Heroes of Steel announced

Andrew Trese of Trese Brothers Software writes in to announce Heroes of Steel, a turn-based post-apocalyptic fantasy RPG with a 4-character party, ostensibly inspired by tabletop dungeon crawlers.

The premise:

In a fallen world, your group of young heroes are challenged to protect their people and the remnants of their broken society.  As the forces of the darker powers gather around the last remaining settlements, you must balance between fighting off the encroaching danger and uncovering the secrets of the shattering of the All-Father and the missing nine gods who did not fall under the shadow of the dark.  Only by unraveling the secrets of the underdeep and overcoming the fear, greed and corruption boiling in what is left of your people will you be able to avert the destruction the dark gods are planning.

Heroes of Steel is going to have a top-down, tile-based, turn-based, squad-based combat system. (That’s a lot of bases to cover, but I think the Trese Brothers should be up to it.) The brothers T plan to include four character classes–essentially, fighter, cleric, wizard and thief–each with its own skill tree to allow character customization as you progress.

Heroes of Steel is currently running a Kickstarter campaign, and is already more than halfway funded less than a week in.

Per Andrew Trese, “Currently we are headed to the Android only.  The KickStarter includes an App Store stretch goal, and we might convert there eventually.  But, right out of the gate, Android.” Assuming they meet their goal, release of Heroes of Steel “may be only a few months away.”

Want more info? Hit the jump for more details straight from the mouths (emails, actually) of the developers!

• Heroes will have a turn-based combat system.  We are really excited about building a rich combat system that incorporates a lot of the goodies you’d find in pen and paper with tactics games.  It’s top-down, tile-based mapping system.  You’re characters will have a variety of attacks and spells to fling, curses and empowerments, giving the player real customization power over how they build and deck out their squad to take on the world.

• The world will be post-apocalyptic fantasy.  The survivors are just scratching out a living after the shattering, huddling underground as the powers of the dark rage across the surface.  The remaining centers of power with the human society are the Barons, six feudal lords who have established some military might and defensive bastions.  The Barons grasp at what power they can hold and don’t extend their reach past their walls and territory.  The small settlements and frontier towns at the edge of the underdeep grind along, trying to survive as the threats filter down from above into the deep.

• We have a strong storyline outlined.  It focuses on a group of heroes who are challenged to hold their world together against terrible odds, struggling against challenges within their society and those from without.  It’s a grittier story, with tragedy always biting at the heroes heels.  We are really excited that we have built an epic storyline which can be the foundation for the next game in the Steel trilogy if the first one is a success.  We love the idea that the legendary acts of your characters would filter down into a later return to the world of Steel, where you pick up in Legends of Steel.

• One system I am most excited about is the character talents system.  Each character will have a number of talents which you can level up as you gain Experience.  You’ll have to choose and make trade-offs about which ones to increase, as you’ll end up a generalist if you try to raise them all.  Specialists will have the upper hand as they will reach the top powers within the talents.  This will give each character class a wide variety of ways to be played (perhaps you play a Hunter who has high stealth and pairs with your Thief on stealthy missions, or you play a hunter who is specializes in massive deadly hits with the bow, or play a hunter who specializes in covering fire, using arrow attacks that causes status effects like pinning and AP reduction to support his team).  The balancing on XP spend will encourage picking 3-4 talents to mix and match for each character, so you will end up with a Hunter who you customize to the other group members and that group’s tactics, while in another group you could make a Hunter who is really very different build.  Also, since you will be controlling all four characters, in some groups you’ll be excited to play certain character in support roles, while in other groups they can take an active route with their talents.  This is one of my favorite parts of the Heroes of Steel design.  And if we can get to all 12 character classes, the possibilities are mathematically massive!