Clayton Lilly of Gamaray Ltd. writes in to tell me about Realms of Fortune, an Elder Scrolls-style open world action RPG released back in 2011. Not technically a new release, then, but it’s new to me!

The premise:

Realms of Fortune is a first person open world RPG set in an era similar to our own age of discovery. However, instead of sailing in ships across the ocean, adventurers use gatestones to explore a distant land full of magic, treasure, and ancient secrets.

That’s certainly an unusual choice of setting, one which neatly justifies the appearance of flintlock pistols throughout the game’s media.

Something left out of the official premise, but which I find quite interesting, is that the world is apparently procedurally generated with each new game. Here, read about it in convenient bullet point form!

• A very large, randomly generated world full of lakes, hills, dungeons and more. Each game you play is a whole new adventure.
• Dozens of unique creatures.
• Real-time, first person combat and exploration.
• A huge variety of upgradeable weapons and armor.
• Firearms, including scoped weapons.
• The ability to create potions from plants that you find.
• Seamless world, even when going in and out of dungeons.
• Swimming, diving, and underwater dungeons
• Fishing and hunting.
• An exciting main quest.

The graphics of Realms of Fortune remind me a bit of the Morrowind era of gaming, which I find perfectly agreeable. (That said, I could definitely do without that enormous targeting reticle taking up the center of the screen.) Here’s a video showing the game in action on Android. In my opinion, it looks a lot better in motion than it does in screenshots:

Realms of Fortune comes in both Android and Windows flavors; per the developer, the Windows one has a few graphical niceties that don’t appear in the Android version. Both versions have free demos (Android, Windows); the full game costs $0.99 for Android on Google Play, and $2.95 for Windows direct from the developer.

Hey folks! I’m in Boston for PAX East. I totally had a post planned for today, but it took literally until just now to get internet access and actually post it. (Long story.)

I’ll be returning to Chicago Monday, and resuming regular posting the day after. Until then, why not have a look at some of these lovely pieces from the archives? In keeping with the theme of me doing things late, I’ll somewhat arbitrarily suggest taking a look at all the games tagged Well, It’s New to Me.

Phillip Meyer of indie studio Lecker Klecker writes in to announce King Voxel, a Zelda-alike where the world and quests are procedurally generated and the graphics consist entirely of cel-shaded (what else?) voxels.

The premise:

Lord Hellion has conqured and transformed the kingdom of Voxelot and kidnapped the queen.  You must gather 8 orbs to gain entrance to Hellion’s castle for the final battle.

At first glance, it looks an awful lot like 3D Dot Game Heroes, but the cel shading helps distinguish it visually. Gameplay-wise, the author states that it is “basically a ‘reimagined Zelda 1′” taking place in a procedurally generated world. You can definitely see the influence in the game’s trailer:

Meyer is currently seeking $25,000 in funding for King Voxel on Indiegogo. King Voxel will be Windows-only, and is tentatively planned for release in Fall 2013.

I’ve just received an email from Abel Bascunana of Autoloot Games, Ltd. (a Spanish studio reportedly formed by former employees of Ubisoft, Gameloft and Funcom), announcing their new RPG The Dark Triad.

Per the developers, The Dark Triad will be turn-based, isometric, and fully 3D. The game is set to feature 8 character classes, with a skills and specialty system that lets you customize your characters’…well, skills and abilities.

According to Bascunana, the game will feature turn-based combat, dialog trees, traps and lock-picking; the developers are aiming to balance dialog and combat roughly 50 / 50.

The Dark Triad’s presentation thus far is very Baldur’s Gate-y, as you can see in the video below:

Per the developers, this game still has about 10 months of development left to go; they are seeking £80,000 (read: about $121,320) on Kickstarter to finance that remaining development time.

The Dark Triad is currently planned for release on PC and XBox 360 in December 2013.

Teudogar and the Alliance with Rome is an historical RPG in the style of Ultima 6. Created by Wolf Mittag, this game was released way, way back in 2003. This is an old release, folks.

The premise is simple:

12 B.C.: By order of Emperor Augustus, Roman legions conquer barbarian Germania. Fight for your tribe’s freedom – or form an alliance with Rome!

There’s actually quite a bit more to it than that, though. Beyond touting Teudogar as a thrilling and historically authentic experience, Mittag cites the following features:

• multiple different storylines   Become farmer or merchant, warlord or pensioner, Roman mercenary, or king of your tribe. Countless sub-plots, and great freedom of action in every game situation.

• classic role-playing features   As you play your way through the game you’ll gain experience, improve your skills, arm yourself with chain mail shirts or Roman weapons, learn wizardry, capture booty, hunt for treasures, or trade goods. What kind of skills and character you develop depends only on your actions.

• detailed and realistic game world   You can talk to all characters within the game world, barter with them, make friends or quarrel with them. All objects within the game world can be used and have realistic attributes. People produce new goods, merchants sell their wares. The entire surrounding of each location can be explored.

• strong artificial intelligence   All persons within the game have their own daily schedules, relationships, plans, and views. They act realistically in everyday life and interaction with others, and they react intelligently and naturally to everything the player says or does. All persons are aware of their surroundings, the player and other persons, or interesting events, and they can refer to these during dialogs.

Teudogar is Windows-only. There’s a free demo available here, with the full version available direct from the developer for $14.95.

