Greg Lobanov writes in to announce a release date for his ghostly jRPG Phantasmaburbia, previously covered here and the subject of an interview here. Banov has selected October 31st to put the game out (which makes sense, given its subject matter). Banov says Phantasmaburbia is mostly done, but that he needs to spend time polishing it […]

Brian Abbott, perhaps best known as the titular brainy gamer behind Brainy Gamer, has posted an opinion piece on what makes jRPGs special. A good JRPG (any well-designed RPG, for that matter) envelops a player in a unified ecosystem that weaves together rules, mechanics, and storytelling such that each informs the other in the player’s […]

Here’s another interesting one: Mercury by James and Frank Lantz is a roguelike that imposes a strict turn limit on the player; the only way to get more turns is to descend a floor. It is, in other words, a sort of abstracted form of the time pressure imposed by the need for food, but […]

Stygian Software writes in to announce that Underrail, the hotly anticipated sci-fi isometic wRPG (previously covered here), is due to get a public alpha demo release later this month. Developer Dejan Radisic estimates that the demo will come out sometime between August 20th and August 31st. The complete game remains due for release in the […]

Are you hungry for a new single player RPG with CCG-style combat? Hungry like the wolf? You’re in luck! Patrik Spacek writes in to announce Northmark: Hour of the Wolf, apparently two years into development by Rake In Grass (whom you may recall as the developers behind the fantasy strategy game Styrateg). Rake In Grass […]

I’m not sure how I missed this one: Unemployment Quest is a jRPG by Charles DeYoe with a decidedly…shall we say, “contemporary”…theme, released in mid-June. The game’s premise is all but spelled out in the title. DeYoe writes: Unemployment Quest is a game about the experience of unemployed youth. … The story is minimalistic as […]

An indie RPG walks into a bar. “We don’t serve indie RPGs here,” says the bartender. “Why not?” asks the RPG. The bartender says, “You always bring a mob.”   An indie RPG walks into a bar. “We don’t serve indie RPGs here,” says the bartender. “Why not?” asks the RPG. “Look,” shrugs the bartender, […]

Johnathan Davis of Shorebound Studios writes in to tell me about Shadow Remnants, a 3D turn-based tactical RPG. The premise: In Shadow Remnants, you play as Drake, whose family was slaughtered by invading Entarians two years ago. Now a foot soldier in the royal infantry, he fights for vengeance. The closer he gets to the […]

Since I’ve been loosening up on the sort of games I’ve been willing to post about lately, I figured it was time to stop agonizing about whether Defender’s Quest was really an RPG and just post about the thing. Defender’s Quest is a hybrid RPG / tower defense game by Lars Doucet. Protector, the first […]

I just wrote about OFF the other day; I’ll admit, I was intrigued, so I figured I’d give the game a shot and record the experience. The results of my brief foray into the surreal world of OFF are documented below: As an aside: I learned something today, folks. Dehort is totally a word.