Indie RPG News Roundup, 9 Sep 2010

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 9, 2010

So here’s a little bit I’ve heard lately via the scuttlebutt network about current and future indie role-playing games. Please add other tidbits you are aware of in the comments or on the forums. We wanna know!

Din’s Curse

The official 1.07 patch for the excellent action-dungeon crawler Din’s Curse is now available. Check it out here. According to Steven Peeler, ”
tThis patch improves a bunch of effects, improves unique items, added some new options like Hide Crappy Items, Don’t Click on Pets, and Very Slow Pace, and fixed/balanced/polished several things.”

Winter Voices

This is a seven-part episodic RPG in development from French startup Beyondthepillars. It is actually supposed to be a preview (and source of funding?) for an MMO they also have in development… sorta like what Torchlight was supposed to be, I guess.  And it features turn-based combat, which is kinda unique nowadays. Anyway, it’s worth a look.

Winter Voices Website

Knights of the Chalice

RPG Codex has posted a review of  Knights of the Chalice. It doesn’t pull punches, but it is still a pretty positive review.  Check it out here.

Recettear

An unusual independent release from Japan, Recettear is an RPG about… running an item shop in an RPG world.  Fortunately for adventurous players, one of the ways to obtain new stock is to go dungeon delving.  It’s very cute, very JRPG-ish, but also pretty dang unique. It goes on general sale tomorrow via Steam, GamersGate, and Impulse. But you can grab the demo from their official website today.

(And thanks to Katy on the forums for making sure this game didn’t slip through the rather large cracks in my own attention).

Laxius Force III

The final installment of the Laxius Force trilogy is now available. It features  (get this!) 42 playable characters and over 150 quests.  This game will take more than a single weekend to play. Playing through Laxius Force 1 or Laxius Force 2: The Queen of Adretana (or the Prequel, 3 Stars of Destiny) is not required to enjoy this game.  However, you can import your characters from Laxius Force 2 for this third adventure.

Check out Laxius Force III

Millennium 3

Also coming from Aldorlea Games next month is the third game of the Millennium series.

Planet Stronghold

Word from studio founder Celso Riva of Winter Wolves Computer Games  is that Planet Stronghold, intended as a more “casual” sci-fi RPG, is slowly morphing into a somewhat more hardcore RPG.  The poor guy just can’t be satisfied with simplistic gameplay, apparently, and has added more combat options and an “action point” mechanic. It is still planned as a casual-friendly, accessible title with an emphasis on storytelling, but I know that I will appreciate more interesting combat decisions.

In spite of the changes, Winter Wolves is anticipating a release around the end of December, but notes that it’s far from definite.

Spirited Heart – Flash Version

Speaking of Winter Wolves, their somewhat RPG-ish fantasy life-sim game Spirited Heart is now available as a (somewhat stripped down) Flash Version on Kongregate.

Play Spirited Heart Flash Version

Magical Diary

From Hanako Games, developer of Cute Knight and Cute Knight Kingdom and many other titles, comes a game where you can get your Harriet Potter on.  Entitled Magical Diary, it includes a life-sim aspect in a magical school, as well as some good ol’ first-person dungeon delving similar to Cute Knight. In fact, as a fan of Cute Knight, I can’t help but note the serious CK vibes off of what info Hanako has provided thus far, which makes me excited.

I expect she’ll be happy to provide more information as she can. She’s already posted a few more tidbits in this forum post.

Frayed Knights

Not much to report here. Most of the effort this last month has involved scripting out a single (but large and critical) dungeon. Lots of dialogs, and I’m being overwhelmed with the necessity of creating some more tools to speed development of future titles (and maybe to assist in the polishing / bug-fixing stages of the first one).

Avadon: The Black Fortress

Jeff Vogel’s latest design diary on Avadon: The Black Fortress is up.

Avadon Design Diary #3 – Character Classes and Kicking Butt

Among other things, Avadon is eschewing the heavy skill-based system of Spiderweb’s previous RPGs, and going with a pretty heavy class-based system.  Also interestingly, your party will be limited to your player character and two other characters. With four classes available in the game, this means you will always go without one class. He also notes he’s going to be dialing back a bit on the difficulty.

I’m looking forward to this one.

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