SP: My responsibilities as GURPS Line Editor are diverse; SJ Games is a small publisher, so everybody wears many hats. I'm involved with every GURPS project on some level, although my role varies from item to item. I seek freelance writers for products we know we want to publish and also evaluate proposals submitted out of the blue, and I approve project outlines either way. I advise freelancers on house style and GURPS rules as they work, and then I review their writing, at any stage from first draft to final proof. I do sometimes serve as an old-fashioned i-dotting, t-crossing editor... and as a compiler, reviser, or developer, as necessary. I have the last word on rules canon and editorial style for writers, because my job's raison d'être is to ensure consistency across the product line. Finally, I write as often as I can -- in my heart, I'm an author first!

SP: I've answered that question dozens of ways in 17 years, but here are a few vital principles that always seem to make the cut:

- Options. However many expansions it has and however long these run, GURPS is a simple game at heart; e.g., characters are built on one variety of points, and most tasks involve rolling three six-sided dice under a target number. Likewise, GURPS makes no assumptions about genre or power level, and few about realism level or play style (although I'll admit that it does slightly favor verisimilitude, and avoids competitive, PvP gaming). However, it offers all kinds of options to adjust complexity, genre, power level, realism level, and so on. That's the heart and hallmark of a GURPS product: it offers tons of options that enable the gamer to customize her gaming experience.

- Austerity. GURPS is a sprawling product line, and I'd never lie and say that we don't expand it all the time, because we're famous for doing exactly that. However, a few basic systems underlie everything, and we try not to introduce new game mechanics or character abilities until we're sure that the existing stuff won't do the job. Most of the expansions you see demonstrate how to use the available tools to do new jobs. They don't add new concepts that break old ones; they just expand gamers' options.

- Consistency. We make a serious effort to ensure that every product works with every other one, and that new rules respect old rules (although they might add special cases or extra detail). Likewise, we take editorial style and even text formatting seriously, so you know what sections to expect in a particular kind of GURPS book, where to find things, and how to read the stats.

SP: Ultimately, the issue was that the license didn't word the approval process in a way that was good for either party, and it was simply easier to design a new RPG engine than to redo the licensing agreement and all of the approvals. That might sound extreme, but the RPG elements of a CRPG are minor next to the storyboards, level designs, visuals, audio, and all that other good stuff. Whether the specific concern that led to the discovery of the approval issue was somebody at SJ Games disliking blood and gore, I cannot say -- I did not then and do not now handle licensing, and I never saw so much as a screenshot at the time. I can say that geeky guys at my own pay grade on both sides regretted seeing the plug pulled, but apparently my bosses and their bosses viewed that as the right move for financial reasons. To this day, I remain skeptical of claims that a single cut scene, loading screen, dialog line, etc. caused the parting of ways.

Dreadline's premise - controlling a group of monsters who travel through time to kill those who are already doomed to die in history's calamities - definitely makes it stand out, as does the look. What were the main inspirations behind the game's unique concept and art style?

Bryn Bennett: Steven [Kimura, Lead Artist] is a huge Edward Gorey fan, which explains a lot of the look. We are also trying to bring the creepy look of '70's animation, which I don't think has been represented much in video games. Cartoons like The Hobbit and Watership Down were terrifying!

The concept just came from us throwing around ideas for a few weeks. We all generally have dark senses of humor, and this concept really cracked us up. We knew we were on to something right away.

Aaron DeMuth: Yeah, Steve already has a pretty distinct drawing style, mix in Edward Gorey, Quantum leap, and Ancient aliens and I think you'd arrive at the same place.

Dreadline has been announced as an "action RPG/RTS hybrid." From a gameplay standpoint, would it be fair to call the game "a Freedom Force-like, but with monsters instead of superheroes"?

BB: I think that's a good place to start, but doesn't really describe what we're shooting for. The game is going to be much faster paced than Freedom Force. It will still be necessary to control your team well in order to complete levels, but we won't have things like pause-time. We want it to feel very frantic and high energy. Additionally, we are a small indie studio, so we're not going to be making something the size of Freedom Force, since we just don't have that kind of man-power. (people-power?)

The press release says we will control "a bloodthirsty monster squad." How large is the squad the player controls going to be and how many recruitable characters will there be? Can you perhaps give us some examples of the special skills the characters will have?

