system... which you are free to ignore if you choose.Nearly 200 different items to be used and abused by your characters.A "Quarterstaff of Nad-Whacking."Sixteen "dungeons" (interior adventuring areas), five outdoor areas, one village, an alternate dimension, and some green dude's one-room hovel.A THICK (virtually) 69-page PDF manual. For those who want more than just the tutorials... 7aa9394dea Title: Frayed Knights: The Skull of S'makh-DaonGenre: Indie, RPGDeveloper:Rampant GamesPublisher:Rampant GamesRelease Date: 24 Jul, 2014 Frayed Knights: The Skull Of S'makh-Daon Ativador So ... Frayed Knights.It is one heck of a good game! It has it's pros and cons though. But I beat it, and here is what I think.Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.1. Items and spell descriptions - Some of these can be totally wrong (I'm looking at you Peel Armor and Potion of Resist Disease), so it can get confusing. But once you figure out what they are, it isn't bad.2. Quick spell slots - Only 3? That's right. So most of the time, you'll forget about your other spells. That is a pain. I'd suggest priniting out a spell list for yourself.3. Stars - Though this mechaninc is neat in itself, losing it when you have to quit the game because of an emergency or something else while in battle ... and you LOSE all the stars you got? I can live without that.4. Skill descriptions - Some can be pretty easy to figure out while others? I still have no idea what they do. Eh ...~~But the story (which I was very sad to see end) was great. There was a few twists in there that caught me off guard, and my dad and I had a few discussions over dinner on what we thought was happening and who the bad guy\/girl was.I did a Let's Play of the game on my You Tube channel which you can check out here: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLMRlAJ5VsPJWTIk-cWHFKiUyr4sgxy_EdAlso, I did a bit of research, since at the end of the game, the party had hinted at a second one in the works. I found this page on the creator's blog http:\/\/rampantgames.com\/blog\/?p=7763 which was back in 2014. I tried contacting them about it, but no luck.So if the developer reads this, I hope you continue to make Frayed Knights 2! Arianna, Dirk, Ben, and Chloe are all ready to continue their adventures.. 10 scale:Graphics: 4Music: 5Fun: 7Story: 7Value: 7Frayed Knights is a party-based first-person POV RPG. Similar to games such as WIzardry, Eye of the Beholder, etc. The story is decent, creating the desire to move ahead and figure out the mysteries of what is going on. One feature of the game is the witty banter between party members. The game focus on a being lighthearted and witty. The biggest negative is the graphics. They would be at home with games from 10-15 years ago. But the gameplay and story make up for that deficiency. Leveling up is rewarding, with many spells, abilities and bonuses to choose from. Loot was sufficient, but barely. Around 95% of loot is white junk that you sell for a bit of coin. When you do find a "legendary" item, it is a big deal, so don't expect wondrous loot to rain down from the heavens. Fights start out very slow, until you get some abilities and spells under your belt. Exploration is fun. There are some decent puzzles, but nothing that is too difficult (I'm not a puzzle-man myself, so one or two here and there is fine). One of the biggest pitfalls is load times. I have the game installed on an SSD and load time between zones is around 25-30 seconds. Fortunately, you won't be reloading or zoning very often. The game has a system where you build up stars that give great bonus abilities as long as you don't reload the game or die. Abilities like giving a character full health or resurrecting a character. Unfortunately, my party got stuck in several places, hung up on the geomtry of the game world, unable to move, so I had to reload and lose my stars a few times, but you rebuild stars pretty fast. Other than that, the game never crashed and I ran into virtually no other bugs. My final gripe is the mapping system. Auto-mapping is available, and it works great. However, if you zone, you lose the map to that zone. Not sure why the maps don't save, but once you explore a zone, you most likely won't need the map anyhow, so it's a minor annoyance. All-in-all, if you like party-based rpg games and can put up with a game that feels old-school, I think this is a pretty good game. I give it a total of 6.5 out of 10, and I feel like I got my money and time's worth out of it.. Let me start off by saying that this game isn't terrible. During dungeons, its graphics can pass for "dated," and it \/does\/ have many of the qualities that I've come to love about the CRPG genre. However, it has downsides. Granted some of these are personal dislikes and may not be the case for everyone. In fact, if you -disagree- with this review, that's cool. I think I'm going to go ahead and be the bad guy if that means pointing out the flaws in this game that so many people are intentionally blind to. If you want the cliffnotes version of this review: take the positive reviews of this game with a grain of salt, and maybe go play something else.So... first off, I felt I had a few miscommunications going into this game. The game claims character customization, and for some reason I was thinking that meant character creation. Not so: you play the game with the same party of four characters. To be fair, there's dialogue and banter and character development with these four characters, maybe even a bit with the npcs in the game. Even so, I consider this one one of the game's downsides. Why? Well, my all-time favorite games in the CRPG genre allow for actual character creation where you can pick race, class, and skillsets. To me, that makes each of the characters feel more relevant to -me-. I've seen games pull it off without char creation (Aarklash Legacy did that very well), but I really just kind of failed to care about the main characters in Frayed Knights. If you don't have that issue, good for you.The graphics were probably the real deal-breaker for me. I try to be open-minded with graphics, considering some of my favorite CRPGs have dated graphics. That being said, Frayed Knights was simply unplayable at times. The models, textures, and animations of monsters weren't great, with some standing out as being particularly yuck. My real sticking point here is the towns, though. You are free to walk around in towns the same as a dungeon, yet that makes my next point glaringly obvious for players who make it this far: there really was a bare minimum of effort put into the towns. The house layouts are uninspiring, sure. But the real problem is the character models. Out of the few that don't have really terrible anatomy, they probably aren't even animated. It's honestly an embarassment of a town.So, yes. There are a lot of things this game did. There might even be a few things this game did well. I -don't- think it poured life back into the CRPG genre, I -don't- think it's what CRPG fans have been waiting for, and I hate to say it but I don't think it's worth the ten dollars you could be spending on a better CRPG. Putting zany character sprites with goofy dialogue and fantasy names like "smakh daon" are really kind of misplaced effort--no matter how much you polish a clod, it's still a clod. In essence, this is an unfinished game that really can't stand up to the legacy of its genre. You could probably put the ten dollars needed for this game toward something good like Aarklash Legacy or Wizardry 8.. Overall a good tactical party-based RPG. Funny without being corny. It not only takes itself lightly, it mocks some of the common tropes of the genre.Graphics are mediocre, dialogue is hilarious and riveting, and quests are often surprising.Combat is not simply about killing the enemy, it is also about resource management. The more spells or attacks you use, the more tired your characters become.Characters start with defined roles (thief, fighter, priest, sorcerer), but with open customization you can make them whatever you want.If you want a good RPG but aren't afraid of a little sillyness, give Frayed Knights a shot.. A throw back to the old RPG "blobbers" of the late 80s\/early 90s. I love those old games and this game certainly scratched that itch. Drama star system was a fun addition and prevented save scumming. Also, the pregenerated characters were genuinly fun and entertaining.Really, for me, the one downside was the GUI was a bit rough but it was workable and didn't hold back my enjoyment of the game.Looking forward to the sequel.. i bought this game too and it does not work i have wasted so much money on steam and half the games dont work steam needs to correct this problem
Frayed Knights: The Skull Of S'makh-Daon Ativador
Updated: Mar 18, 2020
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