Patrick Casey of Peculiar Games writes in to let me know about a roguelike he created called Voyage to Farland. Casey describes Voyage as a “Mystery Dungeon” graphical roguelike inspired by Shiren the Wanderer. Technically, this was released all the way back in 2010, but hey–it’s new to me.

VtF runs exclusively on Android phones and tablets, and can be purchased on Google Play for a piffling $1.25. At that price, it’s hard to justify not giving it a go. If you’re the sort of person who hesitates at the thought of dropping $1.25, however, perhaps this trailer will help you make up your mind:

The indie RPG community hasn’t had a good community hub for quite some time, and I like the thought of having one here on IndieRPGs.com. Hence, the new forums. I intend these to serve as a place for us to respectfully discuss indie RPGs, and as a place for indie RPG developers to mingle with each other and interact with players. Registration is open, so go ahead and get started!

Red Wasp Design released Call of Cthulu: The Wasted Land for iPhone and iPad on January 30, 2012. Now, they write in to announce an impending PC release on May 5. What is CoC:WL, you ask? I quote from the developers’ website:

‘Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land’ is a turn-based strategy/role-playing video game based on the award winning Call of Cthulhu RPG. The game is set in the midst of World War One and pits a team of investigators and soldiers against an ancient evil, one older than humanity itself, who is using the carnage of the great war to build an undead army deep beneath the battlefields of Europe.

There’s a very positive review of the game on GameZebo that puts this one squarely in tactical RPG territory, with much of the core gameplay sounding a bit like what you’d find in X-Com or Jagged Alliance:

Your squad members each have a certain number of action points per turn, which are used up by things like attacks, special skills, and movement. Making an attack depends on how many action points you want to use up: You can make a wild shot, which uses fewer points, or you can take aim and sacrifice said points for an increased chance at success.

Different weapons take different amounts of action points to use, too. That means the investigator armed with a pistol can make more attacks than, say, the dude who happens to be lugging around a rifle. Leveling up, too, is rather unique, since you characters gain experience by making successful attacks with the weapon they happen to be using.

Not surprisingly — since, after all, this is game that involves a lot of trench warfare —there’s a fairly complicated cover system in place. As is the case with real life, elevation and cover can be integral to ensuring your team’s victory over the forces of evil.

We’ll be doing a review of this one in the not-too-distant future, so stayed tuned!

Prolific developer Choice of Games has released a new entry in the Choice Of series, this one (…sigh…) zombie-themed.

In Choice of Zombies, you play an ordinary person caught in a zombie apocalypse. Will you fight using brawn or brains? Will you keep your humanity intact or become a bloodthirsty zombie hunter? Can you stay alive long enough to get yourself and your friends to a place of safety?

Pro tip: zombies like brains. Use brawn.

You can play through this latest choose-your-own-adventure / RPG online right here for free, or get it for Android / iOS for $2.99.

 

Charlie Fleed has just announced Hartacon, a multiplayer isometric turn-based tactics game for XBox 360 Indie Games. It clearly draws a lot of inspiration from Disgaea in its visual style, though it appears to be pure 2D in its implementation. I quote now from the developer:

Hartacon is a tactical multiplayer RPG game developed with XNA 4.
The game features creation and management of parties made of characters belonging to different classes, each with peculiar stats, skills and weapons. By winning battles, parties gain Upgrade Points (UPs), used to recruit new characters and buy new equipments, while individual characters gain Growth Points (GPs), used to learn new skills and increase stats.
The battle system is a classic tactical system, turn-based, and features traditional RPG elements such as elements and altered states. Players challenge each other in 2D isometric maps, playing against each other or teaming up in alliances.

I wonder what peculiar stats they’ll have? Maybe I can get a mage with 92 points in Underwater Basket Weaving. That would be neat.

There doesn’t seem to be an official website for Hartacon yet, so the forum will have to do for now. However, you should definitely check out this video to see the slick-looking engine in action.

There is no word yet on when Hartacon will be out, what it will cost, or whether it will be available on platforms other than XBox Indie Games (currently, it appears to be an XBLIG exclusive). However, there is a free PC demo available right here, so perhaps you can satisfy yourself with that for the time being.

Andy Sum writes in with word that his company Jigxor is working on a turn-based, multiplayer co-op dungeon crawler by the name of Dungeon Dashers (not to be confused with its free, single-player predecessor Dungeon Dash).

