Back to Back: Indie RPGS to fund

Greetings, indie RPG devotees! The hour has come for us to squeeze in, trawl the uncharted seas of up-and-coming RPGs in need of moneys. What became of last month’s menagerie? Of these: Melancholy Republic, Monsters’ Den: Godfall, Songbringer, and Unraveled fly triumphantly in the breeze, while Adventure Craft, Aloran, Amaranthine Story Chapter I, Mongrel, and Outland 17 are subjected to the deep freeze.

What spawns now off our starboard bow–what games to edify, or displease?

Bloodstained – a 2D Metroidvania from Koji Igarashi, whom you might know as (1) a major creative force in the Castlevania series dating back to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (one of the cornerstone games of the entire Metroidvania subgenre), and (2) one of a few high-profile game developers who’ve recently fled Konami. Bloodstained is his way of continuing to produce the type of games he likes. If you like those games too, you can contribute to the $4,005,804 treasure horde he’s already amassed. This one’s way past it’s funding goal, with 54 hours left in the campaign.

Crisential – a survival sandbox RPG with voxel graphics set in a post-apocalyptic world. You can craft items and build scenery block by block a la Minecraft–but more interestingly, you can also craft your character’s talents, which strikes me as something like a more flexible version of Morrowind’s custom spell creation feature. Combat takes place in real-time; the developers advertise RTS elements as well, although I can’t seem to find anything that really substantiates this claim. Crisential is off to a slow start, with only $695 raised out of an $80,000 goal. It has 24 days left to make up the difference.

Planet Centauri – a 2D, side-scrolling sandbox RPG with spell crafting, monster taming, and the ability to terraform the landscape. Frankly, it looks a lot like Terraria. So far Planet Centauri has raised roughly $3,500; it must raise another $22,060 or so in the next 15 days to meet its goal.

Regalia – a highly polished-looking 3D sRPG with a colorful, cartoony art style. The devs write that Regalia has some light 4X elements, in that you can “build your own village, conduct diplomacy, send your companions on expeditions for resources and treasures.” Regalia has already raised $33,702 out of its $40,000 funding goal, and with 22 days remaining in its campaign, it has plenty of time to go for stretch goals.

Spinal Blast – previously on Kickstarter earlier this year as Bloody Monday, Spinal Blast is a 2D isometric sRPG with an anime graphical style and a psychoanalytic theme. So far it’s raised $1,421 out of $60,000 with 29 days left on the clock.

The Bard’s Tale IV – The Bard’s Tale is a classic first-person dungeon crawler series in the Wizardry vein, and The Bard’s Tale IV will be the latest entry in said series. As this in-engine video demonstrates, developer inXile is opting for the Unreal 4 engine this time around, and they’re going all-in on the pretties. This is inXile’s third time dipping into the Kickstarter well, and appropriately enough, it’s going well for them: they’re only a little over $100,000 shy of their $1,250,000 goal, with 30 days remaining.

Umbra – a 3D, open-world Diablo-alike with some pretty slick graphics. This one’s already fully funded and then some, with over $318,000 raised out of its $225,000 goal and 3 days left for it to raise more.

Venture Forth – a 3D first-person dungeon crawler in development by a two-man team. Unlike The Bard’s Tale IV, this one puts you in control of only a single character with free movement and real time combat. Here’s a gameplay video of the latest build. With 15 days left to go, Venture Forth remains about a third of the way to its $19,000 goal.

We Happy Few – from the indie studio that brought us Contrast comes a 3D, first-person roguelike-like set in a dystopian alternate universe version of 1960s Britain where everyone is on happy pills, and people caught not taking said happy pills are promptly beaten to death. Gameplay seems to be modeled on games like System Shock 2 and Dishonored, with multiple viable play styles: you can choose combat, stealth, or simply blending in as means to survive while you find a way to escape. We Happy Few is a little over halfway to its sizeable $201,353 goal; 23 days remain for it to reach it.

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