BB: You will control a squad of 4 monsters at a time. We played around with the number a bit, but larger numbers of monsters started to feel unwieldy. There also may be some early level with less, to keep things simple and allow the player to ramp up with the controls. Then again, they have a time machine, so they could always go back and replay with more monsters and really bring the doom.

Again, I'm not trying to be secretive, but there are a lot of things up in the air right now. Our skill system currently allows for a ton of different types of abilities, so I'm really excited about that.

Right now, our character Cuberik (the Evil Cube), is kind of like a harvester of souls. One of his abilities is to drain life from humans, and can then use that life force to heal his monster friends. He's like a terrifying recycling machine.

There was a broad enough offering just from the vendors that came to us that we prioritized our evaluations to these products first, hoping to find our solution amongst the ones making generous offers and hence help devote more resources to the game. [...] We came up with a list of engine requirements that looked like this:

1. Ease of use by artists and designers

2. Targets Windows, Mac and Linux

3. Support and expertise available from vendor and in community

4. Adaptability for player modding

5. 3D rendering, pathing, AI, physics, character animation tools

[...] [The Unity] engine stood out as an early front-runner on point 1 of our requirements. [...] At first it seemed to be missing a leg on point 2 (support for Linux platform), but I knew that we could get source code and therefore could provide the Linux port ourselves. [...] Where Unity really bowled us over was on point 3. Besides generous support available from Unity staff, the Unity Asset Store is a treasure trove of assets (3D models and code) provided by the large and growing community of Unity users.

[...] I think the fact that Unity provides their basic engine/editor for free is a big plus as a starting point for providing the tools necessary for supporting modding of Wasteland 2 [...] Finally, from looking at Unity demos, other games developed with Unity, and conducting our own art and coding tests, we are convinced that Unity delivers on the game system that we need to build Wasteland 2 in style. This includes advanced 3D rendering, pathing, physics (PhysX), multiple options for scripting language, advanced 3D level editor that is customizable with scripted components, and much more.

[...] It has been my experience over decades of game development that no engine or tool is ever perfect for the game you want to build. Any engine or tool will have points of weaker comparison to other options, but you have to evaluate how the whole offering matches up with your resources and skills to make a good choice for the project at hand. Unity is an excellent choice that will allow us to deliver the great game we’ve promised in Wasteland 2.

Belarusian studio, Aterdux Entertainment, is proud to announce that its strategic RPG, Legends of Eisenwald, hit its Kickstarter target of $50,000 with eight days to spare.

Having already taken the game to alpha, the Minsk-based developer impressed gamers and media alike with their Kickstarter pitch and plans to release the game on PC (Windows XP, Vista, 7) later this year.

With one week still remaining until the funding deadline of 12:00am Tuesday 22 May, the team are hoping to raise additional funds to further increase the scope and quality of the game and have asked their fans to have a say in how these funds are spent.

Highlights:

• Strategic RPG with two distinct forms of gameplay
• Questing on world map and turn-based combat in vivid battlefields
• Tightly refined fast-paced battle system
• Deep skill trees and customization
• Large variety of quest goals
• Releasing on PC in Q4 2012

Aterdux CEO Alexander Dergay describes Legends of Eisenwald as a "Knight-errant simulation". Essentially a blend of two distinct games into one epic experience, a beautifully detailed strategy map provides the setting for finding & taking quests, recruiting troops, and choosing siege or visit castles. Once the player assaults an enemy force, or is waylaid in the wilds, they are taken right down into the battlefield, where they control their forces in a deep yet superbly streamlined turn-based combat simulator.

As much as I enjoyed the varied classes, I also had to say that the balance on a lot skills and even entire character types needs some work. I started out with an Outlander, a gunslinger character who can cast spells, and found that the low damage output from dual pistols simply didn't compete with two-handed bows, for example, and my basic starter skill, Throw Glaive, was far more useful at first level than some of my other skills and spells even when they had multiple points put into them. Meanwhile, my Engineer's Gun Bot, a summon-able robot with a machine gun attached, was so powerful that it could easily dispatch bosses in seconds without me ever having to take a swing myself. The Embermage, meanwhile, had some fun spells, but they were a bit too expensive to cast without chugging down Mana Potions constantly, and there was no way to boost Mana regeneration that I came across.

