Stoic Studio has posted a new trailer revealing an official release date for The Banner Saga. (The single player campaign, that is, not Factions.) The date: January 14, 2014.

Here’s the trailer:

I’ve been wanting to check out Steam Marines for quite some time now; and luckily, developer James Seow was kind enough to indulge my desires with an alpha build of the game. This video is the lovechild of that unholy union. Behold!

So: first impressions! Steam Marines is basically what would happen if someone turned Space Hulk into a roguelike, made the Genestealers way slower, and gave the Terminators greater tactical diversity. The cramped spaces and incredibly dire consequences for screwing up are in perfect keeping with roguelike tradition, lending every decision a flavor of risk and an aftertaste of dread.

I didn’t really show the character creation screen much in this video, so you should know that you can actually select the character class of all four of your starting squad members. (Which is good, because if I had this to do over, I would swap out my grenadier for a second shotgun-wielder in a heartbeat.)

I only noticed a few issues during this playthrough, mostly fairly minor ones having to do with missing UI elements. (For instance: the game really ought to provide a visual indication of where a grenade is going to explode before you click it, and a visual indication of which rank your units are currently at on the promotion screen would be welcome.) It probably shouldn’t be possible to spawn directly in the exit to a level, and I question the balance on some of your unit upgrade options (does gaining 0.25 action points actually do anything for you?)

But really? These issues are relatively minor. And considering that the game is still in alpha, I can only assume that these are transitory problems already on Seow’s To-Fix List. In any event, whatever minor complaints I have about this build are far outweighed by the sense of glee I get when a well-conceived series of tactical decisions comes to fruition. Shotgun-blasting enemies into space is a particular delight.

I’m looking forward to the final release of this game. Until then, if you want to try it for yourself, you can snag the alpha for yourself for $7.99 right here.

It’s been a while since we last did a Back to Back! So let’s find out: what’s new in the world of indie RPG crowdfunding?

The casualty rate on campaigns from our last edition was incredibly high, with only Data Hacker: Corruption, Hyper Light Drifter, and Lords of Xulima meeting their funding goals. Ambrov X, Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan, Cedaria: Blackout, Fortis Rex: Rise of the King, Magic Meisters, MIDRAIN, Night Job, Tales of Terrene: Book One, The Rescue of Amberlina, and  Tiny Kingdoms all failed. Ouch.

With that said, there were a few other Kickstarters I know of that both began and ended between then and now, all of them successfully: Cosmic Star Heroine, Cornerstone: The Song of Tyrim and Comic ConQuest. So that’s good.

I’m sad I missed the boat on those, but luckily, there’s a fleet of even newer projects that we can talk about right now:

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Steven Peeler of Soldak Entertainment writes to me to announce the release of the first official expansion for Drox Operative, titled Invasion of the Ancients.

The premise:

Before the Drox ruled the galaxy, before they were even sentient, there were older races now known as the Ancients. Using their Operatives, the Drox crushed and enslaved most of these races. The rest fled known space. When the Drox turned on their own Operatives, the Drox were utterly destroyed. Newer races emerged and thrived in the power void, never knowing the menace waited. Seizing their chance, the Ancients are invading to take their rightful place in the galaxy, as rulers! Thirsting for revenge, the Ancients can’t harm the extinct Drox, but they can crush the next best thing, the Drox Operatives.

The Ancient enemies are back! Can you defend the Drox Operative Guild and younger races against the Invasion of the Ancients?

Among the new features:

• Defend against ancient race invasions
• Destroy or defend space stations (military and production)
• Guide the evolution of persistent galaxies
• Design components with socketable chips
• Play as or against the new race, the Scavenger
• Battle new Talon, Legion, and Overlord monsters
• Solve new quests and equip new components
• Drox Guild quests
• Unlock and play as 19 subraces

The expansion costs $9.99–you can pick it up direct from the developer for Windows or for Mac.

 

After last year’s glut of first-person dungeon crawlers, things have quieted down substantially. Luckily, we now have Paper Sorcerer to get the ball rolling again!

