Hack, Slash, Loot(HSL) is a single-player turn-based dungeon crawler for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Take control of a lone hero and explore sprawling dungeons, fight dangerous monsters, and most importantly, plunder valuable treasures.

It isn’t at all clear from that bare-bones description exactly what it is that sets HSL apart from the roughly gagillion-and-a-half other roguelikes coming out right now. Luckily, Adam Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun has taken care of that for us. According to him, the thing that makes HSL unique is the game’s simplicity:

It may well be the simplest roguelike I’ve ever played, with actual visual approximations of the things you’re looting, hacking and slashing, a point and click interface, and no inventory to manage. There’s equipment in abundance, but it’s a case of choosing what you want and leaving the rest on a dank floor somewhere.

Oh, and there’s no leveling up; you can only improve by getting better equipment. Which probably makes this not-an-RPG. But my guess is that most people will still think of it as a proper roguelike, so I’ll allow it.

Have a computer that runs Windows, MacOS or Linux? (I certainly hope so.) Have $10? (I hope that’s so, too.) Want to buy this game? (Oddball probably hopes so.) It can be yours for the price of $10. Buy it here, or grab the demo (W/M/L) for a substantially cheaper $0. Finally, as is our custom, we present you with a trailer so you can see what you’re getting yourself into:

The devs describe it as “an open-source, single-player, tactical role-playing roguelike and action game set in the world of Eyal.” Check out this gameplay video to get a taste for how it works:

Here’s the best part: the game is free, and in the best traditions of the roguelike genre, its development is open source. Which means that it technically isn’t “done,” and never will be, so long as people want to go in and add more stuff. But it’s currently at version 1.00 Beta 37, which I gather means you can play through the game and have a very complete experience doing so. Nab the game here.

Here is how the developers describe the game:

Wanderlust (the game) is an online, fantasy, 4 player party-based arcade-action rpg game made with Game Maker. Wanderlust: Rebirth officially began on December 24th, 2006. Our hope is to make Wanderlust a strong community-oriented game, where our players will make new friends and experience a great novel-esque story with one another!

So this is the second indie, Secret-of-Mana-style game I’ve reported on in the past couple of months. Pretty cool. I’m not sure what “novel-esque” means, much less in the context of a 4 player party-based arcade-action RPG. Maybe the story is like that of a novel about characters who run around and whack things a lot and level up? One way or another, though, the game does look like fun. Check out the trailer:

Also worth mentioning: the game is currently on sale for 50% of its normal price from now until December 25th, meaning that you can pick it up for a measly $5 (or $15 if you want to snag four copies, one for you and three for friends to play co-op with you.)

You will jump into the dreams of people you meet and can exit the way you came in or jump into the dream of another person you meet or person within your party. This allows a lot of back and forth into different landscapes, something you will need to do to advance farther in certain realms. You won’t be worrying about random monsters though, they appear on the screen for you to avoid or confront depending on you.

An interesting aspect that adds some difficulty to the game is the lack of a healing item inventory. Within the dreams you will find food of all sorts that will heal your party. Certain characters more than others depending on the food type. The true kicker is once you pick it up it is used immediately and removed from the map. So you need to use them sparingly and make sure it is the right item for the character needing healed most. There is a bit of a safety net as far as healing goes. You can use a fairy that appears near where you start, at a cost. If she heals your party the dreamworlds will react and make the game more difficult. So using her can be more headache than help.

Additionally, here’s an interview Adam Ames of TruePCGaming did with Indinera (the owner of Aldorlea Games). They don’t talk too much about the game itself there, though Indinera does mention that Dreamscape is more puzzle-focused than his usual fare.

The game’s backstory revolves around a man named Kale who can communicate with animals and other creatures. He is eventually cast out of human society, joins with a group of monsters, vanishes, then somehow reappears with godlike powers and commences a campaign of vengeance against humanity. That’s the bad guy. You don’t get to play him. You just play some schlub whose dad was once a general in a war.

