The three Eschalon games are on sale at Good Old Games for a day. The games are sold at $2.39, $3.99 and $9.99 respectively.

In the March update of Telepath Tactics, we learn that the game has been Greenlit and are presented with the many updates of the game.

• New portraits!

• The Axe attack is now fully animated for both the male and female Bandit!

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• The villager NPCs now all have walk animations; which is to say, they’re all complete!

• We have a talented new animator by the name of Hunter Russell doing some of the larger effect animations for us. So far, he’s adapted the Mind Shield animation for Big Shield, created a Feedback animation, and produced a suitably epic Dark Vortex effect animation. (Click the images below to see the animations in motion.)

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• Related to the new, big effects animations, I’ve added a couple of new spawn settings for big AOE attack visual effects: OnCenter and TowardCenter.

• The game now supports gender randomization in single player, so you can have characters randomly spawn as either male or female in battle.

• I’ve created a few new attacks to make the Shadowling, Bandit and Photokineticist classes more interesting and give them more room for growth in single player. Shadowlings can learn to create hallucinatory decoys that attract enemy attacks; Bandits can learn to use throwing axes and rend armor; and Photokineticists can boost allies’ dodge percentage by blanketing them in blinding light. Pretty cool stuff, eh?

• I’ve made more progress on polishing the interface! I’ve replaced the default OS mouse cursor with some nice custom cursors that change based on what you’re mousing over (making it easy to see what can be grabbed and what should be clicked); I’ve added little “Equipped” symbols to the inventory screen to easily show which items are equipped at a glance; we’ve completed revisions on attack button icons and created new icons for the new attacks mentioned above; attack buttons now have hotkey visual indicators showing which attack hotkey selects each; pop-up indicators now handle unusual attack effects better; and best of all, we’ve finally replaced those ugly beige “tooltip” boxes with some properly scaling bitmap pop-up boxes that look far more pleasing to the eye.

• You can now assign tags and lighting to individual characters on a per-battle basis in the same way you’d assign triggers. This includes the new AI tag Passive, which tells a particular character to stand around until an enemy wanders into aggro range, Fire Emblem-style. This can provide some variety in enemy behavior and help pace different battles differently so they aren’t all just the entire enemy army bum rushing you every time.

• The deployment screen now has a button that opens the common inventory, letting you manage your army’s inventory and equipment before battle starts.

• New dialog scripts: PlayLoop plays an ambient sound loop seamlessly in the background; KillCharAt slays a character at designated coordinates (to be used for finishing off characters without unique names that have triggered an OnDeath conversation / death monologue).

• New battle condition Go First lets you designate an army to move first in single player. (For those special occasions where the enemy or an allied army should get to move before the player!)

• We’ve finished mastering and mixing a bunch of the game’s music; these tracks are sounding really nice now! I’ve also made it so the game plays the horribly sad track “Frozen Hearts” when you lose a battle in single player (you know, in case you didn’t already feel bad enough about losing). Only four tracks remain to be composed.

• I’ve updated the map editor so it formats map files to be more easily human-readable when it saves them.

• I’ve updated scripting and features documentation in the manual.

• Story and character work is progressing well. I now have sketched out 16 unique playable characters you can recruit and field in battle, as well as 12 unique villains / bosses. The official campaign now has 8 working scenes and three battles, with many more to come. I don’t think I quite hit my goal of getting the first hour of the game done, but I ended up needing to add more features to the game to get everything working how I wanted it to than anticipated. All in all, I think I used my time well.

• Fixed a looooot of bugs! (Here’s a small sampling, if you’re in the mood for schadenfreude.)

OMC Games has a new short update about a new kickstarter video, and new update on the way about the game world of Skullforge.

Quick update!

I have a couple of things that will hopefully go live tonight:

1. A new Kickstarter video that will hopefully be more helpful than the current one.  I admit that perhaps the approach I made originally wasn't as effective, but I'm man enough to accept that. So this new video will be more like the previous one, but with more info and more talking.  Heh, heh.