Created by Ultra Runaway Games after a successful Kickstarter last July, developer Jesse Gallagher describes Paper Sorcerer as “a single player turn based RPG focused on strategy, party-building, and environmental puzzles.”

The premise:

A powerful sorcerer is on the cusp of dominating the land. A group of heroes bands together and seals him away inside a magical tome. Now as the sorcerer you must escape from this ancient prison and find a way to regain your magical powers using your wits and an array of summonable creatures to aid you. There may be more powerful forces at work as you navigate the dungeons and fight the heroes sent to subdue you…

If that sounds just a smidge like the set-up of Wizardry IV to you, you’re not alone. Luckily, things have come a long way in the art of game mechanics since that old Sir-Tech title, so I imagine we’ll have a much better time playing Paper Sorcerer than we did struggling to free Werdna.

Another thing that’s improved since the days of Wizardry IV: graphics. Just look at this game’s neat ink-print style!

Paper Sorcerer is out for Windows, Mac and Linux for a mere $5–grab the full version here. There’s also a free demo available right here for Windows, Mac and Linux if you want to give it a try first.

Right on the heels of Hunters Grimm (previously covered here) comes Onyx, a jRPG collaboration between Aldorlea Games and Valkyria Games. (How is Valkyria games putting out this much stuff in such a short period? Beats me! Maybe they just contributed assets while they worked on Hunters Grimm?)

Regardless, here’s the premise of Onyx:

Play as Rowen, a secluded witch with a bad temper, who has to run after the people who stole her treasured ring given to her by her dead mother. But… could it be that the ring hides more than just emotional value?

Personally, I’m going to guess “yes,” but I suppose there’s technically only one way to find out: wait for someone else to buy the game, play it through, then spoil it for you.

…wait. Maybe there’s a second way to find out: get the game yourself and play it! Onyx is $19.99, Windows only. You can get a taste of what you’re in for by trying out the game’s free demo.

As promised, Spiderweb Software‘s latest wRPG epic, Avadon 2, is now out for Mac OSX and Windows!

The premise:

You are an agent of Avadon. The Black Fortress. Your job is to protect your homeland from the limitless threats that surround it. Titans. Monsters. Barbarians. Fading, jealous empires. The warriors and spies of Avadon must keep them weak and divided. Your resources are unlimited, and all must obey you.

But then Avadon was attacked. A sneak raid shattered the fortress, and, with it unable to keep order, madness has resulted. Civil war, barbarian raids, even conspiracies to destroy your people. Avadon’s power and influence has faded, and yet your people need it more than ever.

Everything is falling apart, and a shadowy power has risen to destroy your homeland. What will you do? Will you fight your enemies? Or will you join them and end Avadon’s power once and for all? The choice is yours!

What’s wrong–is a narrative summary not good enough for you? All right, fine. How about the official trailer?

“But Craig,” you say, “I don’t want to see an official trailer; I want to see you playing the beta.” Oh! Well, of course you do, dear reader! Of course you do. Luckily, I have that very thing.

Satisfied? I hope so! You can get Avadon 2 direct from the developer, or on Steam or GOG.com. The game costs $20 if you buy it direct, or $9.99 from GOG.com or Steam (with an additional 20% launch discount). So, uh, y’know. I always encourage you to buy direct from developers in the name of supporting their work, and Jeff Vogel is no exception, buuuuuuuuut I can’t say that Vogel’s made that choice especially rational in this instance, so I dunno. Maybe you should just let the small angel and devil on your shoulders fight it out?

 

Urthvas Williamson writes in to tell me about Breath of the Dragon, a strategy RPG he’s developing with procedural world generation and highly deterministic–some might even say spartan–mechanics.

