To Be a Hero announced

Geoffrey White of Steamtank Entertainment writes in to announce To Be a Hero, an iPhone RPG that evidently draws some influence from the Ultima series. The plot:

The land of Illustria is in peril!  Monsters have began roaming about, the dead are rising from their graves, and worst of all, a string of suspicious murders plagues our towns.

…

Our enemy is attacking us from another plane.  They will be using an arcane artifact known as the DARK MIRROR to reach our realm.  First you will need to destroy it, if we are to have any chance of beating them.  But that will not be enough I am afraid.  Next, you must purchase a craft capable of inter planer travel.  The only way you can afford one is, to buy property across the realm and become richer than our greatest kings.  Finally, you must travel to many planes and discover our enemies world.  When you have slain him, and only when you have slain him will you be, a Hero!

The devs state that To Be a Hero will feature a huge open world with multiple planes of existence, more than 20 character classes, targeted attacks, and the ability to acquire real estate to increase your character’s income. Other features (such as the need for food, water and shelter) are discussed on their features page here. Combat is real-time, but the devs tell me that combat auto-pauses when selecting a skill or a body part to target. All in all, it seems To Be a Hero will be more hardcore than its cutesy art style suggests.

Here is a trailer showing the game in action:

Somehow, the “murder and pillage” part makes me think they might not be entirely clear on the whole “hero” concept. Me, I’d consider renaming the game To Be a Hero…Or Maybe a Serial Killer, If You Prefer. (On the plus side, it should make it really easy to solve those “suspicious murders” if you’re the one committing them.)

TBaH is currently playable, with content creation and balancing the core work left to be done. The game is tentatively scheduled for an iPhone release around December; if it does well there, the devs say they “will probably make enhanced versions for other platforms.”