2. I have an update talking about the world and what it's about.  It's taken a bit of time to get it together because my real job has been a little hectic the last couple of days.  Everything seems to be calming down, so I can get back to spending more time on this.

I hope you guys like it.

-Garv

Pixel Noir is the latest kickstarter to go live this week asking for $97,000. The game is being developed by a small studio called SWDTech Games.

Help fund a JRPG-inspired, 16-bit noir detective Role Playing Game!

Who can you trust when you can’t trust yourself?

Something happened that night in the hospital - something that cost you your career as a police detective, your sanity and your partner's life. Ten years later, you have the chance to put things right. Are the hallucinations that plague you a key to what happened that fateful night? Muster your detective skills and gather your allies as you take to the streets to prove your innocence!

The developers also have a new update about International Tiers.

PAX East Update & International Tiers

Thanks to all our backers for your support! We had an amazing time at PAX East meeting you all, getting your feedback, and seeing the incredible support and response to our game! Once we get back from PAX, we'll answer more of your questions and messages on Kickstarter, Facebook, Twitter, and email.

Due to an oversight, we had no international shipping available. We have now added new tiers to allow worldwide pledges as we always meant to have the game available to play for everyone. So no matter where you are, you can now pledge to Pixel Noir!

Thanks again for your support! Look out for further updates next week and keep spreading the word!

Strategy Informer interviewed Dreadlocks Designer & Writer Jan Jirkovsky to ask a few question s about DEX at EGX Rezzed last week.

Strategy Informer: You've got the funding, but you also aimed to generate a community, and that was one of your goals with Kickstarter. Do you feel you achieved that goal?

Jan Jirkovsky: At the moment the game is in pre-alpha development stage and it's accessible to our Kickstarter backers, and we are getting feedback from them, and it's very motivating. Because there's like six-to-seven hundred people in the early access, and it's very motivating because they are the hardcore fans of the genre, and we are pretty much on the same line, and pretty much the same energy, and it's real nice that the first people who see the game are actually the ones that probably most appreciate the game. So that's great. That gives us power to work and work.

Strategy Informer: And what has the feedback been like?

Jan Jirkovsky: It's been very positive, yeah, there's been some, like, minor stuff with the controls but we're going to fix it. But as to the major, major things, it's very positive so far. So that's nice.

Strategy Informer: And I read that you're going for a “mature” storyline. In what way is it mature? Is it violent, political, philosophical?

Jan Jirkovsky: I would say it's not-- we don't talk about themes that would be interesting for really young players. It's not about that. We don't, like-- there's not much prostitution, or sex, or drugs, just-- it's a bit like Fallout as to the rating and stuff. Like, there are stimpaks for HP restoration, but it's not a porn game or whatever.

It's mainly because I think the topics and themes would appeal to mature audiences in the same way as cyberpunk novels are for mostly mature audiences. I think most of the cyberpunk stuff is, like, for 16-17 years olds and above-- you know, people start reading it as soon as-- I'm not speaking about rating, but it's an interesting topic for mature gamers.

I received word of a new retro ASCII-based game called Sanctuary RPG in a short press release from the games developer Black Shell Games.

SanctuaryRPG Indie Game Press Release

Black Shell Games just completed development of our flagship game, SanctuaryRPG. In a nutshell, it’s a retro ASCII-based RPG built similarly to classic hits such as Nethack and Zork. It’s has a soundtrack with over 40 original 8-bit chiptune tracks composed specially for the game. We’ve been working on it for almost one and a half years now, and it’s grown immensely since its inception. There is no other game like it in development today, and it has received immense praise from fans.

Drawing inspiration from Roguelikes and Japanese RPGs, we have poured over 10,000 hours of meticulous work into this game. Every aspect is designed to offer a compelling and replayable gameplay experience.

With dynamic combat, hilarious dialogue, and plenty of weapons at your disposal, this is truly one of the most ambitious ASCII-art RPGs of 2014. The game is FREE to download and play to your heart's content, with no strings attached.