Last, while the basic combat was a ton of fun and well balanced on Veteran difficulty, the boss fights I played were a pain despite being well designed, due to excessive HP bloat. I am not exaggerating when I say that the first major boss took me about ten minutes of kiting and potion-quaffing, as well as multiple deaths and resurrections to beat, despite me being at the recommended level and having reasonably good equipment. That same boss, however, was a complete joke when played in multiplayer with other people, or when played on the Normal difficulty setting. In fact, Normal as a whole was a complete cakewalk, and at one point I had over 100 unused Health Potions sitting in my toolbelt - while it's recommended for new players, the game was positively boring on that setting and posed no challenge. A lot of tweaking needs to be done to ensure that all difficulty settings are both fun and challenging for different players, and in both solo and multiplayer contexts.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, despite those balance problems, I had a blast with the time I spent playing the Torchlight II beta. Runic have shown they're hard at work tweaking the game and collecting bug reports, so I expect things to improve that way once the game hits store shelves and digital distribution platforms in (hopefully) a few months. The improvements to the game world, character system and combat as a whole are very substantial, and despite being a budget-priced title, Torchlight II is set to pack a serious amount of gameplay, as well as a great deal more variety and more features than the original game ever did.

Olympus 2207, while being more than just a yet another Fallout total conversion mod, is a post-nuclear game set somewhere in the US Silicone Valley. You take the role of one of the survivors of the global atomic war, taking shelter under an immense skyscraper that mysteriously survived the bombardment. Death or glory awaits... or is there no glory to claim?

The game uses Fallout 2 engine, however tons of visuals (including video, animations and static images) were done from scratch. The game also uses a lot of ambient music, which, in our view, nicely fits into the game theme. In this English demo you will be able to experience all of the above, as well as try out different paths to success.

Play Indie Action RPG Path of Exile’s latest Class the Shadow this Weekend

AUCKLAND, New Zealand - 9 May 2012 - Indie Action RPG Path of Exile has announced its latest character class, the hit-and-run trap-laying Shadow. Although currently in closed beta, Path of Exile is opening its doors to everyone for two days with a public test this coming weekend. Supporters can also pre-purchase credit for the game’s ‘ethical microtransactions’ and receive a permanent beta key.

The Shadow is a hybrid dexterity and intelligence class, a professional assassin exiled after getting on the wrong side of a former client. He employs deadly traps and spells against opponents, finishing off survivors with quick dagger strikes while darting in and out of combat.

In Path of Exile, any class can use any skill, weapon or trap, allowing for a huge variety of possible character builds. The Shadow is particularly well suited to traps and fast weapons like claws and daggers.

Using Path of Exile’s support gem system, the Shadow can turn any spell into a trap or remotely detonated mine. For instance, the Shadow can link a Frost Wall skill gem with a Remote Mine support gem to create a Frost Wall Mine which they can place to strategically trap enemies.

The first chance to play the Shadow character will be in this weekend’s public stress test. The Path of Exile Beta servers will open for public access at 5pm PDT on Friday, May 11. Public access will end at 11:59pm PDT Sunday night, May 13. A full FAQ about the public weekend is available at http://www.pathofexile.com/publicweekend/.

A previous public weekend in March attracted 47,000 players.

Grinding Gear Games’ producer Chris Wilson says the Shadow is one of the more difficult classes to play due to his fragility. “He more than makes up for it if handled with skill. His hit-and-run style of combat makes the most of his natural Evasion and Energy Shield, and rewards strategic coordination of attacks, spells, and traps.”

His signature tactic is to lay hidden traps and to lure his opponents in. When they step too close, the trap springs and his foes find themselves caught in place, missing a leg or blown to pieces in a fiery explosion. Alternatively, he can place remote mines which are manually detonated, ideally in the middle of clusters of enemies.

As an indie game developed by a team of hardcore action RPG fans, Path of Exile has several unique takes on the genre. It features a unique skill gem system, a huge passive skill tree, extensive character customisation and PvP combat in a persistent online world. The game is free to play, but does not feature ‘pay-to-win’ microtransactions. Path of Exile will enter Open Beta in late June.

