Harmonia Online announced

Hello, everyone! With Labor Day behind us, it’s back to laboring at the old Indie RPG News mill. To get us back into the swing of things, here is a little nugget I’ve been sitting on: Harmonia Online, described as “an MMO with the strategic interplay of a turn-based strategy game.”

The plot is a bit wordy, and seems to be something of an anti-knowledge take on the whole light versus dark thing. The feature list is the real star of this one, in my view. To wit:

Harmonia blends the style and mechanics of several genres together.  There’s a lot of Shining Force, a little Warcraft, and a little Nethack.  Each player commands a small band of heroes and collaborates with other players in massive tactical battles to defend (or destroy) the kingdom of Harmonia.  Positioning and management are key to victory; each of the 8 basic character classes fulfills a vital role on the battlefield.

• Soldier – The leader of the group, a proficient swordsman, but also provides valuable support effects to the troops
• Knight – Highly mobile lance-wielding centaur that specializes in melee combat and crowd control.
• Warrior – Stalwart defender, able to take hits and protect other more vulnerable characters.
• Birdsoldier – Nimble flying unit with the ability to penetrate the enemy’s squishier back ranks
• Magician – Slow and vulnerable, but if properly protected can lay waste to large areas of the map.
• Priest – The all-important healer & supporting spellcaster
• Archer – Ranged fighter with little in the way of defense but packs quite a punch from the back row.
• Monk – Holy melee fighter with lesser healing ability and powerful buffs/debuffs.

Each main class undergoes two promotions during the course of the game, resulting in a whopping 56 total classes for a huge variety of skills and play styles.

The developers tell me that each player will control 1-4 heroes during play. They also state that Harmonia Online will be fully moddable, with a built-in scripting language and an official map editor so you can run a server with your own variations.

The game’s engine already exists in ASCII form, and is in the process of being retrofitted with a rather more accessible look. As you can see from this video of Harmonia’s latest build, they’re going for something of a Shining Force 3 look, with chunky sprites projected onto low-res 3D backgrounds:

I’m still a little unclear on the combat mechanics they’re going for, as things look decidedly not-turn-based in all of the footage I’ve seen. That said, there is actually a playable demo available where one can presumably test this for oneself. Why not give it a try and see what you think?

Oh, also: Kickstarter. The developers want money to improve their servers, get extra art, and work on Harmonia full-time. They have only a few days to raise a significant amount, so if you want to help out, now’s the time. One way or another, this game will be seeing a Windows, Mac and Linux release at some point in the future.