Link to Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMI6IXF3ZXE
Link to Download: http://www.PlaySRPG.com

Twinfinite has twon new video from PAX East 2014 for Invisible, Inc, The first video is an interview with Klei’s Jason Dreger were he talks about gameplay.

The tactical espionage game Invisible Inc. from Klei easily won one of Twinfinite’s Game of Show awards for PAX East 2014. It’s only fitting then that we took some time to talk to Klei’s Jason Dreger to talk about just what made this alpha demo Invisible Inc. so great. From a focus on espionage and stealth to the expertly crafted turn based gameplay, Invisible Inc. is a game that will stay on Twinfinite’s radar all the way through development

And the second video is their impression of the game based on a new demo.

At PAX East this past weekend, Alissa and I got a chance to play the alpha version of Klei Entertainment’s upcoming turn-based, tactical espionage game Invisible, Inc. The game played like a stealth version of XCOM and showed surprising polish for a game that’s still a month or two out from beta. We both enjoyed whatever limited time we had with the game and took a few minutes to record our thoughts. Spoiler alert: We liked it. A lot.

Prisonscape has been on kickstarter for a few days now, and funding has slowed down. The game has only managed to get $8,692 of the games $49,500 goal.

The developer Lunar Enigma also released two more updates for the game. The first update is a new video the job system.

Introducing the job (quest) system

We created another video where we introduce the job system and story branching in Prisonscape. Hope you enjoy it!

The Kickstarter has been a bit slow lately, and based on Kicktraq we're not going on our way to getting funded. So please spread the word about the game in any way you can! 

This is also a good moment to thank everyone who believes in this project and who have already pledged. You are the raeson why we are doing this!

The second update the developer talks about funding, and what will happen if the kickstarter fails in the next twenty days.

Talking about the money

A lot of people have asked us about the money and how it will be spent. In this update, I will answer some of the most frequently asked questions about this particular topic.

Q: How will you spend the money if you meet your goal?

A: There is a small chart in the Budget part on our Kickstarter page, but here is some more details about it: First of all, Kickstarter and Amazon Payment take their share which is something between 7% and 10%. Second, the taxation in Finland (where we operate from) is ridiculously high. We pay VAT of 24% for each sold game. So basically a third of the funds is already gone before we even see the money on our bank account. That comes to around 16500 USD, which leaves us with 33000 USD.

There are three people that would be working on the project full-time for a total time period of 5 months (until December of 2014, which is the release goal). The studio rent for this time will come to around 650 USD per month, costing us 3900 USD. After that we have 29100 USD left. Now we can start paying ourselves salaries, which will be around 5800 USD per month including taxes for three people (programmer, designer and graphic designer). After taxes we are left with around 1380 USD per month each to pay the rent and feed ourselves and our families.

Q: What happens to the game if the Kickstarter fails?

A: We will continue developing the game, but the pace will be slower. Me and Tuomas are the only financiers of Prisonscape, and everything has been paid from our own pockets so far. Fortunately we both have full-time jobs to help with this, but unfortunately this takes a lot of time away from the game development.

Q: Why is the goal so high?

A: Game development is not cheap, and if you want to do it full-time you need surprisingly large amounts of money. If we succeed and we'll start game deving full-time, our salaries will still drop drastically and we'll become particularly familiar with eating ramen.

Visionary Realms has a new post on the the Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen blog that announces development will be slowing down due to low funding.

In the past few months we have seen some of the most passion bubble up from the Internet than we have in some time; all for an idea of a game we all want to see happen. It has been an exciting time for all of us.

Over the first month of development through crowdfunding, we’ve been able to achieve what was needed to be done in order to gain investor interest. That is, we’ve shown there is interest in a game like Pantheon, we’ve built the term sheets and business plan, and now have a prototype we can show to potential investors.   

The downside now is that our initial resources have depleted, which regrettably means that development is going to slow down until finances can be secured. It’s not something we want to do by any means, but as we cannot guarantee paychecks to the team, they each need to be able to spend time on other things to pay the bills.

