Skara is Scraping the Surface of Kickstarter
Skara hits Kickstarter with some ambitious plans, and tremendous effort!
Newly added to Kickstarter, 8 Bit Studios’ Skara, is a new MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), that looks to combine some of our favorite things about all gaming genres and mesh them into an arena game like no other. Skara’s own creators describe the game by saying “Imagine an experience with the action of Street Fighter inside a story and land like World of Warcraft, all blended into a fast-paced Call of Duty style arena.” From watching the video, I can get a feel for what they mean by that. The game really has a solid, fantasy basis to work off of. The speed at which the player’s character moves through the world is similar to that which might be found in a game such as Call of Duty. The Street Fighter comment has more to do with their directional combat, but I’ll get to that shortly.
At the foundation of it all, Skara is an over the shoulder, real combat MOBA, with an emphasis on the "A" in “MOBA.” Many might be stopping to say “What about SMITE? Didn’t Hi-Rez Studios do this already?”
Well, in short, yes, but Skara differs from SMITE in many ways. SMITE’s combat is very rigid and form-fitting, and takes place primarily in their three lane tower fight, which is of course a similar arena style to that of Dota 2 and League of Legends. Skara seems to be kicking off the shackles of what bigger companies have defined a MOBA to be, and really seem to be embracing the word Arena in their development process. I have no way of confirming whether or not they will have that map style in their game, but from what I can tell based on my research, this game seems to be a true arena. Players like me will be very happy to hear that news, because, quite frankly, I’ve knocked over enough towers and now I just want to destroy the enemyl!
Skara seems like the perfect place to do such a thing because of its directional combat. The combat allows you to strike left, right, up, or down. Imagine instead of pressing “Q” and dealing damage to a player who was in the way of your telegraph, you actually swung your sword in a particular direction, and if the other player was not blocking that direction, you struck them. It was very intriguing to watch how responsive the models were.
Swing your sword into their legs, their knees buckle and they fall. Stab someone through the chest, and their torso moves with the sword’s momentum. It actually seems like combat is going to feel incredibly real and responsive, which is something many games in our midst these days seem to let fall to a lower priority.
In my opinion, the most special thing about Skara, is the fact that it’s entirely skill based, which will allow for it to fill a niche in the MOBA community and be successful. Characters do not level in the arena, and new armor and weapons will not make your character any more powerful than someone loading up the game for the first time. It’s pure, unadulterated skill that will grant you and your team the victory! With 5 Races, special skills, real-time combat, potentially an arena editor, and much, much more, Skara is poised to be a rose in a sea of dandelions.
You can see what they’re all about on their Kickstarter page, and as with any good Kickstarter project, you’ll be able to land your own special prizes and bonuses for helping them make this game a reality.