Aldorlea Games has written in to announce the fifth installment in their Millenium jRPG series, called (appropriately enough) Millenium 5: Battle of the Millenium.

From what I’ve read, Millenium will feature tournament-style fights that occur in a sort of martial arts ring, where you can win by knocking (or tricking) your opponent out of the ring. Beyond that, information on the ground about this game is rather thin.

According to Aldorlea Games, Millenium 5 is “getting close to its release.” (It was initially scheduled for release in December 2012.) I expect they’ll release more details when that happens. In the meantime, why not look at some screenshots?

Claustrophobia: The Downward Struggle is a graphical roguelike in development by The Indie Forge. (Neither the developer nor the game seem to have an official website–look to the end of the article for links.)

I don’t think there’s a narrative premise, but there is a rather wordy feature list:

• Expansive Random Generation – Everything from the dungeons design to the enemies and gear you face is randomly generated on starting a new game. Like traditional roguelikes, each new adventure offers a unique experience, with hundreds of different room types to explore, and even more items and enemies to populate them.
• Clean Integrated Interface – All information you need about your character is on screen at once, and has been carefully optimised and integrated into the main game. Stats show gear progression on highlighting gear in the floor, and all loot can be dragged and dropped from the game world to your inventory.
• So Much Gear – If you’re the sort of person who loves collecting gear which has lovely brightly coloured names depending on the item’s rarity, then this is the game for you. Gear drops are frequent, and the gear variety extensive.
• Customization – What with all the gear, skills, characters and all, there really is a huge amount of room to make each playthrough of the game truly your own.
• Crafting – Various forms of crafting will be available, from Blacksmithing to Alchemy. Materials can be found in amongst your sea of loot, which can then become new, shinier loot.
• Slick Combat System – Every character has six abilities (mapped to QWERTY) which are used in combat, and well as just attacking with your equipped weapon. Q and W’s skills are determined by your main hand weapon, E and R by the character you are playing, and T and Y by a choice of your profession at the start of the game. Enemies also have skills unique to their type, which change how you combat different creeps. A spider for example, can web you to the floor if you get to close, and so is better taken out by using disabling abilities in return.
• Easy to control, easy to run – The game is simple to pick up and play at any time, for any amount of time. Load times are instant, as is saving and closing, and the game itself in its current early build is playable on anything from a netbook upwards. It’s perfect for maybe a few minutes in your break, or for an hour to get down and seriously play.
• Multiple difficulties – Keeping with the ‘playable on everything’ theme, here’s the ‘playable by anyone’ bit. Multiple levels of difficulty from ‘Pushover’ to ‘Impossible’ are available for players of any mind set or skill. Or just for those that fancy a challenge.
• Massive Replay Value – Since every playthrough is unique, and every character, enemy, gear set, and room is different on each play, the game has tonnes of replay value.

Here’s the trailer:

There’s a wiki if you want to learn more about the game / spoil things for yourself, and a developer’s log if you want to track changes in the game over time.

The most recent update to Claustrophobia (just last week) puts it at alpha version 1.0.9. As is usually the way with roguelikes, you can buy in now and play Claustrophobia as it’s developed. You can nab it for $4.99 on Desura or £2.99 on GamersGate; I leave it to you to work out which is the better deal given shifting exchange rates. You can also find the game on Steam Greenlight and upvote it if you so desire. Claustrophobia is Windows-only.

Adam Rippon of Muteki Corp. writes in to announce that Dragon Fantasy Book I is coming to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. In addition to porting the game to the new platform, Muteki Corp. has enhanced it with the following:

Redid all the graphics and sound for the optional “enhanced mode”, added a new dungeon to chapter 2 that makes every much more balanced, redid the UI to match the improvements added in DF2, added achievements…

So that’s pretty cool. The PC version of the game will be benefiting from these improvements as well.

The new-and-improved Dragon Fantasy Book I will be releasing for $10 later this month on April 16th. You can see some of the spiffied-up graphics in screenshots below.