Once we’re able to get that level of funding we can then secure much-needed studio space and be able to pick up the pace of production dramatically. We are deeply thankful to this community for getting Pantheon to this critical point, where we have been able to put together an attractive package to present to potential investors.

In the interim, any donations made at this point until further notice will be going directly to maintaining the website during this phase, and not towards development.

Ossian Studios has a new post on the The Shadow Sun forums looking for beta testers to help with the android version of the game. Here are the details if you're interested.

The Shadow Sun Android Open Beta

We’re looking for beta testers for our upcoming Android version of The Shadow Sun, our fantasy action RPG. This is an open beta that only includes a short part of the game to see how it runs on different devices.

If you’re interested in trying out the game on your Android phone or tablet, just post in this thread to let us know (minimum OS version 2.3.1). We will then contact you via email. Since the Android version will be sold on the Google Play Store, the beta will be distributed via a private Google+ Community (which ties into Google Play). So you need to be a Google+ member in order to download the beta.

The sixth kickstarter update for Legends Of Persia contains a new video with some new gameplay footage. The game still needs another $1,7000 to get funded.

More Gameplay Videos!!!

As promised before, here is yet another gameplay video from a boss fight in our game. Hope you like it. And as always, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your kind supports.

Seith has updated the Ghost of a Tale website with information on the game's lore, of which little has been known up to now.

Welcome everyone! As promised this update is going to focus on the game’s lore, an aspect which has mostly been kept under wraps until now. As you all know Ghost of a Tale takes place in a medieval world inhabited by animals, each species ruling over its own kingdom. And among those kingdoms the Rats are considered one of the most powerful species. Although creatures far more fearsome exist, it is a well-known fact that, through sheer force of numbers, the Rat Army is capable of defeating almost any foe.

Today some say the Rats’ influence is so wide and far-reaching that it is more empire than kingdom. The origin of the Rat’s powerful influence can be traced all the way back to the War of the Green Flame, many centuries ago, when the world was teetering on the edge of the Bright Abyss.

No one remembers where the Green Flame appeared first. A force without conscience or thought, it killed and consumed all those standing in its path. The fallen would then grow the ranks of its army, becoming soulless puppets of the necromantic power. The great battle has passed into myth and legend now – but some facts are indisputable: the mighty Badgers of Baladhon fought and lost and even the Hawks of Halenvir fell from the sky. None of them could turn back the foul invasion.

When the news of the advancing army of the Green Flame reached the capital of each kingdom there was much debate. Some believed the Green Flame could be subjugated, used as a source of power. For others it was capable of nothing but death and decay. These quarrels took far too much time to resolve and when the Council of Asper finally stood together at last to face the Green Flame it was all but too late......

Dual Shockers had the chance to interview Klei Entertainment’s Matthew Marteinsson at Pax East 2014 to talk about his game Invisible, Inc.

With games like Mark of the Ninja, Dishonored, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist bringing back stealth in a big way, Klei Entertainment is set to return with a new game revolving around sleuthing and action with Invisible, Inc.

DualShockers had the chance to chat with Klei Entertainment’s Matthew Marteinsson in Boston at PAX East 2014, where Marteinsson and DualShockers’ Joel Taveras (Deputy Editor) talked about what’s to come from the studio’s next title following Don’t Starve. As a mix of tactical action with a little dose of espionage, fans of both the studio and stealth-action games will have much to look forward to from Klei’s next title.

You can check out the full interview with Matthew Marteinsson for a sneak peek (no pun intended) at Klei’s Invisible Inc.:

The Rampant Coyote has another post on his website about his RPG game Frayed Knights, and dungeon design in the games sequel Frayed Knights II.

In development of Frayed Knights 1: The Skull of S’makh-Daon, a lot of the time and effort in the latter stages of the project was devoted to dealing with scaling the game. A lot of the practices which worked okay for one or two dungeons didn’t scale well to making two dozen locations. There was a lot of “butt in chair” work which would have been made much easier with better tools – especially with the ease of making mistakes. A lot of the bugs in the testing process came down to hard-to-find mistakes that came from trying to do things like manually place and configure every door in a dungeon. One cut-and-paste error in the tedious process, and you could end up with a bug that might take hours to find and fix.

