The premise:

Fey is the story of Landon Ferngrass, a young boy with a broken past who is lured back into a wild and sobering adventure by a mysterious shape shifter named Picaro.

The spiritual successor to Darkness Shall Bleed, Fey allows players to take control of Landon and embark on a journey that will push him to his emotional, intellectual and physical limits as he tries to set his past right and discover the real truth behind Oak Island and the legendary artifact of souls, the Fire Pearl.

There’s a trailer for the game that is a year and a half old, but it seems to be the only trailer of it in existence, so let’s give it a look:

Fey is made in RPG Maker 2003; however, it uses 100% original art assets and does not require an RTP to run. The combat system is coded from scratch as well. Southwood writes:

The mechanics shift and change with the progression of the story, ranging from a zelda styled rig to  a Metal Gear Solid style all the way to a Survival Horror. The entire game was heavily influenced by Uncharted 2, Resident Evil 4 and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. That being said, there are interactive cutscenes. There are skills that can be learned throughout the world and other purchased from the in game menu. Fey also has a completely custom Custom Combat System, along with completely original graphics and a Custom Menu.

You can download Fey for free right here. Windows only.

The Kingturn Underworld RPG download is free–however, if it follows the pattern of past releases, you’ll be cut off from playing about 8 battles into the game’s campaign and asked to buy the game for $4.89.

Developers “The DarkElite Team” relate the following premise:

Become a young mercenary and travel from soul to soul to avenge your fiance and her family. While finding a way to travel back in time, you will encounter many obstacles and meet new allies.

You can see all of this in the trailer:

Memories of a Vagabond is available for $4.99 direct from the developers, or on Desura. Windows only. There is a free demo as well, in case you need a little more convincing.

Hey guys! I’m off to sunny Los Angeles for Indiecade, so I won’t be around to post for a few days. I’ll return next Tuesday. Until then, why not entertain yourselves with this adorable red panda video?

The premise:

You play as Tyrim a young viking boy , sailing from island to island in search of his fathers lost fleet, and a solution that can save his village from ruin.

“Tyrim”? Vikings? Hmmm. If you didn’t know better, you might be forgiven for thinking that this game is looking to ride Skyrim’s coattails. You’d be wrong, though.

Per the description, there’s sailing; the devs also say that they are aiming to reward exploration and allow nonlinear progression. In actuality, this game is being closely modeled on The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, though Cornerstone seeks to throw in a crafting system and a more detailed physics model for good measure. You can see the latter at work in their gameplay trailer:

Needless to say, the visual style is clearly inspired by Wind Waker as well, as well as certain enemies that are pretty clearly modeled on Darknuts. Character progression is in the Zelda mold too, with your character growing better by finding items rather than through accruing experience. Gustafsson states:

you will find runes in the world that will evolve things like speed, jump height or berserk. (similar to dishonored)

learning recipes in the crafting is also kind of character progression, except it helps you in different ways. you’ll find new recipes in the world will help the player get to new areas and such!

The devs claim to have been inspired in part by Dark Souls, in that Cornerstone borrows some of that game’s combat mechanics. I’m not seeing it, frankly, but it might just be too early in development to really show. At any rate, Wind Waker is quite exciting enough a source of inspiration all on its own for my taste.

Cornerstone is on Kickstarter, where it is already one-third of the way to hitting its $30,000 funding goal. (I am assured that the game will not be canceled if it doesn’t meet its funding goal–it will be slowed down significantly, though.)

Cornerstone is planned for release on PC, Mac and Linux; the release date is still up in the air, but the Kickstarter rewards estimates are all pegged in the second half of 2014, so that might give us some broad indication of the time frame they’re shooting for.

The premise:

The story starts when Nate is awaken from his 300 years sleep, by blueling wizard Tlob. He discovers that all he cherished was lost during the Great War. Now he is the only key for saving the world from total destruction.

It’s not exactly the most captivating narrative I’ve ever heard, but the game does benefit from a stylistic way of conveying the story, so it’s not all bad.

Combat involves Paper Mario-style timed button presses to maximize attack effectiveness, which boosts engagement. On the other hand, with only two party members, little enemy variety, and a very limited selection of abilities, the combat gets repetitive pretty quickly regardless.