Aldorlea Games writes in to announce the release of Alpha Kimori Episode 2, the second in a trio of episodic jRPGs developed by Sherman 3D.

Sherman 3D describes the Alpha Kimori series as

cute, bright, and colorful Japanese Anime inspired episodic casual 2D Role Playing Games, which feature an intricate action-adventure epic story with a delightful mix of sci-fi and fantasy elements.

I’m not sure where the “action” part comes in, as combat is explicitly turn-based–perhaps that refers to other challenges in the game? As for the narrative premise:

Alpha Kimori™ is set 50 years after the alien invasion of Earth when the newly discovered planet Kimori plays host to two warring human factions – the Bidarians, who want to reclaim Earth, and the Jinrians, who are contented with their new home. Even as the Bidarians destroy with their mighty Robotic Intelligent Cybernetic Armor (RICA) technology, the Jinrians defend the planet with the ability to transmute into colossal indigenous creatures. Amidst the turmoil, young Bidarian warrior, Rick, falls in love with Jinrian princess, Yuki.

So it’s a fairly unusual setting for an RPG, though I wouldn’t exactly go into this expecting novel-quality writing. You can get a better sense for the games by watching the Episode 2 trailer below:

The first episode of Alpha Kimori was evidently released two years ago, unbeknownst to me. You can find free demos for both Episodes 1 and 2 here and here, respectively. The full version of each episode is $14.99, direct from the developer; if Alpha Kimori sounds like your kind of game, you can snag Episode 1 here and Episode 2 here.

Robert Gąsiorowski of Desert Fox Software writes in to announce the release of Srututu: Forgotten Foe, an odd sort of board game / RPG mix. (It actually came out on November 28, 2012, but I only just heard about it, so New Release it is!)

Here is how the developer describes it:

Srututu-Forgotten Foe is a board role-playing game. It is a combination of Monopoly and Desktop Dungeons. The board consists of 64 spaces arranged in a large square. Each space represents different place (Town, Fields, Forest, Desert,etc.). At the end of each turn, the player can perform selected action such as sleeping, searching for enemies, hunting. Many actions depends on the character classes, skills, and equipment. Srututu-Forgotten Foe The offers many opportunities and some skill connections may bring you great results (such as Hunting and Cooking). All depends on player’s strategy.

Robert tells me that the game has 20 missions, but no overarching story to speak of. You progress through the game by rolling dice and moving across a game board. There are six character classes in the game, each of which can be customized with different skills:

Warrior- high Hp, can use many types of weapons.

Thief- fast, increases critical hit chance every 6 levels

Archer- very fast fighter, bonus Dmg and critical hit when using ranged weapons

Hunter- high Hp,can hunt to get meat and fish,

Mage- high Mana,have offensive spells

Priest- high Mana, heal spell

Combat is similar to Desktop Dungeons, in that enemies are passive and battles usually optional. You can get a sense of how it plays by watching the video below:

Srututu: Forgotten Foe is available for free: you can download it from IndieDB, or from Indievania (with an option to tip the developer as a thank you). Srututu is Windows-only.

Pascal Bestebroer of Orange Pixel writes in to tell me about Heroes of Loot, an “action roguelike” he’s been working on.

According to Pascal, he’s taken the parts of roguelikes that he likes and made something of a lightweight action RPG out of them:

I took the random level generation, the leveling and the different player classes. But I made sure to remove a lot of statistic screens and skill point stuff, cause it would have broken the action and speed of the game.

You have a choice of four character classes when the game starts, but it’s not clear if there’s any character customization beyond that.

The beta is available as pay-what-you-want from Pascal’s website. The finished version–which will contain “quests, more loot, more items, more shops,” and other niceties–will be released for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone, iPad, Playbook/BB10, and Ouya sometime in May 2013. Pascal expects the desktop versions to be pay-what-you-want (with a possible $1 minimum), and will charge €2.99 (roughly $3.84 USD) for the mobile versions.

Dani Landers of Studio Fawn writes in to announce Bloom: Memories, a new Zelda-alike starring “a broken robot” and his mechanical mother.

