File this one under “New to Me”: last year, Aldorlea Games released an RPG Maker jRPG by the name of Dreamscape. Today, you can read a new, short review of the the game up on DarkStarMatryx, in which the reviewer describes Dreamscape as reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. (Insofar as the game’s premise involves delving through other peoples’ minds, it reminds me of Chocobo’s Dungeon.) A snippet from the review:

You will jump into the dreams of people you meet and can exit the way you came in or jump into the dream of another person you meet or person within your party. This allows a lot of back and forth into different landscapes, something you will need to do to advance farther in certain realms. You won’t be worrying about random monsters though, they appear on the screen for you to avoid or confront depending on you.

An interesting aspect that adds some difficulty to the game is the lack of a healing item inventory. Within the dreams you will find food of all sorts that will heal your party. Certain characters more than others depending on the food type. The true kicker is once you pick it up it is used immediately and removed from the map. So you need to use them sparingly and make sure it is the right item for the character needing healed most. There is a bit of a safety net as far as healing goes. You can use a fairy that appears near where you start, at a cost. If she heals your party the dreamworlds will react and make the game more difficult. So using her can be more headache than help.

Additionally, here’s an interview Adam Ames of TruePCGaming did with Indinera (the owner of Aldorlea Games). They don’t talk too much about the game itself there, though Indinera does mention that Dreamscape is more puzzle-focused than his usual fare.

You may recall me posting about the upcoming first-person dungeon crawler Legend of Grimrock back in July. At the time, I described Legend of Grimrock as something akin to Wizardry.

I was wrong. This trailer suggests that it is actually much more in the vein of Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder, with real-time party-based combat occurring on a grid. (It is, in other words, doing something like the opposite of what Frayed Knights is doing.) Have a look:

Developers Almost Human have announced that the game has now entered beta, and will see release early next year (on Steam, if they get their druthers). In the meantime, here are some new screenshots of the game’s drool-inducing visuals:

Anders Staugaard has emailed me announcing the development of a 3D, first-person, wilderness survival RPG by the name of Forging Life. He is part of a two-man team developing what looks to be a highly ambitious game. Here is how he describes it:

We might be a couple of nerds missing the old days, but when we played Ultima Online many years ago there were no questlines and we were not the “Chosen One” on and epic mission to save the world from evil.

However we were never borred. Surviving was a struggle! Getting gear and materials was such a risky task, that people often ended up losing precious gear in the process. Fantasy games take place in the middle ages era, mainly because it was tough and violent times, but also a time where you could get a long way with simple means. We miss games with freedom and opportunities where you can truly choose you own path.

If life was like the games we know, where the player is guided through life with little or no freedom to act outside the path defined – the quitting of life, would be substantial bigger that we know it today.

Our idea with Forging Life, is that you – you decide your own path…

Venture into the world with nothing, and become what and who your want!

So basically, it’s going to be an open-ended and survival-focused game. Their website seems to have fairly regular updates at the moment, in case you want to follow the game’s development. For now, here is some early alpha footage:

A few weeks ago, developer Brandon Abley announced a new RPG called Wilfred the Hero.

“But Craig,” you say, “Wilfred the Hero was created and released 6 years ago as a free RPG Maker game.” True: but this is a different Wilfred the Hero, because it’s in 3D, and…well, I’m not sure what else is different about it, actually. This is the entire announcement:

Teo and I have partnered again to finish Wilfred the Hero. We are building it from the ground up. It will be published on PC and potentially other platforms.

More info forthcoming, but for now, please enjoy the demo reel

Speaking of which:

In short, it rather looks like a 3D Final Fantasy title with an active time battle system and unusual art direction. The site hasn’t seen any updates since the game’s announcement, so that’s all we have for now.

It’s been a bit of a slow month for indie RPG news so far, but that hasn’t dissuaded the intrepid Jay Barnson from penning another news round-up collecting the latest dribs and drabs of information about upcoming (and already-released) indie RPGS into one useful post.

Piggy-backing off of Jay’s round-up, here is all of the important news from the past few weeks that didn’t make it into its own post here on IndieRPGs.com:

• Drox Operative has had a few new development logs posted, one about crew and another about ship components. (Now would probably also be a good time to mention that Steven Peeler sent me a link to the game’s first public screenshots.)

• Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon is getting an update, and (perhaps more importantly) production for episode two is underway!

• Geneforge–and I’m talking about the entire series here–has made it onto Steam. It’s $19.99 for all five games, which is a pretty absurd(ly good) deal, particularly so given that these are known to be some very good games.

• Sword & Sorcery: Underworld Gold has released a video showing off some of its (relative-to-the-original) swank graphics. (Footage below.)

• Telepath RPG: Servants of God has seen another big update, with lots of new content and bug fixes, for those of you who enjoy things like “adventures” and “branching dialog” and “the game not crashing.”

Here is the video showing off S&S:UG’s graphical overhaul:

This one took me by surprise. With a name like “Secrets of Grindea,” I expected to find a generic jRPG with (what else?) endless grinding. Not exactly. Developer Pixel Ferrets describe the upcoming 4-player-cooperative action RPG like so:

Secrets of Grindea is an old-school RPG, with co-op support for up to 4 players. In the world of Grindea everything is determined by one thing – how big you collection of stuff is. You take on the role as a young hero (or heroine) taking his or her first steps to become a famed Collector and help collect the most valuable rares in the entire kingdom!

