Amusingly and ironically enough, one of the scariest work-in progress games I’ve played this year comes from a developer named Digital Happiness. Based out of Indonesia, this small studio is in the process of polishing up their first game, DreadOut, a nicely frightening homage to Tecmo’s criminally neglected Fatal Frame series with a modern (and optionally social) twist.
DH is using the extremely versatile Unity game engine, a wonder tool for a number of small to large studios that can pump out some fantastic visuals the can be scaled to run an a wide range of computers and devices. The speed at which this has come together combined with the quality of the work is pretty astonishing. I believe Digital Happiness happens to be in the CG animation business or something, and you can see this in the character art, animation and general pleasingly realistic style of the visuals. Continue reading →
It’s allllmost done, folks. Ville and Anne Mönkkönen’s refreshingly fun (and funny) blend of adventure and role-playing as gotten a ton of fixes including new skills, all sorts of little and big optimizations and is shaping up to be a great blend old and new school genre fans looking for something really unique should absolutely buy. Go play the latest demo and see for yourself. I’ll wait, but while I’m waiting, a short report on what’s new:
When we last left our hero (in a previous demo build), an important item was acquired, a relative was rescued and there was a nice air of “this is really going to be even more fun!” at the expected abrupt ending. Picking up right from that save, the game gets funnier and a bit more challenging as new enemies and plenty of nice surprises awaited with further exploration. One thing new players will NEED to learn (other than adjusting to the top-down camera angle, but there’s a potential slight options tweak being considered) is the importance of moving or activating certain objects in the game world to uncover assorted secrets. I found a new room in the old dungeon I was on the way out of by extinguishing a torch (hey!), and there were a wealth of cool items under chairs, chests, wooden boards and heavy rocks (among other places)… Continue reading →
I haven’t done a horror games article in a while, but it’s probably because of late I’m in the wrong mindset to dip into something that’s going to have me playing halfway under the couch and sleeping with a baseball bat propped against the bed. That said, when I dug up my copy of Clock Tower while looking for another game, something made me pop it in and see if the game still had the power to scare me silly after all these years. It most certainly does, and even though I only sunk about two or so hours in (getting one of the not so good ending in the process), it made me think about how many of the more recent (and so-called) horror games in the genre pale in comparison when it comes to being actually scary…
Yep, it’s Catamites (or catmitts) at the wheel again. His offbeat RPG Space Funeral was of the most unusual and incredibly awesome indie games I’ve played this year, but Catamites has most certainly been a busy guy since then, cooking up a bunch of newer titles to make anyone who downloads them appreciate his take on familiar game genres and gameplay conventions. Goblet Grotto is a strange, addictive third-person exploration adventure game where you… collect goblets. Well, there’s a lot more going on under the hood, but revealing it would spoil the fun. Hell, you SHOULDN’T even watch that speed run video above (too late, huh? Oh, OK…) as it’s a fast way through the game and you need to really boogie around the game world to see and interact with as much as possible. What’s cool here is there’s a very functional game world and characters here and all those bizarre sounds and strange hieroglyphs onscreen have some meaning as does every action button on the console.
The fun part in all this (next to collecting goblets) is interacting with characters and objects in the environment. Just going around jamming on the spacebar (which makes a “KILL!” sound each time you tap it) isn’t the best solution (but it does get rid of wolves and other creatures that attack) and yes, you’ll die a lot (unless you cheated by watching that video above). However, the game grabs you, sucks you in and has you hooked in because of the offbeat visuals and eccentric sound design. Anyway, blah and blah and blah – go get this NOW, I say. It runs on PC and Macs, so you Apple-heads don’t need to sit there pouting about not being able to play a decent game. No matter what you play it on, you’ll get a few laughs, scratch your head and maybe even say “WTF???” a few times. I think that’s what Catamites wants, so please do oblige him. Oh yeah, check out his other games as well at Harmony Zone – all are worth trying out (and hell, they’re all **FREE**, so there’s no commitment other than the time it takes to download and play them).
