• Title: Din’s Curse
• Developer: Soldak Entertainment (Steven Peeler)
• Platforms: Windows, Mac
• Price: $24.99

If Diablo and Diner Dash had offspring, I imagine it would turn out something like this. Din’s Curse is a 3D isometric action RPG by Soldak Entertainment (which is to say, it’s by Steven Peeler and a small group of contract workers). The basic gist is that the god of honor, Din, is making you atone for a wasted life by having you pull a Diablo: you have to venture into a dungeon beneath a randomly generated town in order to save the town and show a horde of demons, undead, and other assorted nasties who’s boss.

A la Diablo, the dungeon is randomly generated. But so is everything else, leading to an impressively dynamic dungeon-delving experience.

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Hopefully, we should have a review of Eschalon: Book II coming soon. In the meantime, however, here is yet another interview by Jay Barnson, this time with Thomas Riegsecker, creator of the Eschalon games.

Rampant Coyote: There are a lot of modern RPGs being released on PC and consoles (not to mention MMORPGs) that all promise evolved, superior gameplay – but apparently there’s enough of an underserved “niche” out there to have made it worthwhile for you to continue on with the Eschalon series. What do games like the Eschalon series have to offer a gamer in a world full of games like Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3, and World of Warcraft?

Thomas Riegsecker: World of Warcraft is awesome in so many ways, and it has altered the landscape of gaming forever. But to me, when I enter that game, I feel as though I am just one of a million other would-be-heroes. Everyone there wants to be the best, the most respected, the one with the coolest mounts and weapons and spells. I don’t find that competition enjoyable. Now in Eschalon, you are the hero. There is no one else there to compete with. Every dungeon you come across if fresh to your eyes- it is pristine and untouched, waiting for you to unlock its secrets. No one else has come before you to raid it and leave their garbage behind.

This sense of “this world was made just for you” is what I love about single-player RPGs.

Check out the full interview here.

Boy, this is a big week for developer interviews, isn’t it? Jay Barnson conducts another interview, this time with indie RPG dev Steven Peeler, the mastermind behind Soldak (and therefore, the mastermind behind real-time dungeon crawlers Din’s Curse, Depths of Peril, and Kivi’s Underworld).

Rampant Games: Why indie RPGs? What prompted you to go after one of the most challenging game genres right out of the chute, and what has kept you on that path?

Steven Peeler: I like RPGs. It really is about that simple. Since I started Soldak, the “smart money” in the indie world has shifted from making match 3 games to hidden object games to iPhone apps and now to Facebook social games. I could have worked on any of these to “make the quick bucks”, but if I can’t work on something I love, what’s the point of being an indie?

Here’s the full thing. And, just for fun, here is another interview Peeler gave to GamersInfo.net from earlier this year.

First, full disclosure: this is my game. That having been said, this is legit news that’s been posted elsewhere. To avoid the appearance of impropriety, I’ll just quote RPGWatch:

Jeff Vogel’s given two separate interviews over the last week or so: first this one from Captain D’s PC Gaming Blog, then this one on GameBanshee.

Also, just because I find it interesting, here is a recent blog post Jeff wrote evangelizing the reuse of old game engines and assets for RPGs.

Jay Barnson has published his second interview with Indinera Falls, creator of the prolific indie game studio Aldorlea Games.

Rampant Coyote: There are a lot of fantastic big-budget mainstream RPGs out now – with more coming soon with plenty of marketing hype for each one. You’d think that there wouldn’t be any room for a small-budget, 2D RPG like yours, but – from what I can tell – the audience for these tiny indie games keeps growing. Would you agree? If so, what do you think accounts for it?

Indinera Falls: I think those audiences are different. Games like mine cater to people who like 16-bits types of RPG, back in the days of the Genesis and Super NES.

Those games happen to be my favorite too. While there are obviously fewer people interested in this sub-genre, those who like them won’t get them in the big budget stuff, and that’s where we come into play. Also, I believe indie makers for the most part have more genuine stories, with less marketing constraint and editor’s control.

The full interview is here. There is also an interview from one year ago archived here.

Basilisk Games have announced the release dates for their upcoming indie RPG Eschalon: Book II:

Windows: May 12, 2010
Macintosh and Linux: May 26, 2010

What’s more, if Basilisk is to be believed, this is going to be one long game:

Book II is big. First time through on difficult mode will take most players 35-50 hours depending on how much you choose to explore.

That’s a whole lot of role-playing!

• Title: Ara Fell: The Legend of Dirisetsu Hollow
• Developer: Stephen Anthony
• Platforms: Windows
• Price: Free

[NOTE: This review is for an older, freeware version of this game. Ara Fell has since been remade and released as a commercial product; this review is likely to be unrepresentative of this more recent version.]

Ara Fell is a freeware jRPG produced in RPG Maker 2003 by Stephen Anthony (a.k.a. “Badluck”). The game is unfinished, which is a pity, because it’s really quite fun while it lasts.

To summarize the plot is to summarize the game: you are the one destined to obtain an ancient artifact of immense power and rid the world of evil. In other words, Ara Fell is a pretty conventional jRPG. To its credit, however, it is a good one, in spite of some missteps, and it really doesn’t take itself too seriously.

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• Title: Boundless Ocean
• Developer: RPGCreations
• Platforms: Windows
• Price: Free

An RPG by Hardi “Orchard-L” Gosal of Radical Poesis Games, Boundless Ocean is a bit like a jRPG take on What Dreams May Come. It has some great ideas, but unfortunately, it is also saddled with an execution that doesn’t quite do them justice.

Boundless Ocean’s biggest draw is in the possibilities presented by its setting. You are dead. You appear in the afterlife, and spend the game trying to return to earth. There are an admirable number of secret, hidden areas throughout the game, which plays nicely into the idea of a surreal spirit world.

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Jay Barnson, the indie developer working on the RPG Frayed Knights, is having a giveaway tomorrow on indie titles from his games store. (He mostly sells indie RPGs, so this is a good opportunity for people looking to expand their knowledge of the oeuvre.)

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