Light Apprentice promises to tie character progression to player choice. Igor writes:

in our system, the main stats are Strength, Agility, Intelligence and Armor, and these will evolve linearly in classic fashion with XP, as in say, FFVI or Chrono Trigger. But our system is rather unique when it comes to customization, because we are going away from the traditional grinding. We have character customization entirely based on the consequences of your choices in the story and the way you handle the options given to you in-game.

The two main actions in the first chapter are Attack and Defense, and as the story unfolds, the characters will get certain Skills that are complementary to these actions. Depending on your decisions, the story (which is told in a comic book format, as you probably have already seen) will branch out into different paths. Each path will help build your characters’ personalities, reflected in Trait Points, which influence directly the Skills you’ve got.

As of now, you can try the different outcomes possible: if you defeat your enemy by attacking it, or defending > stunning > fleeing battle, to have a better feeling of how our core mechanics come into play. As we are still in beta version, we will be implementing some features like Trait Points as they become more relevant to the story in subsequent chapters.

The first episode is available to play for free online right here; it will eventually see release on iOS and Android as well. A second episode is planned, to be priced at $0.99; subsequent episodes will be $1.99 apiece.

Welcome to another movie night, the feature where we take a peek at games we’ve covered in the past and see what they look like now! Grab your Raisinets and get comfy, folks–we’ll be looking at new videos of Heroes of Steel, Steam Marines and Isle of Bxnes after the jump!

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You take control of a small group of people who are witnesses to a violent overtake of their spaceship by an unknown species. As you fight your way through the dark corridors and rooms of the ship, you will uncover more and more details of what has taken place. For now, all you know is that in order to survive you will have to fight, face your fears and outsmart the enemy…

As for how it plays, expect turn-based, squad-level firefights with fog of war, line-of-sight, and cover. All in all, it reminds me quite a bit of X-COM; you can see for yourself in this pre-alpha trailer:

As for the character and squad-building aspects, the devs write:

Your squad will be built out of distinct characters you pick up along your journey, each with their own part to play in the whole story. You will develop skills and find items as you uncover all the corners of the spaceship, adding a touch of RPG elements to the game.

Robotality state that they plan to release Halfway later this year on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, with a possible tablet port to follow.

As with Middens before it, Gingiva is a surrealist jRPG. The premise:

An amboeboid landscape threatens to engulf civlization and all its plastic bottles. Disembodied mouths live in the walls of municipal buildings like household pests. Packs of human-headed dogs rove the lands between formless space and concrete reality. A king bureaucrat who’s image is everywhere but his body no-where

According to Clowder, Gingiva features “five playable characters, over 100 fully animated creature portraits, multiple paths and varied endings.”

The trailer reminds me of…well, Middens, frankly:

Gingiva is free; Windows only. Download it here.

There are a couple of key differences that stand to make Comic ConQuest quite different, however. First: the setting. It takes place in the context of a comics convention rather than Halloween. Second: the subgenre. This is planned to be a turn-based tactical RPG, not a jRPG.

The official description lays it all out:

Comic ConQuest is a party-based tactical RPG in which players battle their way through a comic con gone wrong, fighting enemies and collecting swag along the path to freedom. Trapped in the building by a mysterious force, players are empowered with costumes and weapons that become real, transforming them from cosplayers to comic commandos.

There are nine character classes planned, three apiece from the realms of comics, sci-fi and fantasy: superhero, mutant, and vigilante; commander, space marine, and bounty hunter; warrior, wizard, and rogue.

In a move that doesn’t exactly call to mind actual cosplay (but which does make sense within the bounds of the game’s genre), you’ll be able to find new bits and pieces to upgrade your characters’ costumes as you play. Comic ConQuest is slated to feature “geeky” trivia as part of the game’s mechanics as well, though it hasn’t been explained just yet exactly how this will factor in. All in all, the details of the game’s mechanics remain pretty vague at this point.

I have one main concern about this game, and that is that the developers are billing it as “free-to-play.” On the plus side: no up-front cost and monthly content updates! On the minus side: the very real risk of this kinda stuff. We’ll have to see how it shakes out.

Comic ConQuest is on Kickstarter. I have been assured that the game will still be finished even if funding doesn’t come through; “it would just change the scope a bit.” The devs are seeking only $20,000 in funding, though, which is really not all that much for an sRPG.