The feature list includes:

• Up to four-players playing together as a team over the internet
• Hand-made dungeons (not procedurally generated) – allowing unique adventures with traps and interesting monster configurations
• Many different types of monsters, weapons, and loot
• 4-8 distinct player classes – allowing for a wide variety of playing styles and strategies
• Intricately detailed retro pixel art sprites realised by Alex HW, and tiles by Dusty
• Original chiptune soundtrack by various artists

Dungeon Dashers is planned for a Windows release, and a Mac version as well if there is sufficient demand. Here is the latest video showing off gameplay–as you can see, it looks pretty far along already (and true enough, Andy wants to release the game by the start of May):

You can pre-order for $10, which will net you an extra copy to give to a friend, as well as giving you access to various builds as Dungeon Dashers nears completion.

Word has it that there’s a first-person RPG on the horizon with a “literally infinite” game world. It goes by the name Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox (which sounds to me like Stan Marsh’s older sister trying to say “equinox”). Interestingly, it seems Malevolence features turn-based, grid-based movement a la the early Might and Magic games, but with free mouselook a la Legend of Grimrock.

I quote from the game’s official website:

The game’s procedural engine can generate an infinite number of weapons, items, spells, monsters, dungeons, cities, countryside and even dialogue, allowing the player to explore the game with no end and no reason to stop.

We are currently working hard to reach our milestone of releasing an official, playable demo of the game by around July/August 2012, and the final product on December 21, 2012.

Note: the developer’s blog goes all the way back to April 2010, which means that I’m really late finding out about this game. Hence, the “Well it’s new to me” tag.

Jeff Vogel has written in to let me know that Avernum: Escape From the Pit has finally been released. (We last covered it this past July.)

This game is actually a remake of the first Avernum, originally released as Exile: Escape From the Pit. The remake runs on the most up-to-date version of the Avernum engine and features dramatically improved graphics.

True to the original, AEFtP features three separate quests that can win you the game, offering a degree of flexibility we seldom see in RPGs of any description. The basic plot premise follows:

You have been banished to the underworld, never to see the light of day again.

The surface is ruled by the cruel Emperor Hawthorne, master of the Empire. All of the known lands are subject to his brutal command. Everyone who speaks out, who misbehaves, who doesn’t fit in is cast into the dark, volcanic pits of Avernum, far below the surface. There, you are expected to die, a victim of starvation, horrible monsters, or simple despair.

But not all of the Avernites have surrendered. With magic and steel, they are forging a new nation deep underground. You can join them and fight for safety. Or freedom. Or even, if you dare, revenge on the surface-worlders who tried to destroy you.

For reasons unknown (perhaps simple bad luck), AEFtP was released on Wednesday, the exact same day as Legend of Grimrock, all but guaranteeing that it would be overshadowed in terms of news coverage. Luckily, a variety of sites have reviews up nonetheless. Most of the reviews are fairly positive, though one reviewer has inexplicably concluded that the graphics in this remake are unchanged from those in the original. (Um, no.)

You can pick up Avernum: Escape From the Pit for $20 from the Spiderweb Software web store if you want it on a Mac or Windows PC. (Worth noting: if you’ve purchased any other Avernum game in the past, you can get a $10 discount.) To get the game on iPad, you can nab it for $9.99 from the app store.

Jay Barnson decided a few weeks back that it was time for another indie news round-up. Unfortunately, I was just ever-so-slightly too out-of-town at the time to post about it. However, now that I’m back and working through my backlog of IndieRPGs stuff, it’s time for me to make up for lost time.

The world of indie RPGs moves pretty slowly, so all of the news here remains pretty relevant (except for the bit about Legend of Grimrock, for obvious reasons)–head on over to the Rampant Coyote blog to read up. The games mentioned include:

• 91
• A Sirius Game
• Age of Fear: The Undead King
• Blood Rune
• The Book of Legends
• Call of Cthulu: The Wasted Land
• Demise: Volume 2 Ascension
• Darklight Dungeon Eternity
• Legend of Grimrock
• March to the Moon
• Neo Scavenger
• Pitman
• Sword and Sorcery: Underworld Gold
• Telepath RPG: Servants of God
• Tomes of Mephistopheles
• Verlies
• Victim of Xen
• Wasteland 2

Finally! The real-time first-person dungeon crawler Legend of Grimrock is out. You may recall that Legend of Grimrock is a graphically impressive successor to the classic Dungeon Master, featuring party creation, a food / hunger system, and real-time grid-based movement and combat as you explore the dungeon-y depths of Mount Grimrock.

I haven’t bothered trying to get a review copy of Legend of Grimrock for IndieRPGs.com, since there are already about a million reviews out (here, here and here, to name three), and they all pretty much say the same thing: it’s an awesome game.

Legend of Grimrock is $14.99 on GOG.com, Steam, and the developer’s own website. As always, I suggest purchasing direct from the developer–they see less of the money when you buy from an outside distributor.