The game features zelda-ish gameplay, but with deep character customization and skill systems. We have no classes, you build your hero from scratch putting skill points in almost anything you want, with no level caps holding you back!
We have a lengthy main story with dungeons in all shapes and colors, as well as multiple side-quests and hidden secrets! All this can be played with up to 4 players co-op, or just by yourself if you’re more of a single player guy!

It is, in short, something very much like a modern day Secret of Mana, minus the (mostly incomprehensible) plot. That alone would be cause for excitement, but check out the smooth original pixel animations on this puppy:

I hate it when sites give games coverage based on their visuals, but this one genuinely looks like fun–the beautiful art is just icing on the cake. Fred Ström says that his team does not yet have a proper website, but for now, you can follow the game’s TIGSource developer log here.

Philip Neubauer of Gravel Train writes in to inform me of the release of a free, short demo of his prehistoric strategy RPG, aptly named Stone Age Square Battle. True to form, it takes place in what is ostensibly the Stone Age, and battles are turn-based affairs in which characters battle one another from adjacent squares. So, yes: it is indeed a series of Stone Age Square Battles, with short stretches of exploration in between.

The demo, unfortunately, raises more questions than it answers. We get introduced to the setting and the battle system quickly, but only get one character (Lion) to play with. This character has only one attack, and gets no damage advantage from hitting enemies from the side or the rear. The stripped-down, one-character play reminds me a bit of the free Flash game Strategy Defense, albeit with less restricted movement, no counterattacking, and some very limited exploration between fights. It is clear that more characters will join later on, but of the many features of good turn-based battle systems that do not appear in the demo, it isn’t clear to what extent most of them will (or will not) appear further into the game.

On the visual side, SASB features some quality sprite work undermined by jerky animations and an inconsistent user interface. Particularly annoying is the lack of a pop-up window when one mouses over or clicks on characters during battle. You cannot see your character’s health unless you select him and open up the inventory screen, of all things; and you never get to see information about your enemies at all.

It isn’t clear how far into development SASB is, but in my view, there is some potential here that can hopefully be teased out with a greater focus on interface usability and more advanced combat mechanics. I’m curious to see how the finished game turns out.

Project Zomboid isn’t quite dead-by-real-life (the tag below notwithstanding), but that doesn’t mean that life hasn’t given the project a few sound wallops with murderous intent. First Paypal froze their account. Then Google Checkout decided to do the same. Then pirates created an auto-updating pirated build of the game which threatened to kill them with bandwidth fees.

And now, this:

That’s one of the Project Zomboid devs posting on Twitter upon learning that two of the team’s development laptops had been stolen right out of his bedroom. Those laptops contained both the most recent build of the game, as well as the team’s back-ups of that build. Upon hearing about this, fans of the game reacted with torrents of abuse, prompting Chris Simpson (a.k.a. Lemmy) to give up his position as the public face of Project Zomboid.

(more…)

Joshua Hallaran of Critical Games writes in to announce the release of Path of Thanatos, a traditional jRPG made in RPG Maker XP.

The game’s backstory revolves around a man named Kale who can communicate with animals and other creatures. He is eventually cast out of human society, joins with a group of monsters, vanishes, then somehow reappears with godlike powers and commences a campaign of vengeance against humanity. That’s the bad guy. You don’t get to play him. You just play some schlub whose dad was once a general in a war.

Your Father is blamed for the murder of the King and taken away to be executed, your village is attacked and destroyed by monsters, and there is a plot in motion that could very well begin the Fourth Great War. What begins as a simple quest to rescue your Father shall become a fight for the survival of the human race…

So there’s that. Josh writes that PoT contains at least 7 hours of gameplay, and retails for a mere $8. There is a free demo available here, which you can use to try out the game before making any rash decisions. Meanwhile, here is (what else?) a trailer:

This is a good week to be into first-person dungeon crawlers. Mark Harvey of Checkmark Games writes in to announce the release of another one, Dark Delve, for XBox Live Indie Games. (He indicates that there may be a PC release in the future, but for now this appears to be an XBLIG exclusive.)

He describes the game like so:

Create a custom group of characters to dissolve a centuries old curse in the 6+ hour campaign or test your skill in one of several unique challenges available. The dungeons abound with secrets to uncover and enemies to defeat.

• Involving Combat System with special Chain Break attacks
• Performance in combat is rated with increased rewards for the highest grades
• Discover numerous secret doors and overcome puzzles and traps
• Complex boss battles test player tactics
• Multiple difficulty settings and variable party size available to customize your challenge level
• Disarm Trapped treasure chests and obtain more than 100 unique items
• Each of the 3 character classes offer 3 distinct paths of advancement
• Deeds of Valor awarded for performing special tasks outside what is required (can you reach the Rat King’s lair while avoiding all combat encounters?)
• Minimal random encounters, most encounters are placed in rooms and once defeated, stay defeated

Mark writes that Dark Delve “was just released on the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace for 80 MSP ($1).” You can find it here, along with a free trial version. Here is a video showing off the game in action: