You get general experience from quests and combat as standard in RPG's. Only effect of levelup seems to be that you gain skill points that can be used with trainers to train skills or stats. (stats are EXPENSIVE to train and haven't found reliable moneysource yet. Quest so far haven't payed much of anything. Usually you get items at best. Gems from mining seem to be the best source so far.)

Each skill, once you learn the first level from trainer, also has experience gauge that fills up as you use the skill. Once the skill gauge fills up, you can train the skill to next level (costs money and skill point(s? so far only one but highes skill I have is only 2 so,,,).

Crafting system is extensive. You can make weapons, armour, food, alchemical brews and other items. You can even build (I think you are expected to at some point) to build a house and farm (you can grow various plants and grow lifestock) as your base of operations.

As far as I can tell, there's 2 zoom levels. Zoomed in and zoomed out.

Haven't gotten far (starting map is quite big. Have perhaps explored only 10-20% of it) but there is a storyline. Some people seem to know more. There apparently are guilds later on you can join.

Single player only.

Thank you for the answers, a bit sad that there's no coop but it's understandable.

Bring it on!! :D

is it dead?

Doesn't seem to be, last developer update was a month ago (Dec 22, 2014), and it's ver. 0.89. Might even be released in 2015!

It's definitely not dead, but since the latest beta version, the forums have died down completely. Not sure if it's because nobody is finding bugs or because interest has died down... However, all the bugs / issues that had been reported from the first playable version were all addressed in a new build released last month, and what I've seen of the current version is pretty fantastic.
Mind you, I put in most of my time with this game on the previous build, but I've seen a few hours of the current build, and it's much more polished in regards to bugs and balance.
No clue what sort of timeline the devs are on as far as an official release, though. They haven't been too frequent with the communication. I'm very optimistic though, as the current version of the beta is already pretty awesome.

it's good to hear the developement didn't die.

thanks for your replies

If they're ever to stop development then i rather they try early acess to get some funding.

Been 8 months. anyone got update?

Well, at first I was interested, but then I came to the skill system. It`s the same dumb horseshit like in the Gothic games. Not interested anymore!

Steam Greenlight was the first thing I saw on the website. It will disapear into the vast hole of Greenlight.

Don't lose hope just yet, folks. The updates have been rolling in slowly, but they've clearly been making some real progress. Big update just posted on KS:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/balconyteam/balrum/posts/1368215

+1 and thanks for the update!

Always better for a developer to postpone a game rather than just release it before it's ready.

That has been developers plan for Balrun from the very beginning (forgo Early Access and only release when ready). That's why I suggested to devs that they take the christmas holidays off from work to recuperate and re-evaluate the situation when they're again of sound mind. ;-p

Oh and to stay away from steam forums if they can help it. X-D