OK, another case of me being late to the party, but even so, here’s another RPG you’ll probably fall head over heels for. Knights of the Chalice comes highly recommended if you’re a fan of old-school top-down RPG bliss, anything Dungeons & Dragons related and well crafted, severely challenging games in general. While it’s not a free game, you can download the wickedly cool (and hard) demo and decide if it’s worth the £14.95 (approximately $24.15 US) – I’d say it is and then some, but I’m still playing the demo! Actually, I’ll probably pick this up once I whittle down the pile of games I have to review. I don’t want to buy it now and be tempted to start up another game that’s going to eat up what’s left of my free time…
Yes, it’s somewhat ancient for a RPG Maker game, but Lys86’s brilliant The Frozen World is still one of my all-time favorites made with the 2000 version of the popular game creation software. While fairly short (you can complete it in under ten hours), the combination of a unique battle system, memorable plot and some great use of music helps lift this one into the heights of great fan games. In fact, the game feels like something you’d have played back on the SNES or Genesis, but the combat has a nice and rewarding Nintendo DS/3DS “touch screen” experience I’ll get to in a bit.
Being a huge fan of the Shin Megami Tensei series, i got a huge smile on my face when I saw screens of Rhyme’s wonderful work in progress (with KreadEX and Karsuman doing the dev work), fracture over at RPGmaker.net. Even if you’re not a SMT fan (and why not?) the game is worth a look, especially if you just so happen to love old-school first person dungeon crawling in the Wizardry vein (but with a more modern twist).
In the tried and true MegaTen tradition, things are a bit cryptic in the beginning as your high school age party is introduced one by one as you walk though a series of brightly lit hallways, but once you get down to that first basement and the random battles begin, things get nice and hard for the unprepared. Try and rush too much through this one and you’ll be chewing on your keyboard, especially if you chose one of the harder difficulty settings.
Yep, another week, another really cool RPGmaker.netgame. This time, it’s the fun and challenging throwback by user Dustsoft, Fable of Heroes: Legendary Edition. Although it’s got a pretty basic plot and characters straight out of RPG central casting, that’s exactly what makes it work for me. Amusingly enough, the game is noted as a throwback to the NES and SNES days, but many of the art assets used from the RTP look straight out of Shining Force in terms of the color palette, buildings, map tilesets and even the light, happy music in the starting village. Granted, the Genesis was lousy at decent fog and transparency effects as seen in some areas here, but I had a big Sega smile on my face while playing this one, that’s for sure…
My quest to uncover all the hidden RPG gems continues marching onward… and this time, it’s something really cool that while incomplete, was actually the springboard for an even better remake (which is still in progress as we speak). While Wilfred the Hero, Part 1 is almost eight years old, don’t let that stop you from giving it a try. It’s yet another excellent RPG made with RPG Maker 2003 that doesn’t use the familiar art assets found in the RTP. Creators Teo Mathlein (art) and Brandon Abley (music) managed to make a game that’s wholly unique in its art style while adding elements to the gameplay from a few sources. While it’s labeled as a “Japanese-style” console RPG experience, i think that’s selling the game short, as it’s set in a world that won’t be familiar to those expecting that typical Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest clone game.
Yeah, yeah, I’m late to the whole Space Funeral appreciation party, but hey, I was kind of busy. Actually, I’d heard about the game a while ago from some friends, but I finally just got around to downloading and playing it over the past week and yes, it’s an instant RPGMaker classic. While the gameplay is pretty standard RPG 101 fare all the way (using an Active or Wait time-based system common to the older Final Fantasy games), it’s the amazingly strange art style and general weirdness that makes the game so special. If you recall the more bizarre alternative comics from the 80’s by Gary Panter, Charles Burns, kaz and more, all filtered through a David Lynch lens with a shot of Suda 51 on the side, the game will grab you from the moment you hit BLOOD on the title screen. RPGMaker.net user catmitts must own a time machine or still get videos on his MTV channel on cable or something, as he’s managed to tap into the new wave vibe perfectly, creating an original game that manages to feel as if it was made for a Bizarro World NES.
Amusingly and ironically enough, one of the scariest work-in progress games I’ve played this year comes from a developer named Digital Happiness. Based out of Indonesia, this small studio is in the process of polishing up their first game, DreadOut, a nicely frightening homage to Tecmo’s criminally neglected Fatal Frame series with a modern (and optionally social) twist.
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