How a man who invest so much in the Gamemaker community can't do the same for his own game? You can feel the passion in it. You clearly see the attention given to all the small details. A fast paced arcade game where you can't stand still and breathe. You always want to go deeper to find new stuff and fight new foes. Spells and special abilities feels unique and playing around with scrolls to make new combo is quite funny. The Repository is a nice adds. Of course, the thrill to get into the leaderboard adds a sense of competition. For now, there is no major technical problem, except the ultra-sensitive gamepad, but i'm sure this will be fixed real soon. (Sometimes, the player moves so fast you have hard time to enter a small hallway or you exit the level by accident...). A big hell-yeah for this beautiful and well done game! \m/
Skein
- Release Date:
- Nov 13, 2017
- Developer:
- Nocturne Games
- Publisher:
- Nocturne Games
- Platforms:
- Windows Mac Linux
Game Tags
About This Game
Skein is a procedural dungeon shooter in the "old-skool" arcade style for one or two players where you must battle through hordes of monsters on a quest to save the soul of a talking sheep.

A group of intrepid adventurers are travelling through a wasteland when they come across a sheep... feeling peckish, they do what any self-respecting adventurer would do and they slaughter it without a thought, only to find out that it was a magic sheep with the soul of a great warrior prince trapped within. Feeling a tad guilty for condemning the warrior prince to an eternity of spiritual suffering, the adventurers decide to enter the legendary Skein to find his body and return his soul to it (and get loads, and loads, and loads, and loads of loot while they're at it...).

Skein is a one or two player (co-op) arcade game with the following features:
- Procedural dungeons
- 6 unique characters, with three unique classes
- A huge number of class based spells
- Over 40 unique enemies, each with their own traits and talents
- Special areas like the Arena, the Vault and the Caves
- Local, Online and Steam leaderboards
- 40+ achievements
- 1 or 2 Player (co-op) play
- Sheep!!!!!