Your Father is blamed for the murder of the King and taken away to be executed, your village is attacked and destroyed by monsters, and there is a plot in motion that could very well begin the Fourth Great War. What begins as a simple quest to rescue your Father shall become a fight for the survival of the human race…

So there’s that. Josh writes that PoT contains at least 7 hours of gameplay, and retails for a mere $8. There is a free demo available here, which you can use to try out the game before making any rash decisions. Meanwhile, here is (what else?) a trailer:

He describes the game like so:

Create a custom group of characters to dissolve a centuries old curse in the 6+ hour campaign or test your skill in one of several unique challenges available. The dungeons abound with secrets to uncover and enemies to defeat.

Involving Combat System with special Chain Break attacks

Performance in combat is rated with increased rewards for the highest grades

Discover numerous secret doors and overcome puzzles and traps

Complex boss battles test player tactics

Multiple difficulty settings and variable party size available to customize your challenge level

Disarm Trapped treasure chests and obtain more than 100 unique items

Each of the 3 character classes offer 3 distinct paths of advancement

Deeds of Valor awarded for performing special tasks outside what is required (can you reach the Rat King’s lair while avoiding all combat encounters?)

Minimal random encounters, most encounters are placed in rooms and once defeated, stay defeated

Mark writes that Dark Delve “was just released on the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace for 80 MSP ($1).” You can find it here, along with a free trial version. Here is a video showing off the game in action:

In his press release, Jay writes:

On top of the serious, ‘hard-core’ engine, The Skull of S’makh-Daon layers a world and story with a decidedly more tongue-in-cheek approach to the genre. Spells and skills have names like “Power Word: Defenestrate” and “Size Doesn’t Matter.” In a world of jaded heroes and veteran adventurers, the player’s party is a team of misfits: Arianna, a dainty warrior with an attitude problem; Dirk, an adrenaline-junky rogue who doesn’t seem to understand the word ‘subtle;’ Benjamin, a nature-priest and newcomer to the adventuring lifestyle, and Chloe, a ditsy sorceress with a love of cute, fuzzy animals and setting her enemies on fire.

Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon is now available as a digital download at http://frayedknights.com. It is unrated, but should be content-appropriate for most teens and adults.

Features include:

30+ hours of gameplay
Challenging, turn-based combat in a game
A spell named, “Power Word: Defenestrate.”
Over a hundred base spells, most with several upgraded variants
Over 80 feats to customize the party as they progress through the game.
Nearly 200 different items to be used and abused by your characters.
A “Quarterstaff of Nad-Whacking.”
Sixteen “dungeons” (interior adventuring areas), five outdoor areas, one village, an alternate dimension, and some green dude’s one-room hovel.
A 69-page (PDF) manual

Sounds about right. I spent some time with Frayed Knights: TSoS-D in preparation for my interview with Jay, and I can confirm that it’s quality. This game is the first of a planned three-part series, and will run you $22.95 for the full version. Buy it here or nab the demo to see if it’s your speed.

I’m not going to bother summarizing TFoG’s generic story. (Playing the game, one gets the overwhelming sense that the developer didn’t care much about it, so why should we?) That said, TFoG uses a pretty neat implementation of the RPG Maker XP engine to produce an action RPG a la the old top-down Zeldas.

The free demo lets you play for up to 60 minutes in 8-minute increments, so feel free to give it a try and see if you like it. To buy the full game, you will need to pay (and I quote) “9.99 USD or 7.50 USD.” The link to buy the PC Version of the game takes you to a page where the price is $9.99, so I can only assume that the XBLIG version accounts for the alternate $7.50 pricing.

While you wait for the demo to download, here is the game’s official trailer:

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot; they’re doing some manner of promotion where you can win a free copy of the full game if you give their game a 5/5 rating on XBox Live Indie Games. Frankly, I don’t think this is entirely ethical, but here are the details if you want to participate anyway:

I offer 3 xbox free copies of the game every week during 4 weeks.
All you need to do is to rate the game 5 stars on Xbox Live Indie Games and PM me your gamertag at :
http://geexgames.xooit.fr/