What alternative to EXP is there though?

There are plenty:
* Stats and skill levels increase through use
* Stats increase randomly after each battle
* Permanent stat up items can be bought
* Permanent stat up items can be found through exploration (like in Metroid)
* All stats come from equipment
* Monsters drop meat that, when eaten, causes your monster to change form, hopefully into a better one
* You don't upgrade; instead, as the game progresses, you can recruit new and better characters
* Fuse two characters to get a more powerful one

A lot of these tend to take away player choice though.

In terms of player choice, however, XP and levels are pretty far down; you get experience, and then you suddenly get better. Without some secondary mechanic, even if it's just stat/skill points that can be allocated at level up (which have their own issues), there's no choice, at all, on how your character/party develops.

Even tne "replace characters" option lets you choose who to replace, and the Metroid-style approach could give you skill points to allocate (Quest 64's spirit levels come half from exploration and half from conventional XP, for example).

I dig the art style, and as I am playing and enjoying video games since the late 80ys, my taste > your taste.
Sorry, kid. :P

Only the two random ones need to do so, if we take dtgreene's example of exploration that can still involve choice into account as well. Raising through use is obviously choice, choosing what to use, and if the number of uses is high enough for high levels to require active sustained training, not just regular playing, then that's even more obvious. Buying (or crafting) stuff that gives permanent improvements means choice is determined by what's available, with a sufficiently wide array of available options (including random store stocks decided on the first visit in a certain amount of time, so if you don't like what's there, reload and try again until you get what you like), it's definitely choice. Same for stats coming from equipment, and replacing or fusing characters.
(I for one would hate these last two though, meaning losing characters. Same with the random ones, of course. Favorite is always training through use.)
Just need to actually use the tag, not just post the plain links, and put the link between quotes in the tag. It'll work on the same line then.

I gave it a try but didn't get far. The interface is clunky and during the second battle the second party member got stuck only attempting to use a spell but not able to do anything due to not knowing any spells. I tried several things but didn't find a way to attack with a weapon. Attempting to use a spell with my main character (who also didn't know any) in the first battle didn't cause that issue so I'm not sure what happened. The whole interface needs a lot of work before I'd be willing to try it again.

There is an article somewhere in the forum that said the trick is that the first character of the contents (text that is supposed to appear in the post) of each tag on the line except the last one has to be a space (the space won't appear). You can see that the forum has some oddities like the above quote that seems to be due to not having anything at all in the quote (a newline or space in the quote fixes the issue).

Edit: This one. I see they didn't use quotes, so maybe that works too.

New Teaser Trailer

"The dragons stirs in the void and an empire trembles. The rule of the magi Lords is failing. Where now shall we place our faith? In the low cunning of the sell swords? Or in the golden dead to whom we offer prayers? Certainly not in the foul magical praxis of witches and lay sorcerers. No, this is our punishment.

We woke the dragon and for us, there is no salvation.

This new teaser trailer shows new gameplay, highlights the new improved visual effects in and out of combat as well as revealing more about the Skald world!

Anders Lauridsen and Raw Fury are teaming up for ‘SKALD: Against the Black Priory’, a retro-style RPG set in a grim-dark fantasy world of tragic heroes, violent deaths and Lovecraftian horror. Explore an engaging branching story mixed with exploration and crunchy tactical, turn-based combat that will engage RPG fans, old and new."

New demo inbound for next week, which should be available on GoG as well(?), then.
Hopefully alongside Vol. I of the original soundtrack too.

I want to like this one as I really do like the retro pixel art style and also really do like RPGs, but I'm color-blind.

The game's color palette looks way too muted for me, except for that bright neon green grass. This would be great if SKALD an RPG where you are at war with the plant kingdom. Armed with my trusty lawn mower and hedge clippers, I would just heroically attack everything neon green. However since that doesn't appear to be the case, the game is not going to be playable as it is otherwise really hard for me to distinguish things from each other in the videos and screen shots.

ETA on this one? Looks very promising.

From the devlog:
"Coming Soon! The game is currently in development and is set to release in 2022!"

From Steam:
"This game is not yet available on Steam - Planned Release Date: 2022"

Thanks mate!

The atmosphere of Skald is amazing. It truly feels like you're in this terrible world where you or anyone can die an awful death at any moment. Few games nail this oppressive feeling, but Skald get it right.

Looking forward to release date!