In early development of Frayed Knights 2, I spent a lot of time building some editing tools, thinking they would solve this problem.  I spent months making an ugly but usable editor, with some really cool ideas (well, in my mind, anyway) to make this process faster, easier and less error-prone. I created an editor that let me draw out the dungeons in 2D, like I’d do on graph paper for dice-and-paper gaming, but with some great 3D layering with slopes, stairs, parts of levels crossing over each other with some decent visualization.

I was, and still am, pretty proud of the results. My intent was to create an “80%” solution – make it so that 80% of the level design could be massively simplified so we could devote the time to the most “interesting” 20%. It was a pretty good idea. I wrote a bunch of really cool code that would transform these designs from a 2D map into full-fledged 3D environments with features like ledges, slopes, waterways, and of course diagonal walls. I learned a lot about procedural object generation in Unity. The results were actually kinda cool looking.

IncGamers has posted a preview of the beta version of Starpoint Gemini 2 that you can but on Steam Early Access. Overall it's another positive preview.

Combat feels satisfying, with strong ties to the RPG-like levelling and cooldown abilities. And while the universe is currently lacking in focused narrative and balanced prices, it’s a vast arena to explore and offers the freedom of multiple mission types. It’s the definition of Early Access complete with semi-implemented features and loading stutters when entering new sectors, but like the steady coalescence of a new star Starpoint Gemini 2 has promising materials at its heart.

Two Dash Stash has a new preview of Always Sometimes Monsters based on a short game demo they played at PAX East 2014.

I had the opportunity to get my hands on Vagabond Dog’s Always Sometimes Monsters, a game that is about life and how even the small choices you make can have long-lasting consequences. If my previous interview with Vagabond Dog’s Justin Amirkhani was any indication about what to expect out of the game, I knew that I needed to be ready for almost anything out of Always Sometimes Monsters.

Life is hard and full of choices, a message that Always Sometimes Monsters wants you to remember. No two situations are alike, no matter similar they seem. People come from different backgrounds, have different experiences, and have their own stories to tell. So how do you create a short demo that accurately shows all of this and conveys the right message when you only have a short amount of time to let people preview a game?

Staying true to their roots, Vagabond Dog created an entire intro sequence that addresses the problems when trying to create a brief demo for a game that is all about life, choice, and consequence.

“The marketing guys say we need to create a demo that will sell the game,” a virtual representation of Amirkhani says. “How do we do that when everyone’s character is different and their life experiences are different? Meaning that no two people will have the same choices and options available? I know! We’ll give players a randomly created character who falls in love with another randomly created character and drop those characters into a situation!”

OMC Games has posted the second update for their ARPG Skullforge: The Hunt that talks about the games combat system. Here is a small sample of the update.

Let's talk about combat!

One of the questions someone asked me is, "What is the combat going to be like?"  Honestly, it's a little hard to describe, but I want to stress that it won't be like Diablo.  The game will be more in line with Kingdoms of Amalur or Soul Blazer.  There aren't a ton of enemies on the screen, but each enemy should be a bit dangerous.  This means that perhaps a player can handle a few enemies at once, but a whole horde of them will be tough.  I really don't want to make a dungeon crawler, there are plenty of them out there already.

The approach I'm making towards combat is that Desi is powerful and that will be easily shown in the power of each attack, the varied number of skills, and the amount of damage she can take.  Each attack should feel strong, and there should be plenty of moves to add a bit of depth. At the same time, the game isn't about slaughtering tons of enemies.  Combat is important, but ultimately it's just a piece of a whole.  

In the trailer, Desi only has one real attack move.  This is because I haven't fleshed out the combo system, but eventually certain attacks can be strung together to form more powerful attacks.  For example:

Basic attack -> Second attack -> Wind spell -> Wind Rush Skill

Combining these attacks would lead to a nice combo that does good damage. Of course, timing is important and that's where skill comes in. Learning what and how moves can be combined is one of the important aspects of the combat system. With time, I'm sure most players will figure out what works for them.  The system is built to be flexible, so I encourage everyone to try things out and share what you've learned once the game is released.

Basilisk Games has released a new patch for Eschalon: Book III. 

Eschalon: Book III updated to version 1.021

See the downloads page to grab the update. GoG and Steam versions will be updated soon.

A formal changelog can be found here, but essentially we fixed bugs and exploits, though there is some additional support for mods.

Also, check out the growing mod collection here: http://basiliskgames.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=34

Skullforge: The Hunt is the latest game on kickstarter asking for $20,000. The game is being developed by a small studio called OMC Games. As usual I have the pitch video, and a short game description.

Skullforge: The Hunt

Skullforge: The Hunt is an action RPG set in a medieval fantasy world.  The combat will be fast, interesting, and most of all fun.  Players will take the role of Desinarious "Desi" Cornerstone as she tracks down one of her enslavers.  This game is made for those who like action RPGs with a good mix of fun storytelling, action, exploration, and the ability to make interesting choices along the way.

What motivated me to begin production on Skullforge: The Hunt was the desire to make a top down RPG that wasn't a dungeon crawler.  I'm a huge RPG player from classic Atari 8-bit RPGs to the modern games of late, and there just aren't many games like this one these days.  It's been a dream of mine to take various aspects of different RPGs and merge them together into one complete package and now is my chance to get it done.

They already have a new update about the first day on Kickstarter.

Just getting started!

Thanks to everyone who pledged today.  Not off to the best start, but all things have to start somewhere.  My goal at this point is to get the word out, but most of all answer any questions anyone may have.  We have put a lot of time and effort into this game and though it may not be the best looking game out there, you can bet that we will do our best to provide everyone with a great game in the genre.  All we ask for is a chance to show what we can do.

The game is just getting started...let's do this!

The second kickstarter update for Prisonscape has information from the developers Lunar Enigma about some changes to some of the pledges.

Changes in pledges

We did some restructuring on the higher pledge levels. We added T-shirts to few, take notice that these T-shirts will all be unique with their own design, and there will NEVER be another one just like it. All pledges of 49 USD and over also get their name in the credits under different titles (e.g. secret message -> Messenger and quest designer -> Mastermind). The highest level pledges also contain a Prisonscape swag bag with Prisonscape soap, toothbrush/shank, a coffee mug, a big ass framed poster on your wall and some other Prisonscape related stuff. 

We also lowered the prices and the quantities for several pledges. Here are the changes:

• COMBAT COORDINATOR is now limited to 20 pledges, instead of 30.
• MASTERMIND (design a job for the game) now costs 159 USD instead of 201 USD and the amount is limited to 13, instead of 15.
• INMATE DESIGNER now costs 380 USD instead of 450 USD and the amount if limited to 5 instead of 10.
• THE PRODUCER now costs 2800 USD instead of 3500 USD.

All these pledges include access to the private contributor forums and participation in Google Hangouts with the team where we plan these new features.

Iron Tower Studio's has posted the March Update for Age of Decadence with some new screenshots, and talks about five new locations now available to explore.

Welcome to update #4. It’s a ‘major’ update for us (and a big chunk of content, bringing the number of available locations to 15 out of 22) and we’d like to introduce it properly to make sure that the players won’t miss the new locations (which is easy to do since the game is non-linear). Without further ado:

Aemolas’ village

This location is available only if you:

• Helped a group of refugees get into Teron.
• Talked to Aemolas after and were deemed trustworthy enough (positive Word of Honor reputation) to be asked to retrieve his stash.

The village is full of raiders, but there are quite a few options there, including a rare opportunity to put your scoped crossbow to good use or have some double- and triple-crossing fun.

The Library of Saross

Available only if you talked to Abukar the Mad and learned about his trip to the Library. It’s an important location because:

• You finally get to use that sphere you found at the beginning of the game (IF you found it)
• You learn more information, provided you can get into the hidden chamber and translate the message
• You can unlock an optional and very creepy (but extremely rewarding) ending. Naturally, you don’t get that ending right away, but you unlock the path that can lead you to it. If you have the balls.
• Unlock the Arch and Inferiae locations.

The Arch

There are two ways to unlock it: the above-mention Library or faithful service to Lord Meru. Since the latter isn’t available yet, look for the clues at the library. So, what makes this location special and why should you care?

• You should. You really, really should. It’s that place where you wave Kansas good-bye.
• You will finally be able to use both the eye and the glove. How exciting.
• You will meet your old pal Esbenus. Unless you killed him, in which case you’ll miss out on a beautiful relationship.
• You will make new friends. Powerful friends. From the other side.
• You can unlock Inferiae in case you failed to do so at the Library.

Inferiae

It's a desert village sitting on top of a place of power. Points of interest:

• You’ll meet the very first character who’s actually been inside the temple you’re seeking (thus confirming that it does exist, among other things).
• Play your cards right and you’ll be thrown into the ‘underworld’, which unlocks a bumpy ride that will lead you all the way to the top (of one of Maadoran’s minarets). The Eye thing will come in handy there.
• You can unlock another location that will lead you to the temple. For obvious reasons, this location isn’t included in this update.
• You can learn how to use one of those fancy semi-sphere consoles.
• You can learn more lore stuff and connect more dots.

The Monastery

You can unlock this location by becoming a repeat customer of the healer (heavy wounds only). Impressed by your badassery (or at least your ability to survive the most grievous of injuries), the healer will ask you to fetch an ancient elixir that will improve your self-esteem and cellular regeneration, whatever that is.
Points of interest:

• Raiders
• Ancient mysteries and sacred liquids
• Chambers deep inside a mountain
• Huge doors that can’t be opened by mortal hands
• Moral choices (must have morals in the first place to qualify), otherwise just join the raiders and have yourself a lovely day, full of plundering and pillaging.

The next month’s update will add another location - Caer-Tor, the Imperial Guards’ headquarters, which will introduce Dux Paullus and unlock the path to yet another ending where the Guards becomes Templars – the guardians of the temple.

The remaining 6 end-game locations will be released when the game is out. We’re aiming to start the final beta test in June and expect it to run for 2-3 months. We’ll continue to update and improve the Early Access build on a monthly basis, adding more content (characters, dialogues, items, etc) and general improvements.

Lunar Enigma has posted the first update for Prisonscape with a video about Crafting.

Crafting 101

We will be posting gameplay videos where we introduce some of the basic features of Prisonscape. Here is the first one, Crafting 101:

It goes through the basics of item handling and crafting and shows some examples for crafting weapons and the nectar of gods, the prison wine. Hope you enjoy the vid, and all feedback is appreciated!

Supergiant Games announces the release date for Transistor is May 20th.

We were sent another beta video for Forsaken Fortress. The clip gives us a glimpse of the new the chopper in flight, and the developer admits it still needs work.

New Clip from Forsaken Fortress, A Post-apocalyptic Survival RPG, Testing out the Chopper, First attempt to land on homebase, didn´t quite nail it. ;)

Stoic has posted a new Tech Blog update from John Watson.

John Watson is back to work and has resumed his Tech Blog where he goes in to detail on some of the things he is working on.

Interdimensional Games has a new update for Consortium about a new version of the game called The Master Edition, and talks about the baker awards.

CONSORTIUM:  The Master Edition

Lately, we've had our heads down once again, working on polishing, fixing and optimizing our game to a very high degree.  Our goal?  Essentially we are gearing up to re-launch the game on April 29th, as "CONSORTIUM:  The Master Edition". 

Polished and improved combat gameplay, greatly optimized and bug fixed, greatly polished choreography, and much more.   All backers at the $10 (gimme the game) + level and everyone who owns the game will get this version for free.  We will also be launching the game on GOG.COM and the Humble Store.

