Eschalon: Book II is an old-school cRPG game that being developed by Basilisk Games and will be available for GNU/Linux, mac and Windows OS’s.
Basilisk games like some other indie developers really listens to the community.
They implanted many new features based on community feedback and greatly improves the experience compared to their first game Eschalon: Book I.
In Book 2 the map will be much bigger then in Book 1 and will feature climate and weather effects that influence the character.
For example when you are in the desert area you will consume more water if you enabled the option for mandatory food consumption at the beginning of the game.
Some weather effects can influence your combat abilities and torch light duration.
Basilisk really changed the combat in Book2…
One of the big disappointments of Book1 when playing as a fighter was that you only had one attack option and it became very boring to fight.
When picking a mage fighter it became very easy to deal with monsters.
In Book2 Basilisk will add more attack options for fighters (like quick attack, power attack etc…) and rebalance the skills and magic powers so it will be challenging to fight as a mage.
One very interesting feature of Book2 that was taken from the community is the new difficulty modes aka game rules.
You can make food and water consumption a requirement, you can make the loot items in chests “fixed” providing you with better better items, you can also make your equipment destructible with use and much more…
Those “challenges” apart from making the game more interesting and hard also effect your game ranking.
The difficulty modes cannot be changed after the game starts but there are also challenges which are very original :
You can set those challenges in the beginning of the game but you are not obligated to finish them (they are challenges after all)…
For example, you can try to play as a true Thief which forbids you from bashing any doors or chests or getting caught in act of a crime, you must also spot all hidden traps before they are triggered.
When choosing this challenge you get +10% to your thief rank.
Book2 features :
ENGINE
* 1024 x 768 native resolution
* Numerous optimizations implemented which improved engine speed (up to 30%) and lowers RAM usage.
* All tiles have been re-rendered to take advantage of the higher engine resolution.
* Enhanced lighting and special effects.
* New weather effects: snow, rain, and thunderstorms. Weather isn’t just a special effect; severe weather effects gameplay stats and skills.
* “Brightness Booster” option for players who are afraid of the dark.
* In-game control over sound volume has been improved
* Audio driver selectable at launch for improved hardware compatibility or the option to shut off all game sounds.
* Rebuilt timer function which should fix the problems associated with leaving your computer on for long periods of time.
* Most keyboard commands can now be remapped via .cfg file.
* The saved game location can be alerted via a statement in the .cfg file.
* Saved game function rebuilt with more redundancy and error catching to cut down on the number of bad saved games.
* Numerous updates to the scripting engine and file handling, making the game one step closer to being fully modable.
GUI
* New GUI layout
* Additional save game slots (20 total)
* Increased number of Inventory slots (79 total)
* Increased number of Quick Slot spaces (10 total)
* New Key Ring feature: any key acquired is placed on a virtual key ring and does not take up inventory space.
* Enhanced Alchemy mixer with one-click mixing via a built-in recipe book
* Two “equipment configuration” presets for convenient swapping of armor and weapons sets.
* You can now dump torches by right-clicking on the torch icon.
* Walking via keyboard
* “Health meters” on objects while bashing show exactly how much structural integrity remains
GAME PLAY
* 7 new spells; several existing spells have been altered/upgraded.
* Gender Selection (play as a male or female character).
* Selectable attack mode alters damage and accuracy based on character ability and enemy stats.
* Parry mode for defensive posturing when needed.
* New skill: Repair. Used in fixing worn equipment for better performance or increased value before selling.
* New skill: Foraging. Used to increase your chance of finding food and alchemy components during your travels.
* Significant skill rebalancing for more unified progression.
* Weapons and armor now deteriorate realistically with use (optional). Increasing your weapon and armor skills slows deterioration rate, and the Repair Skill can be used to fix damaged equipment.
* Food and Water now a factor in survival. Long treks into deep dungeons will require planning and preparation. (Optional)
* Powder kegs can now be picked up and dropped in new locations which makes for strategic game play options.
* Game world objects more dynamic: explosions and fire can affect objects; more objects are usable.
* Rebuilt the luminosity function to remove exploits. This corrects the “Torch exploit” as well as balancing “Hide in Shadow” better.
* New difficulty modes and tracked statistics add to replay value.
* New item generation function for thousands of unique weapon and armor variations.
* Difficulty settings for easier or more challenging gameplay.
MISC
* Improved User’s Manual with additional game information often requested by players
* In the Character Editor, pressing F1-F5 now loads premade character data into the editor and allows you to modify it from there, rather than just automatically starting the game with a pre-designed character.
The game engine is now improved and supports greater resolutions.
Screenshots :
best game of the year so far !