Back to Back is back! Welcome, you know, back.

Glancing over the campaigns that have ended since our last edition, Chasm succeeded admirably while Lex Laser, Wranglers and Paradigm Shift each fell short. The current round-up contains both returning projects and some fresh blood:

• Ghost of a Tale — a beautiful 3D action RPG with anthropomorphic animals. IndieGoGo made a weird exception to its rules and extended the deadline for this one when the campaign creators appealed to them for more time. Ghost of a Tale now sits 87.3% funded, roughly 5,700€ (~$7,300) shy of the goal with 4 days remaining.

• King Voxel — a 3D voxel-based Zelda-alike (previously covered here) with a new procedurally generated world / quest each time you start a new game. On the minus side, this campaign remains stalled at $546 raised; on the plus side, there are 52 days left to do something about that.

• Old Legend — 41 days remain for this 3D first-person dungeon delver.

• Remnants of Twilight — a jRPG with some nice concept art and sprite work. If this project raises $1,710 in the next 11 hours, it will meet its goal.

• Reobirth: Magic’s Awakening — “Reo; Re-e-eo! Daylight come, and we want to go home.” This is a sidescrolling 2D action RPG with some nice art and a legitimately cool-sounding system where you breed magical combat companions with varying abilities. (I previously covered Reobirth here). This campaign has an eminently reasonable $12,500 goal, and 31 days left to hit it.

• Stonehearth — a fantasy strategy title that takes the “strategy” side of things a bit more seriously than most of the games I’ve covered in this category. That said, it also has persistent characters, classes, leveling, and promotion trees, so this actually has some legit RPG credentials as well. It’s already close to three times its funding goal; I’ll be covering this one soon.

• TinyKeep —  a 3D, third-person action RPG with procedurally generated dungeons and cute, big-headed character models. The developer promises “a sophisticated AI system, designed to produce unique monster intelligence that behaves in exciting and unpredictable ways,” as well as a pet system. This campaign has 13 days to raise £13,000 (a little less than $20,000).

A bit of digging has revealed the existence of Nadia Was Here, a from-scratch (read: not made in RPG maker) jRPG with a unique battle system and an unusual, limited color palette in development by Joep Aben.

The premise:

This is not the first time this is happening.

A mage driven by guilt. Will any of his good deeds ever truly redeem him?
A warrior that lives in the past, will he ever be able to accept that he’s not who he used to be?
A thief born in poverty, will she ever be worth something?

Three ‘heroes’ set out on a journey to prevent time from starting over again.
But will it solve their problems?

NWH is due to feature 7 villages and a variety of puzzle-heavy dungeons. It also features an unusual combat system. Aben writes:

Characters only target the enemies opposite of them, and enemies only target characters opposite of them in return. The position and moves of the characters can be changed in real-time, and the characters will automatically perform those moves once the charge time needed for that move has been reached.

The game will have a set amount of battles. The only way to increase stats permanently is by using equipment, but even then stat growth is very limited. The main way to defeat more difficult enemies is to learn new skills and use those tactically. Not a single skill will ever be useless or outclassed by another, and not every skill will be useful for every battle.

Aben has made a video showing the current state of the battle system right here;here is a second video showing a bit of exploration; and finally, we have a trailer. (I can’t actually embed these for some reason, as they’re hosted on a weird video site that doesn’t play nice with WordPress, but do feel free to click the links.)

Nadia Was Here is planned for release in early 2014 for Windows, with probable ports to Android and iOS. Per Aben, Mac and Linux ports are a possibility as well.

For now, there is a free alpha demo out (Windows-only); go give it a try and see what you think!

Jon Dibble writes in to inform me of a side-scrolling action RPG he’s working on called Reobirth: Magic’s Awakening. (That’s not a typo, by the way–it’s actually spelled Reobirth, and pronounced like “ray o’ birth”.)

Here’s the premise:

When Reo, a powerful and devastating form of elemental magic, is unleashed across the greatest expands of the universe, sinister monsters of dark magic begin growing all throughout the galaxy. On earth, humanity is forced to seek refuge by escaping to the Hove, a large man-made airship that valiantly hovers high above the clouds. The privileged and high ranking civilians retreat to the Hove under command of the questionable Emperor Vioz, while the commoners are left on earth to fend for themselves against the growing masses of dark monsters. Two hundred years upon the Hove and the once mighty airship now slowly grazes through the air, desperately seeking restorations: damaged, quickly losing altitude, and seemingly mere moments away from plummeting back down to earth for the Emperor and all passengers to meet their untimely fate: death by Dark Magic monsters.

