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Indie RPG News!

Name:	Jay Barnson
Date Posted:	Oct 25, 2007
Rating:	Not Rated
Public:	YES
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Blog post

I have been running a slightly-regular feature on indie RPG news for the last several months. What's coming down the pipe, what's been updated, and just general cool stuff about indie RPG titles. It's my own miniscule effort to try and publicize the extremely diverse, fractured indie RPG scene.

Here are the last couple of 'em:

Indie RPG News Roundup, October 25th
Aveyond 2: Ean's Quest, Scars of War, The Broken Hourglass, Cute Knight Deluxe, and Depths of Peril.

Indie RPG News Roundup, October 10th
Eschalon: Book 1, Aveyond 2: Ean's Quest, Heart Forth, Alicia, The Broken Hourglass, Age of Decadence, and Esenthel

Enjoy! (And yes, there are a couple of Torque-based games in those lists...)

Now here's a request:

I'd like to do them once a week, if time and actual quantity news items permit, but I figured I needed to publicize them a bit more *AND* ask for some help from the game development community to keep me informed so I have news to post. I you are on a team that is currently developing an RPG, please keep me informed. You can reach me via contact information here at my GarageGames contact info, or at jayb ---- at ---- rampantgames.com, or at the site in the community area. If you also hear scuttebutt about something going on in the indie RPG scene from a reliable source, please let me know about that as well!

My criteria for what games to include are kinda vague, but I'm looking for the following:

* With 98% (or more) of indie projects never actually getting released, I'm nervous about talking about any game unless it seems "likely" to be released. This means it should either be really close to release (playable late-alpha) or by an established team that already has a history of released games (well, at least one released game).

* No remakes of mainstream games.

* The games should run on modern platforms... I'm hesitant to mention games that require the use of an emulator.

* I'm also hesitant to talk about mods of commercial games. I'm much more interested in stand-alone indie titles, whether freeware or commercial.

And all of these guidelines may be bent if you can convince me otherwise... :)

Recent Blog Posts

List:	04/30/08 - Frayed Knights Pilot Episode Now Available 03/28/08 - Frayed Knights - The Interview! 03/17/08 - The Future of Indie RPGs 02/27/08 - Frayed Knights, Late Nights 02/11/08 - Why Indie RPGs? Indies of the Round Table #1 01/30/08 - Frayed Knights: Beware the Priests of the Pus God! 12/31/07 - Frayed Knights Development - Frayed Nerves! 12/13/07 - Indie RPG News Roundup - December 13th

Submit your own resources!

Tom Feni (Oct 25, 2007 at 18:45 GMT)

well give me a few months and Toby Turtle should be close to being playable :) Its not a rpg tho so not sure if you would even be interested..

But sounds fun either way.. :)
need more games publicized :)

Stephan (viKKing) Bondier (Oct 25, 2007 at 19:30 GMT)

@Jay: what about indie released games with a continued development (Darkwind: War On Wheels, hint, hint, hint...) Sam Redfern has scheduled 12 months of upgrades to bring the game the vision he had, and I got caught in the time trap myself! ;-)

Edit: My message got partially eaten... grrr.
Edited on Oct 25, 2007 19:31 GMT

Florian (Oct 25, 2007 at 20:33 GMT)

why not mods?
i think, some mods are really good, and should be metioned
anyway, cool idea, i like rpg's :)

Jay Barnson (Oct 25, 2007 at 20:50 GMT)

Stephan: Yes, absolutely. I want to post all about updates!

Florian: The thing is, they do get covered by the gaming sites for the mainstream games themselves; they tend to piggy-back on "big-budget" content and thus are kind of in a different category from truly indie games; and I'd be worried about the "true" indie games getting buried under a deluge of mods for, say, Neverwinter Nights 2. But if a mod was truly exceptional and contained a big portion of all-original content, I could be talked into an exception.

Tom: I talk about other indie games on the blog, too, just not as part of the "indie RPG news." I'm developing a niche focus towards indie RPGs and adventure games --- but it's not even close to an exclusive focus, just an emphasis.

Nikhil Sharma (Oct 26, 2007 at 05:46 GMT)

So Aveyond 2 is still using RPG Maker? Didn't the developer switch over to TGB recently? (some Hatchery game)

Jay Barnson (Oct 26, 2007 at 05:55 GMT)

She used TGB for Grimm's Hatchery, yes. But that was a different kind of game - a casual game that she wanted to do in-between big RPG projects. The last time I checked she was sticking with RPG Maker for RPGs.

David Montgomery-Blake (Oct 26, 2007 at 16:31 GMT)

Yup. She sees TGB and RGP Maker XP as two tools to achieve different ends, and uses the one that has its strengths to the ends she wants to accomplish.

Jay Barnson (Oct 26, 2007 at 17:25 GMT)

I personally feel TGB *could* be used to make a totally kick-butt RPG that could shatter some of the limitations of RPGMaker...

(Like... uh... remember my experiment last year using Ultima 7 graphics...?)

But it'd be a lot of work to build it into an RPG engine. Amanda's got development with RPGMaker down to a science. She started development on Aveyond 2 back in... when was it... March? And she's theoretically entering beta next week. That's pretty rapid development with a very familiar and mature product.

I expect that once you have a solid base to work with, you could do the same with TGB modded up for a more western-RPG style of experience. Of course, that's why everyone keeps harping on indies to GET A GAME DONE and out the door! The first time is always the hardest.
Edited on Oct 26, 2007 17:27 GMT

David Montgomery-Blake (Oct 26, 2007 at 21:18 GMT)

I loved that experiment. It made me want to play Ultima VII again. I love that game. I want to play it again now.

Jay Barnson (Oct 29, 2007 at 16:41 GMT)

I really loved it too. Probably my favorite RPG ever. And I think it still holds up pretty well today, aside from the 320 x 200 resolution (not such a problem in Exult).

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