High North Studios — the developers of Skald: Against the Black Priory (and the Skald game engine that powers it) — have announced the beta release of a new tool they’re calling SkaDE (short for: Skald Data Editor):

Ho ho ho!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year and I come bearing gifts: The Skald Data Editor (SkaDE for short) tool enters open beta today and YOU’RE invited!

…

In short, the SkaDE toolset is a bundle of tools that I made to make Skald. In other words, they are the actual tools I used to make the game.

What I’m releasing into BETA today is the first step towards bringing these tools to the community. This means that, for now, only a reduced tile-set is available (should be enough to get you started on that Ultima clone you’re dreaming about). The toolset is and modding is currently only available on PC.

You can read more about the tools in the tutorials linked below. Modding also has its own subchannels on the Skald Discord .

If you’re curious about how modding Skald works, you can find out more on the game’s dedicated modding hub over at mod.io:

Skald modding lives on mod.io! This is where you’ll find all the content created, sample projects and all the tutorials for the SkaDE toolset.

If you want to start using the modding tools, head on over to the first tutorial!

If you would rather just download and play mods, check out the guide for installing mods.

And to help coax some interested modders into using SkaDE, High North Studios are holding a contest:

Using the SkaDE tool you are to create a small, playable adventure.

• The theme of the adventure shall be “Low Level Adventures” – How does a hero take their first steps to become an adventurer?
• The adventure must be based on the SkaDE sample project . Note that this is a nearly empty project and you can change any aspect of it – it’s just a way of ensuring that the scope remains manageable
• The adventure must contain both a surface level and a dungeon level (as in the sample project)
• There must be both dialogue and combat
• There must be 15-30 minutes of gameplay for a “fresh” player (the jury will spend around 20 min with each contribution)
• You are free to collaborate!

The prize for the top three contestants is, evidently, a Steam gift card up to $100 in value. If that sounds at all appealing — and really, why wouldn’t it? — head on over to mod.io to get started, and see what you can come up with.

(Hat tip: Infinitron Dragon)