Back to Back: indie RPGs to fund
Welcome back to Back to Back, where we take a look at all the world of indie RPGs and crowfunding.
The success rate for the last round of games was unusually high. Of the games we looked at last time, Celestian Tales: Old North, Chaos Reborn, Dragon Fin Soup, Earthlock: Festival of Magic, Serpent in the Staglands, and Toby’s Island were all funded successfully! Only Arrelia and Dungeon Bash failed to meet their goals.
So what’s new? I’m glad you asked! It’s a relatively small slate of games this time around, but there are some really interesting ones in here:
- Apexicon – a 2D RPG in the vein of Puzzle Quest, with combat based upon word puzzles. As of the time of writing, it’s just $212 short of its $5,000 goal. 4 days remain.
- Flying Hamster II – a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania RPG with a very cutesy aesthetic. The RPG aspect seems pretty light here; but on the plus side, they have the composer from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night signed up to work on it. They’ve set themselves a hefty $150,000 funding goal, of which they have so far raised just over $31,000. 14 days remain.
- Heart Forth, Alicia – a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania RPG with some really gorgeous pixel art. I’ve been aware of this game’s development for many, many years–it’s nice to see it finally reach Kickstarter. Heart Forth, Alicia is already more than 150% funded with 26 days left to go.
- Legends of Persia – from what I can tell, this is a Diablo-style action RPG set in something inspired by ancient Persia. It is about halfway to its tiny $3,000 funding goal with 15 days remaining. The complete lack of any gameplay footage in the pitch video is not especially encouraging.
- Prisonscape – don’t let those jRPG-ish sprites fool you; this is a wRPG with crafting, bartering, branching quests, player-directed character development, a reputation system, and the freedom to choose alliances from among competing factions. Prisonscape is set in a maximum security prison in the modern-day United States (albeit with some apparent magical realism to spice things up). Prisonscape has about $40,000 left to raise in the next 19 days.
- Serpent in the Staglands – a party-based isometric wRPG with real-time combat and some really nice 2D pixel art; from Whalenought Studios. Now funded, with 7 days left on the clock.
- The Great Gaias – a 2D fantasy jRPG with 100% custom tiles, portraits and sprites; numerous original characters; and 14 character classes. It has a little less than $5,000 of its $8,500 funding goal left to go and 19 days in which to raise it.
- Treachery in Beatdown City – this one is a bit of an odd duck; described as a “tactical brawler,” this is something of a mix between a real-time side-scrolling beat ’em up and menu-based jRPG combat (albeit with targeted attacks that have different effects based on where they land). There is an overworld map and a bit of party management, with hidden items and optional boss fights. (There is almost an hour of gameplay footage available to show what it looks like in practice.)
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You’re missing my most wanted at the moment: Pixel Noir
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/397981048/pixel-noir-pc-mac-ios-android-ps4-vita
[…] those games whose campaigns ended since our last edition, Apexicon succeeded, as did Legends of Persia, Serpent in the Staglands, and (thanks to an […]