The game’s general theme centers around the relationship between these two robots. The wider context, though, is one of disaster: the reawakening of the clockwork war drones of a civilization long past.

For many years they had encroached on our lands, slowly driving us back as their corruption spread. Their strength was overwhelming and even I and the other guardians were helpless to stop them, though many of us died trying. At the front of the assault were their skeletal machines, abominations of hollow souls and metal….of which they had a seemingly endless supply. You see, this is a battle of attrition, and it is a battle we are losing.

Though rumors abound, what is known for certain is at the heart of the corruption are the Eternal. Men? Machines? Perversions of life.

It was there amongst the Eternal that one day a mysterious woman escaped. She too was an abomination, but I could feel she was somehow different and in frantic desperation. So I reached out and called to her, offering her refuge in our forest.

It was once she arrived that I realized why she had seemed so different. Somehow inside her grew new life, and she couldn’t stand her child being twisted into the monsters which attacked us.

We worked quickly gathering pieces of the fallen machines to house her child’s life, and in the end were successful. She gave birth. Though her child was flawed and weak, he was alive … and that is where our story begins.

Unusual premise and setting aside, there are a few things that seem to distinguish this game from your typical Zelda-alike. First: a linked heart mechanic. Hearts serve as “lives,” and can be consumed proactively to provide the hero with power-ups. Half the hearts are the hero’s and half are the mother’s. I’m not 100% clear on how this differs from just giving the hero extra hearts; I think the idea is that the hero can only voluntarily give up his own hearts, whereas the mother’s reserve is purely for extra lives.

Bloom also features a spirit world (“the Bridge”) overlaying the physical plane. One can shift into the Bridge to use certain abilities unavailable in the physical world. Says Dani: “Inside the bridge one can see the true nature of friend and foe, past the physical aspects of a being and into their hearts.” That reminds me–in a good way–of the player’s first encounter with the Dark World in Zelda: A Link to the Past. I’m particularly interested to see what Studio Fawn does with this mechanic.

Bloom has some very nice art design, as you can see from this assemblage of screenshots and concept art:

Bloom: Memories is currently on Kickstarter seeking funding. If you like what you see and you want to ensure that this game gets made as intended, head on over and give it your support. (If they don’t make their goal, Studio Fawn will seek publisher / investor money to carry on, or else cut down the scope of the project to something they can complete in their free time.)

There’s no word on the eventual price just yet, though the fact that the game’s pre-order tier is $15 should give some indication. Studio Fawn estimates that Bloom will be released in or around December 2014 for Windows and Mac, with ports to Linux, Android, Ouya, XBox 360, Playstation 3, Playstation 4 and Wii to follow.

Mobile fantasy strategy title Battle Dungeon: Risen (previously covered here) was released on Friday by developer Hunted Cow Studios.

Battle Dungeon consists of 12 different scenarios, each with its own story, so there really isn’t any single overarching premise to discuss beyond “hire soldiers and fight bad guys.” It’s a 3D turn-based fantasy tactics game, in other words, not a tactical RPG.

The game’s features include:

• Fight epic battles against multiple types of foe.
• Stunning high definition 3D graphics.
• Increase your soldiers skills with experience earned from battles.
• Design custom parties that match your style of play.
• Battle through 12 challenging scenarios.
• Collect and improve your soldiers equipment with hundreds of items.
• 3 classes, 9 sub-classes and 18 unique abilities.
• Hire up to 30 soldiers to be ready for any challenge.
• Game Center leaderboard and achievements.

Over email, developer Andrew Mulholland told me that the game’s mechanics are actually most inspired by the original X-COM (which is definitely not the source I expected for a fantasy strategy game). Similarly to X-COM, Battle Dungeon uses an action points system that allows you to jump back and forth between characters over the course of your turn. Battles occur in full-team I-Go-You-Go format; you move your whole team, then the enemy moves its whole team.

