The Sky Grotto
The best online virtual tabletop solution
FAQ
You have questions, we have answers​
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General
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Sky Grotto is an online virtual tabletop software that allows users to play pen and paper RPGs on their computer. Though gamemasters can use Sky Grotto as a stand alone tool to play on-premise at a friend's house (they still have access to powerful modules such as the Campaign Builder and Ruleset Viewer), it has been optimized to be used as an online tool to enable both gamemasters and players to play together remotely by using our built-in online interface.
No !
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Sky Grotto is really easy to use. A gamemaster only need to host a game by choosing a campaign to play in and players only require to choose one of their character created in the targeted campaign.
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As the game is hosted on our game server, there is nothing more to do to start / join a game.
Nowadays, a system is either a thick client (a software installed and running locally on a computer) or a cloud application such as a website.
Each have distinct advantages and disadvantages but we could summarize them as :
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Thick client applications are good for running heavy graphics or calculations processing. Their main drawbacks are that they usually require big installation files and your data is available only on that computer.
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Websites are simpler as they use your native browser application and give you access to your data from anywhere. Their main drawbacks are that they are not the best to render heavy graphics or use game loops for advanced game effects.
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Sky Grotto is a hybrid solution as it is a thick client, which means you need to install a small application locally on your computer, and a cloud application similar to a website as it keeps no data on your computer. All the data and images come from our game server in real time, the same as it would from a website.
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This is from our point of view the best of both worlds as we can use the power of your computer to show flashy stuff and optimize data caching for better performance, and you still aren't lock to use only the computer where you installed the application. If you need to use a different computer, you just have to download and install the small game client (only a few megabytes) and you're good to go.
The initial release will require a computer running Windows 10. Though Sky Grotto will run with lower specifications without too much problems, the recommended specifications are:
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Quad core CPU (Sky Grotto is optimized to use all cores available)
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8 gb RAM
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High speed internet connection
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In case you experience too many slowdowns in the rendering of maps, we provided four selectable map quality levels in the settings.
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As of this release, CPUs weight a lot more than your video card in the performance of Sky Grotto.
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We also have plans to release a native Mac version in the future but this will come at a later date. Mac users will unfortunately require the use of a third party tool to run a Windows 10 instance as a virtual OS for now. We tested a few of them and the free open source Virtual Box from Oracle works really well.
Everyone will be able to use Sky Grotto for free !
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Sky Grotto will use a monthly subscription model to unlock the more advanced features. But fear not, we designed it so that essential features required to play are all included in the free version.
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To counterbalance this, we designed a "pay for what you use" system using what we call Data Blocks storage. A newly created account will come with a good amount of blocks and those blocks will be consumed by your characters, campaigns and data customizations. Through our marketplace, you will be able to purchase Data Block packages that will be permanently added to your account when the need arises.
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So what this means is that a typical casual player will be able to play for free as he will create only a few characters. Gamemasters will be able to at least create a fully detailed campaign (consisting of a few quests and maps) before needing to buy more Data Blocks (sooner for GMs that like to customize a lot).
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We only gated functionalities and not actual data through our monthly subscription which means you can subscribe only when you need it. You will always be able to access all your data with the free version.
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The actual prices for the Data Blocks and monthly subscription will be announced at a later time
At launch, we will fully support the free D&D 5E SRD.
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On the other hand, we designed an advanced game engine that can fully support multiple game systems (and not only game data). As we are a small team for now, we concentrated our effort on integrating the Open License SRD5E in order for people to be able to enjoy the software at launch.
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We plan on integrating many other game franchises along the way as well as providing you with the best game creator for unsupported games. With our game creator down the roads, you will be able to create most of your game mechanics through configurations.
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We aim to fully integrate and support each game ruleset we integrate and not only the D&D systems. Our game engine makes this easy to do.
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With your support everything will be possible !
We are a small startup company located in Montreal, Canada.
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The founder (that's me actually) is a software architect with more than 20 years of experience in software design and development. It happens I also have 30 years of gaming experience playing different game systems such as D&D.
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Personally, I wasn't satisfied with the current virtual tabletop solutions available and decided to create my own. It took me two years to complete the back-end side of Sky Grotto. With this completed, the future looks bright as we will be able to improve the other areas dramatically going forward.
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We are a small team for now but with your support, we will be able to do soooo much more and give you the best gaming solution. We have quite a number of exclusive amazing features in our roadmap coming up and we wish that you will all see the potential of Sky Grotto.