But in a moment,  a mysterious young boy with aquatic blue hair is seen standing motionless on the deck, mysteriously blending with the darkness of the night. No name, no origin –  stricken with an eerily uncanny silence and a deadpan expression drawn across his pale face.

“Who is this young boy that has slipped aboard?” the passengers whisper, completely perplexed. “There is no entrance to an airship that hovers hundreds of miles in the air!”

And this Reo – such a relentless and destructive force – how did that come to be?

Our adventure begins…

Based on early gameplay footage (which I’ll be posting here later this evening), the combat in Reobirth looks quite fast-paced, with a wide variety of sword attacks that call to mind Link’s move set from Super Smash Brothers. Dibble assures me that this is intentional, and that he has drawn further inspiration from SSB in utilizing tight controls and “a simple control scheme that focuses mainly around an attack button, a spell button, and a block button.”

Equally cool (or possibly even cool-er), Reobirth has a system where you breed little flying combat companions called “Pon.” Per the developer:

The Pon are largely autonomous creatures controlled by AI. Their movements and interactions will be both influenced by your actions and the context of the battle. For example, if you attack an enemy, the Pon will also immediately target that specific enemy – chasing and attacking. The Pon are also the spellbearers that enable your player to cast spells. Each Pon will be born with three spells (varying elemental types) which can be equipped in the spell palette (upper left hand corner of the screen, with each spell mapped to the SPELL button + a direction for easy spell casting). There’s a limit to how many times a Pon can cast a spell before it must recharge, but Pon will also have self-spells that they can cast at their own discretion (such as healing and other support spells).  The spells and power of each spell is determined via a Pon breeding system, similar to breeding Pokemon or Chocobos in the Final Fantasy series.

Reobirth is being developed for Windows, with possible Mac and Linux ports to follow. Dibble estimates that Reobirth has been in development 8-9 months; based on the game’s Kickstarter rewards, it looks like Dibble is aiming for release in September 2014.

Speaking of which: there’s a Kickstarter. It’s $10 to pre-order the game, which seems like a pretty fair deal to me.

Back at the end of March, you may recall me covering the 2011 Elder Scrolls-style open world RPG Realms of Fortune. Developer Clayton Lilly was kind enough to provide me with a Windows copy of the game; as I often do, I chose to document my first 30 minutes with it for your amusement / edification:

Basically: not too shabby! I have a few things I could critique: it starts off slowly, there’s little to no exposition at the start of the game, and the stamina mechanic desperately needs a good blocking mechanic to complement it. But on the whole, the game struck me as pretty solid–especially so given the price (less than three dollars on Windows, and 99 cents on Android).

You can nab Realms of Fortune here for Windows, and here for Android. There’s also a free demo available (Windows, Android) in case you want to test drive it for yourself.

Happy Monday, and welcome to another glorious week of exploring the exciting and ever-expanding world of indie RPGs! While I do some digging into some new and obscure projects, why don’t we catch up on some games we’ve previously covered, complete with videos? (Or, as I like to call it: Movie Night!)

First up, we have graphical roguelike Tales of Maj’Eyal. Word has it that ToME received a big update on Friday. Among the improvements:

• Rebalancing of many races and classes
• Addons will stay active if the game’s patch version is over the required one. So addons for 1.0.1 will work on 1.0.2 (but would not on 1.1.0)
• Most tier1/2 zones can now have alternate layout/stories/… brings some fresh air
• Rak’Shor pride looks more .. necromancy, and is more interresting
• More direct melee-range talent UI
• Many bugfixes and improvements

Second, it looks like work is continuing on Hartacon Tactics; some basic AI for single player has now made it into the game, as demonstrated in this video:

Space Hulk-style roguelike Steam Marines has reportedly been updated to alpha version 0.75a, with “a bunch of small stability and bug issues, as well as improving enemy AI and polishing up some of the UI.” In addition: “Map generation is sped up, special wall tiles were added, player and enemy turns are more clearly separated,” and more. This video doesn’t actually show version 0.75s, but it’s much more recent than the last one I posted, so I’m going to run with it:

Raphael Gervaise of NotByDesign has emailed me to inform me of The House of Correction, a nonlinear tile-based first-person dungeon crawl with a horror theme and some quite nice-looking hand-drawn 2D graphics.

The premise:

A group of disparate companions are about to find themselves subject to the machinations of the mysterious House of Correction.

Faced with increasingly fiendish trials, seemingly designed to teach that the meaning of life is to die, and inmates whose derangement is matched only by the staff, you’ll need to utilize all your wits to help them overcome where countless others have failed.