Team size varies from battle to battle; depending on the scenario, you’ll deploy a maximum of between 4 and 6 soldiers. As the leaderboard bullet above suggests, the game will score you on how well you complete a battle; completing a mission with fewer (or weaker) soldiers will increase your score multiplier.

Mulholland tells me that character advancement is more traditional. Each successful action (such as attacking or healing) gains a character experience points, which can then be allocated as you see fit to boost character stats. Characters gain levels as they earn experience, which determines what sort of equipment they can use.

Touchgameplay has a video up showing Battle Dungeon gameplay; you can check it out below:

You can nab Battle Dungeon: Risen over on the Apple App Store for an early bird price of $1.99; that price will be rising to $2.99 at some (as yet undetermined) point in the future. The game is currently exclusive to iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Ben McGraw (a.k.a. “Ben Grue”) writes in to announce Sully: A Very Serious RPG, a jRPG in development by Breadbros Games. The premise is decidedly on the light-hearted side:

Sully: A Very Serious RPG is the 80′s summer romcom of RPGs.  I’m not saying I have John Cusack in my game, but if John Cusack were going to be in any RPG, it’d be mine.

It’s mainly focused around two teenagers, Crystal and Darin, and what happens the last summer they have together before Crystal goes to college at the prestigious Magi Tech.

Ha! Magi Tech! Get it? ‘Cuz it’s like magitech, from FF6? …yeah, okay, that’s actually pretty clever. Also amusing: the antagonist is apparently Lord Stan, Prince of Heck, and “not that other guy from that other place.” (Per McGraw: “it’s a sore subject, he has better PR, Stan doesn’t want to talk about it.”)

This is the kind of RPG where you wrestle with the trials of growing up in a jRPG world. Where you save orphanages from being forclosed upon by winning prize money in a regatta. The kind of RPG where there’ll be a dance-off between rival gangs of crabs and sharks. A game where you’ll fly around in Sky Trains and Deep-Sea Hot-Air Balloons…

…both of which are way cooler than Airships.

So that’s a lot about the game’s tone and setting; how about a bit about the game’s mechanics?

The battle system features lush Valkyrie-Profile-inspired full frame animations for the characters.  The gameplay is more of a turn-based menu-driven Final Fantasy-esque type affair, but it also includes a bit of Super Mario RPG-style real-time interaction.

Which reminds me: here’s a trailer showing off a bit of how this game actually looks (i.e. really, really good):

Sully: A Very Serious RPG is planned for release in Summer 2013 for PC, Mac, Linux, and Playstation Vita. The game will be $14.99 on release, but you can pre-order it now via Paypal for $9.99.

You may recall my post last year about the release of Muteki Corporation‘s Dragon Fantasy, a jRPG with a distinctly FF4-ish look about it, broken up episodically into chapters.

Recently, I’ve seen mention of both Dragon Fantasy Book II and Dragon Fantasy 2. “Which is it,” I asked myself, “a new episode or a full-fledged sequel?” Having reviewed the terminology, I’ve decided that it must be the latter–the earlier episodes were chapters, which I guess means “Book” refers to a full sequel. Right? Sure. Let’s just roll with that assumption for now, anyway.

Supporting my “this is a full-bore sequel” theory is the fact that Dragon Fantasy Book II has shed its FF4-like appearance and emerged from its chrysalis looking decidedly more Chrono Trigger-ish–which is to say, the game’s graphics have gotten a major upgrade since the first installment. See for yourself:

Dragon Fantasy Book II is a bit unusual in that it’s an indie RPG exclusive to the PS3 and Playstation Vita. I might be mistaken, but I think that’s actually a first for this website, and evidence of the great lengths that Sony has been going to to court indie developers over the past year or so.

Muteki hasn’t posted anything on their website, but I actually got a chance to meet developer Adam Rippon and play a build of this game briefly at PAX East, so based on what I learned, I’m telling you now that this game is (a) heavily influenced by Dragon Quest, FF6 and Chrono Trigger; and (b) is coming out for Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita this summer (i.e. in a few months). No word yet on the price.