Despite appearances, it seems Disastercake merely dropped off the internet for a few months, and that development on Soul Saga Episode 1 continued (albeit in silence). In his first blog post in months, developer Michael Gale goes into the problems he experienced working with contract animators:

You remember my animator, right?  Well, he quit.  And so did about 4 others in the past 5 months for various reasons, basically all coming down to the point that they didn’t have enough time to spend on the project for the budget I have been able to put aside for the animations.  This was because the rigging job was so insanely huge, and the models weren’t even made right to do it!  After months of time wasted because animators kept losing confidence in the art assets, I decided to take things into my own hands…

Gale states he then taught himself to rig and set up the game’s models so he could get animators to stick around and actually animate them. He has posted a detailed developer diary explaining in detail what he’s accomplished during the past few months, but it’s very much a missing the forest for the trees thing. The nature of the game itself has changed dramatically, the jRPG style seemingly abandoned entirely in favor of “fast paced hack and slash combat” and a “procedurally generated story and world.” Which is to say: it’s a Diablo-alike now.

Curious to know exactly what’s been going on and what new direction the game will be heading, I emailed Gale with some questions. The interview follows…

(more…)

Lunchtime Studios, a Boston-based indie outfit, has announced a new adventure game/RPG hybrid set in Prohibition-era New York. The aptly named Lords of New York centers around the New York mafia–and more specifically, your character’s attempts to either rise up through its ranks or bring it tumbling down.

The premise:

It’s 1925. Prohibition is in full swing, alcohol is forbidden and business is booming for the mafia. Speakeasies and jazz clubs are packed every night.

Step into a world that dances between glitz and guns, glamour and danger. Are you going to make your mark by working your way to the top of the mafia or by bringing it down?

Your journey begins at the end of a dark alley where the only thing that stands between you and the path to glory is a knock and a password.

Aside from the setting, the most unusual feature in Lords of New York has to be the combat system. Basically, it’s poker, but with character stats governing metagame elements like spotting tells or cheating. LoNY’s combat is to poker what Puzzle Quest’s was to Match 3 games, in other words.

Lords of New York has a really nice art style, an unusual mix of 3D rendered backgrounds and 2D cartoon character animations. You can get a sense for it all in the video and screenshots below:

Lunchtime are currently seeking some pretty significant funding on Kickstarter to make this game happen; their campaign is off to a bit of a slow start, but it’s nothing a cadre of enthusiastic indie RPG fans can’t fix! Without funding, Lunchtime dev Courtney Pinnell tells me that development will continue, albeit with fewer playable characters, downgraded visuals, and longer development time. If you want to help this project out, here’s the place to go.

Lords of New York is being developed for Windows, Mac and iOS. Assuming successful funding, it is planned for release in summer 2014.

Erik Kain, Forbes’s resident games blogger, has posted a nicely written interview with Iron Tower Studio‘s Vince Weller (lead developer on the upcoming wRPG Age of Decadence). A snippet:

Forbes: Tell me a little bit about Age of Decadence. What’s the setting and why did you choose that setting? Where did the name come from?

Weller: It’s a fantasy role-playing game set in a world inspired by the fall of the Roman Empire. Nowadays, ‘fantasy role-playing game’ tells you absolutely nothing, so let me elaborate to give your readers an accurate picture.

It’s a hardcore game. What does it mean? Well, if accessible means ‘a game that can be enjoyed by everyone, including your grandma and the neighbors’ cat’, then hardcore would be the exact opposite of that. It’s a game made for a very specific market, a market abandoned long ago simply because it’s a niche within a niche. Even been in the middle of nowhere? Endless empty land stretching out in every direction, an antique gas station, and a diner that says, “I bet you a silver dollar you ain’t man enough to eat the special and live to tell the tale”. Well, that’s our niche. We’ve moving in and setting up shop there.

Traditionally, many fantasy RPGs are about killing things, clearing up dungeons, and being a hero. Now, there is nothing wrong with mindless fun and wish fulfillment, but we serve a different meal here.

…

The focus of the game is not on killing monsters, but rather on dealing with fellow humans and factions, trying to survive – easier said than done – and making a name for yourself. Naturally, to accommodate all that scheming, plotting, and backstabbing, we give the player plenty of choices, from multiple solutions to quests to different paths you can take through the game. You (and your actions) will determine who your friends and enemies are. There are no default good and bad guys.

Click here for the full interview.

It’s been quite a while since we last heard from Double Bear, developers of Dead State. I was started to worry that their game might be in sort of a dead…state.

Well! Banish the thought. DB have put out a nearly 10-minute long video showing the game’s combat system. Kick back, toss off your shoes, and settle in for another exciting movie night!

Sword of the Stars: The Pit is a sci-fi roguelike set (appropriately enough) in the Sword of the Stars universe. Developed by a small team from Kerberos Productions, The Pit was funded via just shy of $24,000 in contributions on IndieGoGo back in November and (apparently) released about three weeks ago.

The premise:

A deadly plague ravages your world. Your last hope: a legendary alien facility dug deep into the Feldspar Mountains…a massive Pit, built by the ancient Suul’ka.

If ‘The Pit’ really exists, there might be something left. Something that will give your doctors a fighting chance at the cure.  All you know for sure is that every expedition into those mountains has failed to return…

And nothing sows death like the Suul’ka.

One thing that sets Sword of the Stars apart from other roguelikes, besides the setting and use of firearms with limited ammunition, is the very wRPGish way in which characters have numerous different skill proficiencies in varying percentages–all in all, it reminds me quite a lot of Fallout 1-2.

Here’s the trailer:

You can download a free demo of Sword of the Stars: The Pit from GamersGate, GamersHell or AtomicGamer. The full version of the game costs $9.99 from GamersGate or on Steam. The Pit is Windows-only.