The plot premise:

Bandits are scheming to topple the foundations of human society from within. There are rumors that the Orcs, who have not been seen in a century, are now being seen, with strange technological items that make them fearsome in combat. Who is supplying the Orcs, who is encouraging the bandits in their delusions of grandeur? You begin as a lone adventurer, a newly-escaped prisoner of the Bandit Camp. Just one person in a big world, what could you possibly do to change the course of events? But perhaps you can band together with some like-minded people and become a force of your own…

Now, about those mechanics. I’ll let Williamson explain them in his own words:

Breath of the Dragon is a procedurally-generated tactics RPG where your decisions matter more than in most games. We avoid crutches like ever-increasing hitpoints and attack power. As your characters level up, each new ability is a discrete new action, and these actions produce combinatoric results. This combinatoric power is how your party really gets stronger.

We work carefully to take Looking-Glass-style emergence, and a Binding of Issac-ish feeling of an ever-growing world full of tons of stuff, but we keep these things in a very crisp container. All actions are discrete, and there is no randomness in combat. Your characters have 4 hit points, even as they become very powerful! This crispness amplifies the importance of your decisions.

You can see how it looks in action in the game’s trailer:

In theory, I ought to enjoy this game quite a lot, as it plays to a lot of my own design sensibilities. My only concern is about the game’s graphical presentation. I can forgive crudeness (I mean, I did play and enjoy His Dark Majesty)–but I find the stylistic inconsistency among the character sprites a bit jarring. I haven’t received any response from Williamson about whether he intends to make any changes there. Luckily, the developer tells me that “the visuals are going to be completely replaced. Everything you see is temporary graphics! The focus right now is on getting the gameplay right.”

Breath of the Dragon is being created for Windows, Mac, Linux, and unspecified “upcoming console platforms.” The game is planned for release near the end of 2014.

Lars Doucet of Level Up Labs writes in to tell me that a sequel to last year’s delightful tower defense/RPG hybrid Defender’s Quest is on the way. Defender’s Quest II: Mists of Ruin takes place in an entirely new setting with an all-new cast of characters and a story wholly unconnected to what transpired in the last game.

While that might distress those of us who rather liked the setting and characters of the first game (written by a real-life English major!), the premise of the sequel seems to hold some promise of its own:

Mists of Ruin takes place in a new setting — a world whose surface has been covered by toxic gas for all of recorded history.  Humans shelter in crumbling domed cities, sealed tunnels beneath the earth, or small islands of land jutting just above the toxic clouds.  Your party is a domed city scavenger squad, sent into the wastes to recover ancient technology, hoping to keep the systems alive for one more generation…

That reminds me of the plot to the original Fallout in all the best ways. Also heartening: Kevin Penkin (responsible for the excellent soundtrack to the original game) is returning as composer, and Lars has somehow enticed Dean Dodrill to handle animation duties as well. (If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Dodrill is the incredibly talented animator and designer behind Dust: An Elysian Tale.)

Defender’s Quest II is still early in development, with no planned release date as of yet. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t gawk at some mockups and concept art, now does it? Oh, also: you can pre-order the game right now if you like. Lars has been fairly vocal about his distrust of Kickstarter, so he’s decided to alpha fund via his own site. You can participate in that right here.

Word reaches me of a side-scrolling roguelike-like, an aRPG platformer with procedurally generated dungeons. The name? Catacomb Kids.

Developer Tyriq Plummer (a.k.a. Four Bit Friday) states that the game is deliberately named after the Aesop Rock song–interesting trivia, though perhaps not super relevant to what the game is about. The actual premise:

Traverse procedurally generated dungeons and hack, slash, burn, and blast your way through hordes of things that want to kill you.

…

Become a force to be reckoned with as you delve deeper into the deadly Catacombs. Perhaps you will emerge as the hero who slays Abys, the Demon Sorceress who calls the dungeon her domain.

Or maybe you’ll just be another poor soul who succumbs to the reaper.

The trailer:

When will it be released, and on what platforms? Great question! All we know right now is that it’s “still a ways off from being done,” which I believe translates from developer-ese to “not until 2014 at the earliest.” That’s just my guess. I’ve reached out to Tyriq for more info–I’ll update when I have it.