You heard it here first.  This version has the benefit of thousands of players playing it for a few months, and we've been working to address every single issue that has been posted to the Steam discussion forums.

Backer Rewards Update

As per our last update about this, we did hope to largely be completely finished with the rewards at this point.  Our focus has shifted since then a little bit, as we've gone back to the dev grindstone to get the Master Edition completed.  HOWEVER...real progress has been made, and here's proof:

• T-shirts and Posters.  As you can see above, they have all been created.  We are now working through the process of shipping everything.  U.S backers will be receiving T-shirts first...watch for them arriving within the next few weeks!   The rest will follow soon...
• Kickstarter Special Edition and DVD:   This version will be built on top of the Master Edition described above.  The core development team spent three days in March, playing through the whole game together.  During these sessions, we had a room microphone hooked up and we were all encouraged to just talk out loud about memories from the production, funny development stories, etc.   Steve and Gregory will be getting together soon to compile all of this into "sound bytes", create additional commentary AND place developer commentary triggers into the game itself.
• iDGi-1 Discoveries:  This has taken us much longer to produce than we anticipated, but I am pleased to announce Steve has completed work on it and it is currently in the polish and edit stage. It's shaping up to be a very dense 130 pages long and is just an awesome read into the deep back-story of CONSORTIUM, specifically through the lens of our early quantum stream explorations (the A.R.G.)

We all really appreciate your continued patience with getting your goodies, and hope that the quality level that we're aiming for with all of it will be well worth the wait.

Finally, we would also like to mention that after we ship the Master Edition, work will resume on our Mac and Linux ports - so for those of you in the "Other Platforms" tier, there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel! 

Wish us luck with finishing up the Master Edition - we'll be updating more this month as we approach April 29th....

Since the failed kickstarter it seems Atlus has agreed to publish Citizens of Earth, and they have released a new trailer with some new information.

I reported on The Seed last year, and forgot about it. It's now on kickstarter asking for £15,000, and has seven days left to get funded. It's described as the following.

MDT, the team behind the award winning S.T.A.L.K.E.R. MISERY mod, present a seminal project taking the form of a post-apocalyptic visual novel and showcasing the gravity of choice. Your choice.

Imagine you are one of the last surviving members of the human race. After all your family and friends were lost in the struggle with an invisible foe, it is solely up to you to slowly crawl back from the depths of hell, against all odds. In 2026, 11 years after the global apocalypse our Russian protagonist – played by you – is forced to abandon his underground shelter for the very first time after the disaster, beginning the journey that will change his life forever. Prepare for a world of pain and struggle in this single player story-driven interactive story game with rich plot branching and moral dilemmas. Let the plot unfold according to your mental focus and your survival priorities.

DoubleBear Productions has a post on the Steam forums with a new development update for Dead State were they share news on what the developer has been up to.

What We're Up To + Official Wiki Announcement

First, DoubleBear is pleased to endorse Gamepedia.com’s Dead State wiki[deadstate.gamepedia.com] as our official wiki for the project. The wiki has existed for a while as an unofficial resource, maintained by our most active community members - it just seemed like the logical step to make the whole thing official! If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend you visit it and consider becoming a contributor. Please spread the word to other members of the gaming community who either already love Dead State or are curious to learn more about it. Right now, there’s still a lot of content on there waiting to be fleshed out, so this is the best time to get involved and really help expand the Dead State wiki. If you’re looking for more ways to help us out in addition to playing the Early Access build and providing feedback, this is a great option! I hope this wiki proves useful to everyone, and I look forward to seeing it grow and develop!

For those who are curious what we've been up to since Update #1 - we're finishing up Systems beta, and while it may be anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month before you see our next update, it'll be a HUGE one. You'll be getting character creation, combat barks, experience progression, and more content. As always, we'll need your help and feedback to improve and tweak these systems and your bug reports to make sure we don't miss anything in the final game! In the meantime, we appreciate your patience and love seeing all the screenshots, videos, and more coming out of the community. It just makes us that much more excited and motivated to get the updates - and then the final game - out sooner!