But just who is setting the agenda in this insane bureaucracy? Have lunatics really taken over the asylum, is some more sinister force at work behind the scenes, or is this simply the correct level of therapy required for a return to civilised society?

The developers describe the game world as “unique” and “surreal,” and although I have little context to interpret its significance, I will say that I am definitely intrigued by the presence of unusual character stats like Ego.

According to the developers, The House of Correction features real-time combat, combat abilities that synergize well together, lots of weapons to discover, teleporters, illusionary walls, secret rooms, and other dungeon niceties.

Want to see more? Here’s a trailer for you:

You can also see a bunch of screenshots below (some of which mention an “insult skull”–that sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it?)

There is a free playable prototype of The House of Correction currently out for Windows; you can download that here if you want to get a taste for what they’re aiming at. (They also have an alternate version with AZERTY keyboard support.) The game has been in development since June of 2011, but the developers are quick to note that this prototype is mostly just a proof of concept.

If you like what you see / play, do feel free to head on over to their Greenlight page and give The House of Correction your upvote.

Word has it that there is a “roguelike RPG brawler” in progress by developers Butterscotch Shenanigans. Quadropus Rampage began life as a 7DRL entry; the developers apparently liked it enough that they chose to expand it into a full game.

QR is a roguelike-like: it has levels, equipment, procedural generation and permadeath, but it’s also a fast-paced action game. You play as an angry, four-tentacled octopus. (I’m not sure why you’re angry, exactly, but I imagine that having one-half the regulation number of tentacles might have something to do with it.)

Here is a trailer giving you a sense of the how and why:

Word has it that Quadropus Rampage is coming “soon” to iOS and Android.

Word reaches me that RosePortal Games has released a new jRPG called The Princess’ Heart, about “a young princess who must travel the world to win her beloved’s heart back.”

Princess Aerin Goldheart suspects that her prince is sharing the bed with another woman. After once again becoming intoxicated and making a scene, the King and Queen send her away to a forest cottage. Aerin sneaks off to sign a contract with the Demon of Desire to make the prince love her again, but things go awry and she must travel the world to break the deal!

I have to admit, this is a pretty novel premise for an RPG; and I confess, I rather like the idea of playing as a recovering alcoholic princess (who is apparently possessed by a demon, if the cover art is any indication).

RosePortal Games promises more than 30 hours of play time, 10 playable characters, and an “innovative battle system” in which spells have an area of effect. I’m not sure that it counts as innovation to add a feature that’s been in games for more than 20 years, but hey–at least it’s a new wrinkle in the default RPG Maker battle system.

The Princess’ Heart is out now for Windows; you can snag the full version here for $4.99, or play the free demo.

Aldorlea Games informs me that in preparation for the imminent release of Millenium 5, they’ve gone back and updated installments 1-4.

The games now contain new faces for all the Mystrock Lords as well as small gameplay additions, such as the explanation of what each promotion (and double-promotion, in the case of Millennium 4) does.

Maybe not super-newsworthy, but hey: it’s a slow news day. Sue me.

The last time I wrote about Clint Bellanger, it was to talk about his open-source aRPG engine F.L.A.R.E. (which is now up to version 0.18 and looking pretty good). Today, however, we’re going to talk about another Bellanger project by the name of Heroine Dusk.

Heroine Dusk is a first-person, turn-based, step-based RPG in the Might and Magic vein. It even uses 2D sprites, just like Mom RPG developers used to make.

What distinguishes this from most of the blob-based first-person dungeon delvers of yore is its simplicity. You are a single character, not a party; fights are strictly one-on-one affairs (though that may change somewhat in the future); and the interface is highly streamlined.

You can try it for yourself, as there is a free demo currently online. Bellanger tells me that he created the demo as his April “One Game a Month” challenge, and intends to continue work on Heroine Dusk if it has a warm reception:

I have a full game planned on paper, and was waiting on how the demo was received before building out the rest of the game. I plan to sell the full game on my web site at first. I hope to make ports for iOS and Android at some point. I do at least plan to make a C++ port to make a native version for the open source handheld GCW-Zero.

Bellanger is known for championing open source development, and Heroine Dusk is no exception. Writes Bellanger: “I’ve released it all under open licences: GPL for the code and CC-BY-SA for the art.” The engine is pure HTML5 / Javascript, which will no doubt be exciting to some. (Personally, I’d be happy if I lived the rest of my life having never written another line of Javascript.)

Click here to play the demo.