My wonderful friend and one of the creators of the game, Jake, wanted to respond to this thread to tell you all more about Yeld, but they were having some trouble since their old reddit account got hacked. So, I figured I'd post it here for them!
Hi. I'm Jake, one of the game's creators. emmavoid mentioned some of my favorite things about our game, but let me add a few more. (Edit: This was a lot longer than I meant for it to be!
You play kids! In Yeld you play a group of children from our world who discover a secret door to a magical land. As children you get to have some cool adventures in this new strange world, exploring, discovering treasure, meeting monsters and strangers and doing secret dangerous things that your parents don't know about! As a kid I LOVED stories like this. Stories about children discovering hidden worlds and having their own secret adventures and getting to be heroes were my favorites! We wanted to capture that in play.
But Yeld is a trap! After a few adventures the kids try to go home, but discover their magic door is closed and locked! They're trapped in the magical land. This is where the real game begins! Before this your characters are just normal kids, playing at Rank 0. Once the Door closed the kids level up to Rank 1 and gain their first Job. Trapped in Yeld, the kids learn that they'll need to set out on a dangerous quest to face the evil Prince Dragul and his 7 Hunters of Yeld. Just like bosses in a Zelda game, the kids will need to defeat each Hunter to gather their magical key so they can unlock the door home. To do this the kids will take on Heroic Jobs like Oathbreaker, Black Mage and Witch, Each Job grants extra stats, Job abilities and Special dice as well as access to different weapons or spells.
A built in narrative: Yeld comes with a built in narrative structure, the kids will take on Jobs and travel across the magical land, seeking out and challenging the Hunters to gather their keys. Each Hunter is a challenge and trial that the kids will overcome, with victory unlocking new Ranks that allow the kids access to more powerful items, more dangerous monsters and perks like Advanced Jobs. This structure is easy to modify and expand upon and gives players clear goals to follow. Players can take their adventures in any direction they want, but there is always a clear path to come back to that eventually leads to a showdown with the evil Prince Dragul.
Travel and Time: Yeld uses a map to record the places you've been and a calendar to track time. Keeping track may seem like a chore, but time and distance are important since Yeld is a game about exploration and discovery. Yeld's calendar is full of Holidays and notable dates celebrated by the people who live there and each is a special event that the kids can attend, often involving fun tasks, quests or rewards. To get to these Holidays you'll need to travel! Yeld's map starts as a blank grid that you'll get to fill in as you explore. Traveling between map locations takes time, which gets marked off on the calendar. As the kids travel they'll get older (Yeld's year is only 100 days), so most kids will celebrate several birthdays in Yeld. Here's the danger! Kids who stay in Yeld too long become corrupted by magic and eventually transform into monsters and are unable to return home! Any kid who turns 13 while in Yeld will have to take a Monster Job! Don't worry, being a Monster can be really scary (or really fun), but its also a great opportunity to try something really new and different! Will you be a terrifying Werewolf or a fuzzy friendly one?
The Job System: Yeld's Job system gives you a HUGE number of options for customization, and you'll be adding cool new stuff to your kid nearly every adventure! You character will start out as a normal kid (or dog), but even in your first few games you'll be collecting treasure and loot and choosing Special Dice (special abilities like Break, Smell Magic and Karate Chop that allow you to add extra dice to certain rolls or perform specific actions in certain situations). After your first adventure or two the door home will close and you'll choose your first Job. There are 8 options, each offering a very different play style. Each Job offers a new selection of Special Dice, weapons or sometimes spells to collect. You can switch Jobs as often as you like, collecting Special Dice from each to create your own unique combinations and strategies. Start as Witch Hunter to buff your magical defenses, switch to Freelancer to pick up powerful and versatile abilities and then become a Shepherd (with your very own flock of sheep) gaining a custom selection of abilities along the way! Or stick with one Job you love and master it! When you reach Rank 2 you'll be able to take Advanced Jobs, specialized classes like Drudge Angel, Junk Hound or Vampire Hunter! Advanced Jobs are more specialized and require special quests to unlock, but they offer powerful abilities to deal with the more dangerous monsters you'll meet at Rank 2, 3 and 4. If you turn 13 you'll have to choose a Monster Job, like Vampire, Deep Mage, Black Casket or Serpent Oracle. Monster Jobs are powerful but dangerous. Each comes with a drawback that will change they way you play and how your friends think of you. But Monster jobs also come with amazing abilities and give you the chance to play something new. How will you explore Yeld now that it has changed you? What kind of hero will you be when the world sees you as a Monster? Can you still be a good person (you can!)? Once you experience the power of a Monster will you even WANT to go home again?
Win fights with teamwork! Yeld's fights take place on an action board, similar to classic games like Final Fantasy Tactics. Kids and Monsters take turns moving and performing actions including crazy spells, special attack and summoning monsters. After you perform a successful action you get to choose who will go next. If you choose another kid they'll get to roll bonus dice on their action. We call this the Action Chain. As you build the Action Chain the bonuses get bigger, allowing your friends to make bigger and more complicated attacks, cast more difficult spells or perform more impressive special moves! Monsters can build their own Action Chains, so watch out! You can interrupt Monsters to break their chains and steal their actions by rolling your "Excuse Me" dice, and Monsters can do the same to you. Fights rely on teamwork and timing, and the most dangerous monsters require the kids to work closely together.
Ghosts are cool too! When a kid dies they'll discover that they become a Ghost, floating through a dark version of Yeld known as the Ghost World. As a Ghost you can see your friends but they can't see you. Thankfully you still have lots to do. You can take Ghost Actions against Monsters, like Haunt and Spook. You can also fight other Ghosts or explore the Ghost World to find unique treasure! You won't have to stay dead for long. Your friends can bring you back to life with a Refresh spell or by spending a night at an inn! In this way you don't have to worry about losing your character by dying. Instead, Yeld presents different stakes. Can you ever return home? Will you become a monster? Can you defeat Prince Dragul? Will you be able to save the land of Yeld?
Comics help you learn! I make comics, so we decided to use comics extensively in our game. In addition to some story comics that show off the world of Yeld we use comics to teach game mechanics. As a former teacher I'm a big believer in using comics as a teaching tool. The comics you'll find in our game explain all of our basic mechanics. Some people learn best from reading text (and we try to make our game text easy to read), but some players (like me) really benefit from an easy to digest explanation. We think Yeld's instructional comics make the game very easy to learn, even for younger players! They're also a lot of fun, and thats always our number one goal. Yeld is supposed to be fun!
This was a lot! I kind of went off. And this only scratches the surface. I hope you'll try our game out and discover what Yeld has to offer. I think you'll like it!
- Jake
if you have more questions you can check out our community on Discord! https://discord.gg/vZSZDrd4