Dungeon Rats announced

Word reaches me that Iron Tower Studio, creators of The Age of Decadence (covered previously here), are working on a turn-based, party-based dungeon crawler set in the Age of Decadence universe called Dungeon Rats.

Here’s the premise:

Your adventure starts in the dusty shadows of a prison mine many leagues from any trading post or settlement. The ‘Second Chance’ (as in your second chance to become a productive member of society) is the most feared of all ‘hard labor’ and ‘gladiator camp’ prisons. Once the jewel in a string of rich iron mines, the shafts were long ago exhausted and the ore spent. No longer profitable using conventional slave labor, the prisoners who work it now trade whatever ore they can scratch from the rock for scraps of food.

Having already tested the futility of fighting the guards, you do not resist when you are hurled into a cage suspended above the main shaft. The barred door crashes shut, the crack of a whip signals a pair of slaves to the crank, and the cage begins its slow and creaking descent. A one way trip to hell awaits, past bright fires, screaming faces, and beyond, into the impenetrable blackness of the lower levels.

Over the course of the game, you’ll struggle to rise up the prison hierarchy. The devs state that “you must fight to survive and develop your combat skills, acquiring better weapons and equipment as you go. Recruit allies to your struggle or carry on as a lone wolf, and kill anyone foolish enough to stand in your way.”

Combat has reportedly been deepened a bit from AoD, with Iron Tower adding in flanking bonuses and the ability to position your party members before a battle.

Here are the planned features:

• Tactical combat system, including standard attacks, aimed attacks targeting specific body parts, and per-weapon special attacks such as Whirlwind and Impale.
• Detailed crafting and alchemy systems: forge your own weapons, brew potions and poisons, experiment with Liquid Fire and Black Powder.
• 8 weapon types: Daggers, Swords, Axes, Hammers, Spears, Bows, Crossbows, and Throwing Weapons, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
• Fully customizable main character, as well as 10 possible companions, not all of them human (maximum party size is 4).
• 50 challenging fights

Word is, the game’s planned for release next month, in October 2016. Given that it uses the AoD engine, we can probably expect that it, too, will be a Windows-only release.

No video just yet, but they do have screenshots.