Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Game Announcement: Vastar

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 2, 2010

Well, if I count the “week” as only a work-week, then today’s my final commitment to adding a game each day to the Rampant Games store. But I still have a backlog, so I will be continuing to add more games through next week. Just maybe not at the same pace. It’s taken its toll. Wanna know how much work got done on Frayed Knights this week? Not very much!

But this was important.

Today’s addition is also an honest-to-goodness new release, from Exodus Studios:

Vastar

Vastar is an RPG Maker title based on the comic series that (I am told) appeared at Drunk Duck from 2002-2006, created by Rebecca Long – who has since become the founder and owner of Exodus Studios.  This is their first commercial release, and to their credit they chose a fairly novel approach to set their game apart from the pack.

In Vastar, you play one of three young siblings — of the Vastar family, natch! The nifty thing here is that each character has their own storyline – at least for a good part of the game, before they come together to stop a vengeful renegade wizard from completing a ritual that will threaten them all. It’s an interesting touch that I haven’t seen in an indie game before (I technically haven’t seen it in a mainstream game before, though I have heard that Dragon Age: Origins has at least a brief segment like that based on character choice).

Another thing I’ve liked about the game thus far (no, I haven’t had the chance to play a lot of it yet) is that many items in the world have actual descriptions (and many are interactive, too). So many games using the RPG Maker engine throw in a bunch of interesting-looking scenery that serves as nothing but obstacles. This little touch really helps flesh out the world, and I hope to see more games following this example.

So check out Vastar! I know there’s been a lot of games introduced this week, all of them worthy of checking out – but hey, these are worth canceling your weekend plans over, aren’t they? 🙂  The demo version of Vastar lets you play the introductory chapter for each of the three Vastar siblings. It’s short, but I like that it gives you a chance to play each of the main playable characters.

Download the free Vastar trial version!

And have fun!


Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



  • Stu said,

    and it still looks like EVERY other RPG maker game.. Do people not realise that their games look like everyone elses game, so no matter how original story/music/whatever.. it looks + plays like everyone elses rpg maker games? that autmatically takes 80% of the shine off of it.

    All these indie toolkit game “studio’s” need to put more effort into a unique look, or realise the limitations of the engine and pick something else that gives them more control + freedom.

    I’m soo done with every indie title having that anime look too. I have cupboards of untranslated manga, I did fansubs in the early 80’s. I love anime.. I’m just done seeing it in rpg maker game and the whole chibi look.

    bah its been a long week and I get no easter holidays 😛 I’m going to try this on my virtualbox winxp and see how it plays but I aint holding my breath.

    Most of these demos I play feel more like hobby games than what I would call “indy” games.

    –(crotchety cranky old jaded gamer)

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    Heh, Stu, don’t ever change. 🙂

    Actually, I kinda recall a similar feeling in 1992 or so with the western RPGs. I was getting to the point where I couldn’t tell one from the other. Of course, now I miss those days.

    But whenever I start kicking myself, thinking, “Crap, why did I make my own engine instead of just jumping onto the RPG Maker bandwagon, I could have had three or four games done by now,” I think of your response.

    And truth be told, there are some definite differences between the better ones. But particularly when they share off-the-shelf artwork, it’s very hard for a game to stand out from the others enough to be recognized.

    I remember Russell Carroll (now of Reflexive) commenting several years ago about the “Torque Look” of so many games using the Torque Game Engine. They are a little more scarce nowadays, so hopefully I’ll be in the clear. But there may be something to Richard Garriott’s insistence on re-writing the Ultima engine from scratch with every version.

  • Stu said,

    I probably should not have gone off on the bent I did. I fully understand time to market (heck my hobby crpg is getting near 4 years… lol!) but time to market is one thing, if 99.99% of everything else in your flooded market looks identical. having the greatest most intriguing story, custom musical score etc don’t mean a whole lot when every single other game.

    I understand the torque look too, but its one thing when the engine is new to not understand what can be done, rpg maker is not new and all these little indy/hobby crpg’s are either totally constrained by its limitations or are not doing enough to push it, and I feel its more of the constraint than pushing the envelope. It seems to be a hot segment that everyone is trying to hit up for cash on really quickly which is a shame. They need to invest in a real developer ;P

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