Rack N Ruin announced

I’ve received an email telling me about Rack N Ruin, an action RPG being developed by Lifespark Entertainment (an indie studio created and run by ex-Blizzard artist Tyler Hunter).

The premise:

Rack n’ Ruin is an action adventure game featuring Rack, a demonic wizard with a flair for chaos and destruction.

Use a combination of malevolent magic, apocalyptic abilities, woeful weapons and insidious items as you journey across a vast open world. Ransack ancient dungeons, defeat hordes of heroic and unholy forces, battle a collection of behemoths and bosses, and discover the secrets of the land you seek to conquer. Watch your demonic powers grow as you enslave and corrupt the land, twisting fairytales into nightmares and turning paradise into pandemonium.

Hunter’s art employs a hand-painted aesthetic, and generally looks quite nice (though in my opinion the animations could use a few more frames). You can see it for yourself in the game’s preview trailer:

The game promises an open, explorable world with alternate “dark” versions of areas you’ve corrupted. If the idea of a “dark world” sounds familiar, let’s just say that I played an early build of this at PAX East earlier in the year, and I can confirm that there’s a fair chunk of 2D Zelda DNA floating around in this game’s cells. Of course, with that said, Rack N Ruin has more proper RPG elements than a Zelda-alike (read: loot and upgradeable magic from five different schools).

Rack N Ruin is planned for release in March 2014 for Windows and Mac, with Android and iOS ports to follow. I’ve been supplied with a build of the game, so I’ll be able to check that out in a video preview fairly soon. In the meantime, why not look at some screenshots?