Skein was created by me over the course of three years as a homage to the coin-op arcade machines of old. While the game itself has many modern features, at its heart the gameplay is decidedly "old skool" and can be picked up and played for five minutes or several hours, either on your own or with a friend.
The concept is simple: fight through ever-bigger dungeons with ever-growing hordes of enemies in an attempt to liberate the corpse of a disembodied sheep... although all that is simply a pretext for getting as much loot as possible and for surviving as long as possible. On your journey to certain death you can use the magic spells you find to wipe the floor with the enemy, and friends can drop into the game at any time to help you with the carnage. Later levels feature fiendish traps and huge Champion monsters which have their own special attacks and powers. NOTE! This is not a huge game, but meant as a fun blaster with which to waste some time, where the main goal, really, is to get highest on the leaderboards, win a cool title ("Lord of The Wilting Bidet", anyone?), and get the achievements.
If you have feedback on the game, or find any errors, or even just want to say hello, then you can contact me through Twitter, the Steam forums, or my website.
Finally, a big THANK YOU to everyone that has helped make this game a reality, especially my wife and sons, and I hope that you enjoy your time looting the Skein and killing (and being killed by!) monsters!
Screenshots
User Reviews
Another game I want to love but can't. The soundeffects, graphics, and the concept of endless dungeon crawling action are great. However, It's the control that killed the game. At first the control felt very stiff, then I realized that this game uses grid-based movements. The problem is that The game hasn't designed well to be played with grid-based movements. Like Gauntlet, You can't move while shooting, so taking the correct position before starting shooting is important to avoid getting hit. But Thanks to the grid-based movement, It's almost impossible to avoid getting hit and get the position especially the enemies are attacking diagonally. Melee attack is also stiff and clunky thanks to this. This game shouldn't have grid-based movements, or at least have twin-stick style controls and allow to move while shooting. It's really shame because I like endless arcade dungeon crawler like Heroes of loot.
So far I've enjoyed this game. I read the early dev diaries and I enjoyed them and really wanted to get the game when released. I'm starting with negative comments (positive comes later): The music can get obnoxious sometimes and I'm not necessarily a fan of the voice acting; I kinda wish the music would quiet down when I go to the menu. The controls feel a bit twitchy; it can be hard to get through some spaces because it's hard to get the character to move only one tile. Also I had my XBox controller disconnect, and when I reconnected it the game acted as if it were a controller for the second player and that ended up with me getting two players being controlled by one controller, which was a problem fixed only by restarting the game. That's a bug that will hopefully be fixed. There's also some strange UI quirks. When I had the game on Windowed mode I got flickering on my TV screen (which went away when I switched to Fullscreen, which should be the default mode IMO). I'm not sure if ...
Unless I am missing something why can you not move while shooting? I was expecting a melee attack with the warrior. The 8 direction not moving while shooting thing is kind of awkward. I don't know if this was worth buying but I'll keep it anyways as a token of appreciation. It's too bad I am kind of dissapointed. Oh well live and learn.
Prince was an Idiot. I was hungry. Wanted to eat the prince who was now a sheep. 10/10 ================ This is an early review from my side but Id like to add it anyways. This game reminds me of a mixture between a serious sam and an action RPG. The combat elements are good ans smooth once you get the hang of it. Its easy enough to pickup and gets procedurally harder and more challenging. Its always mayhem and if killing hordes of enemies is your thing, you might like this. Also the pixel art graphics are top notch, nice and flashy. I would recommend this game to anyone looking for a fun game to challenge yourself or together with a friend. I will add more to this review as I play more but for now you have my vote.
A fun roguelite arcade shooter with multiple classes and new RNG or procedural dungeon generation makes for a fun experience each time. Unfortunately lite on RPG persistent elements, but absolutely charming and has gripping mechanics. Well worth the price, less than 2 coffees where I live and 2 players can co-op play! Works on keyboard and keypad or controller. Developer also do fast and accurate updates based on community or player feedback! Looking forward to play it more, and hope there will be even more content updates! A well polished game, which you can see was custom built with lots of love!
Funny voice acting and lead in story, but quite old school gameplay so don't expect a Nuclear Throne like 2D shooter. Linux port seems to run fine, but default keybord settings are really geared towards two player on one keyboard, which makes them not very nice for singleplayer... but I guess you are best off using a controller anyways. If you want a funny game to play with some old friends on a couch give it a try I guess. Have not played much, but seems to be a decent enough game for the price.
Tedious and filled with amateurish and annoying design flaws. You start in a room which is made up of smaller pod rooms. You open them up, bump into the monster or hold your ranged button to attack that way. Pick up random scrolls and loot chests. Problem is, the depth of the gameplay here lasts for about 2 minutes, and then it's boring because it keeps going, with no variation of any kind. Just run around, bump into monsters, no skill, forever apparently. I never died and I really don't want to keep playing find out what happens when I do, so I uninstalled and refunded. I need skill-based games, not just infinite grinds with a little randomness. Its a competent enough job for an amateur developer. The attempts at humor in the tutorial were cringe-inducing and not funny. Not only that but they got in the way of understanding the mechanics. I don't need lame memes in a game's tutorial. Music was clearly ripped of from Raiden and PowerRangers, etc which bothered me a lot. Skip this.
Really loved the game. The narrator's voice fits very well. The gameplay altough it's fun and addictive, I had some trouble getting use to the lock 45 degree attack angle. Needless to say, it is a fun game. Can't wait to play it with someone else to experience the multiplayer.
It's a fast paced Gauntlet style game.
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System Requirements
Minimum
- OS *: Windows XP
- Processor: AMD/INTEL DUAL-CORE 2.5 GHZ
- Memory: 1024 MB RAM
- Graphics: 128 MB DirectX® 9 and shaders 2.0 compatible (NVIDIA GEFORCE 6600 / ATI RADEON X700 or higher)
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 100 MB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
FAQ
How much does Skein cost?
Skein costs $6.99.
What are the system requirements for Skein?
Minimum: Minimum: OS *: Windows XP Processor: AMD/INTEL DUAL-CORE 2.5 GHZ Memory: 1024 MB RAM Graphics: 128 MB DirectX® 9 and shaders 2.0 compatible (NVIDIA GEFORCE 6600 / ATI RADEON X700 or higher) DirectX: Version 9.0c Storage: 100 MB available space Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
What platforms is Skein available on?
Skein is available on Windows PC, macOS, Linux.
Is Skein worth buying?
Skein has 81% positive reviews from 16 players.
When was Skein released?
Skein was released on Nov 13, 2017.
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