Key features of ‘Path of Exile’:

• Completely free to download and play, but never ‘pay-to-win’
• A persistent online world capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of players
• A dark and gritty game world rendered from a fixed 3D perspective
• Randomly generated levels and items for extreme replayability
• Online ranking and ladders for every game mode
• Visceral combat with dozens of combinable skills
• Battle in PVP tournaments for worldwide recognition
• Dynamic skill system

• The game is an homage to classic RPGs such as Eye of the Beholder, Might & Magic, Dungeon Master, Stonekeep, etc
• Movement is grid-based and turn-based
• It is set in an infinite, persistent world (yes, persistent, too!)
• The world is rich and full of dungeons, crypts, forests, cities, vast oceans and more
• World is NOT randomly generated, but it IS infinite, so you can share what you find with friends [The devs obviously mean procedural generation - CB]
• Items, weapons, quests, locations, maps, NPCs, even dialogue are generated by the game
• Even some graphics such as weapon images are generated procedurally
• The game is nearly finished, but we need some extra funds to add the final layer of polish to make the game as good as it can be

Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox is a game for all those fans of old-school first person RPG gaming. The movement is grid-based, but also turn-based, bringing back that old strategising element of games such as Might & Magic, there are an infinite number of items and weapons and armor to find, and an infinite number of quests to go on. That being said, however, the aim of this game isn't to make a game that you can play forever, that would just be silly. What we're making is an RPG that you can play for as long or as little as you want, and always have new places to find. Best of all, the in-game world is also persistent, so if you find something cool, you can share its location with your friends and they'll be able to find it, too!

Overview:

Are you feeling adventurous, Hero? The world of Gloriana, with all its wonderful diversity, awaits you. In this pack of five classic Sierra adventure games you will create your character (a warrior, thief, or magic user) and set out on a grand journey for fortune and fame! You will solve quests and puzzles, fight monsters, and save innocents.

In the Quest for Glory pack, which contains all five parts of the classic action RPG games by Sierra, you create your own character, choose his class and abilities and then set out on your grand voyage. Quest for Glory games are universally acclaimed as one of the best adventure games ever developed. After completing a part, you can import your character into the next one, keeping your skills and some special rewards you've hoarded, like magic items.

The story is another of the Quest for Glory series' strong points. It's very solid and immersive, with a light-hearted and humorous narrative that will keep you glued to the screen throughout each of the five installments.

This whole approach was necessary at the time, but very ineffective. It was as if filmmakers had to develop cameras and film stock each time they wanted to shoot a movie. You spent several years working on a tech that you would then use on one or two games before it became obsolete. I dreamed about a time when there would be a powerful enough 3rd party technology we could license affordably and make our games without wasting time reinventing the wheel each time we started a new project. A few years ago it wasn’t possible as most of the stuff you could buy had its limits and was very expensive. Today, that time is past.

There is no need to develop your own tech anymore. With modern commercial engines, you can create almost anything. Technology still has its limits, but today even free engines that can run in web browsers or on tablets have so many features we could only dream about a few years ago. It’s not the tech that is slowing our imagination anymore; almost anything is possible if you are clever enough. The technology also became so complicated that the possibility that you would be able to create in-house, something as advanced as Unreal or Cryengine and do it more cost effective than their licensing fee, is almost zero.

[...] We were looking for a complete package which included engine with good tools, especially for the terrain editing and scripting, AI, some pretty lighting and a sophisticated animation system. Some engines offer all of this in one package (Cryengine) and some rely on 3rd party solutions (Havok Vision). Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. In the first example, you have everything under one roof for one price, but you might end up paying for something you don’t need. You also don’t have the choice to select the component that suits your game best if you’re not happy with the built-in one. In the second example, the initial price is lower and there is much more choice, but when you need everything anyway you may end up with a higher price, than the one for the complete package and lots of solutions from various providers may not work as well together. Even then there is a possibility that the option to choose different components to your liking will be more important than the final price.

There are also some risks. Smaller companies might offer great solutions at even greater prices, but since the games industry is quite a risky business you must take into account the possibility that they will go out of business and trust me, it sucks when you're working on a game for several years and the technology provider goes bankrupt, or stops supporting its product one year before release. I’ve seen it happen once and it really is bad.