Felipe Pepe spotted a patched version of Prelude to Darkness:

Great news, a lost gem of the 2000s was fixed by fans! Prelude to Darkness is a very ambitious RPG from 2002 that tries to push Fallout's reactivity even further. It was buggy & semi-impossible to play, but now runs flawlessly! It's freeware, get it here.

The Scarlet Seeker checked out Curious Expedition 2:

Curious Expedition 2 Gameplay Overview/Revisit

SplatterCatGaming checked out the sandbox RPG Wartales:

Wartales - Open World Sandbox Medieval Mercenary Strategy RPG

Henriquejr spotted the Monomyth - October/November updates:

Monomyth - October/November Update

Video Devlogs
Hi, dungeon-crawling fans!

I thought this month we could do something a little different, so instead of giving you the usual written update, I created a few video devlogs going into detail on various subjects of the project's development. In particular, the videos focus on the following topics:

• Current Progress
• Sentries
• Telekinesis
• Fire Propagation
• Rune Traps

You can watch them right here or head over to the RatTower Youtube channel, which I plan to use more regularly in the future,

I will probably adapt the format a bit for coming updates. So instead of releasing several videos at once, I might upload material more frequently. Either way, I hope you will enjoy these videos and I will keep you posted!

Best wishes,
Michael

Wizard Worm checked out the upcoming post-apocalytic RPG Space Wreck:

Space Wreck Review - Fallout In Space! (Isometric CRPG)

FourFaceButtons reviewed the popular 2D-RPG OMORI:

Omori (2020 / 2022) Review [4K]

Softpedia checked out Live by the Sword: Tactics:

Live by the Sword: Tactics Review (PC)

My wizard has an ability called Supernova, allowing him to essentially sacrifice his own life to take out a bunch of enemies with him. I drop that from his loadout because I plan to get through this fight with my party alive. I give him a flame wave to deal with groups of enemies and a classic fireball, although I tend to sometimes affect my own characters with it.

On the battlefield, I use my warrior, backed by a medic, to draw in most of the enemy group, while I try to flank with the wizard and a brawler that can deliver two attacks each turn. My final party member is the archer, set up to take advantage of heights and deal killing blows.

The Good

• Classic tactical RPG feel
• Old-school look
• Adventure mode

The Bad

• Some difficulty spikes
• Too many slowdowns
• Limited characters

Conclusion
Live by the Sword: Tactics will be a great experience for gamers who fell in love with the role-playing tactics titles of their youth and are susceptible to the draw of nostalgia. The story mode has solid battles, although the narrative does not impress. Adventure mode puts an interesting new spin on the core mechanics.

But the game is unlikely to draw in players who don’t already like what it has to offer. It needs a stronger narrative hook or more innovation and accessibility. Live by the Sword: Tactics is a nice project for a small development team and fulfills its core promise of delivering a good classic tactics RPG experience.

Score: 4/5

You can play Black Geyser with a custom party now:

Create Your Full Party, Difficulty Rebalance and Spanish Language

Full party generation, rebalanced game and more!

Ho there, adventurers!

The current update brings long-awaited features as well as some surprises! Summary of changes:

• Create up to 5 custom characters during character creation if you prefer
• A free online tool to create character builds that you can import into the game
• Charisma, Focus and Dexterity now enable more enjoyable and versatile character builds
• Balance: improved early-game and end-game difficulty for smoother gameplay
• Spanish localization (both for Spain and Latin America)
•  Lots of bugfixes

[...]

Free Online Character Generator with Custom Party

Create a full custom party you can import into the game!

Greetings, adventurers!

As you know, a major game update is coming tomorrow that also includes the option to create your own custom party (more details can be found in our previous post).

In the meantime, we have also created a completely free, online Character Generator website for you. It allows you to export and download your character (or a full custom party), which you can import directly into the game (after tomorrow's update). As you can open the website from any location, you can have fun with character builds even when you don't have Black Geyser installed on your current device.

You don't need to own the game
to create a party with this online website. Anyone is welcome to use it!

Thank you for your continued support and feedback!

The Black Geyser Team

The devs of The Iron Oath announced a new update:

Autumn Sale & Update Preview

Hey everyone! It's been a bit since our last update, so we wanted to give you a preview of what's coming to The Iron Oath in our next major update titled Friends and Foes. We can't give an exact date just yet, but you can expect to see it soon as we're just entering the polish and testing phase. We're also happy to announce that The Iron Oath is currently 10% off during the Steam Autumn Sale from November 22 - 29! Now let's dive in to the upcoming changes:

New Ability Upgrades

With the Friends and Foes update, all ability upgrades will be unlocked, giving you full freedom to customize each of your characters with their most powerful upgrades. We've also gone through each ability, making changes to their base functions and/or tweaking their upgrade trees (more unique effects, fewer +Charge upgrades).

Attributes and Leveling Overhaul

We've reworked our attribute system, scrapping the concept of 'Primary Attributes' such as Physique and Finesse. The attributes available are now: Health, Morale, Power, Mending, Defense, Evasion, Accuracy, Critical Chance, Speed, Movement.

Most of these you'll be familiar with. The biggest change here is that we've split up Power into two attributes. Power will now determine your damage output, while Mending determines your healing (and shielding) output. With both damage and healing previously being handled by one stat, it meant your characters could excel in both areas without compromise, which from a balance perspective wasn't ideal!

Leveling up has also been redone. There wasn't a whole lot of room for progression with the previous system, and the points you did earn didn't move the needle much on any one stat (aside from maybe Health!). Going forward, you'll be granted a handful of points (varying by level) to spend toward ranking up an attribute. By default it costs 6 points to rank up and increase a stat, but characters can also excel in some stats (determined upon their creation), making it only cost 5 points to rank it up. Overall, ranking up an attribute will have a much larger impact on your character then it currently does, and the relative strength of a high level character will be much more noticeable compared to a fresh recruit.

We've also changed up the leveling table, getting rid of the soft cap at level 10 where you stopped gaining attribute points. The soft cap is now 20, with the hard cap being 40. After level 20, you will still earn attribute points, just not as much as the previous levels. The XP requirements for levels have also been adjusted with these changes in mind.

The way attributes are assigned to a character upon their creation has been reworked. Each attribute now has a min and max value it can be assigned, depending on the class. For example, a Pyrolancer's starting Health can vary between 375-450, while a Huntress' defaults between 275-350. With this change, along with characters excelling in certain stats, we're hoping each character will feel more unique, opening up more build possibilities for you to explore.

Finally, we've removed the stat modifiers that were tied to a character's age. While we liked the idea of your characters having a "peak", in practice it was a little confusing and it also worked against the feeling of progression once they got to an older age.

[...]

Thanks Henriquejr!

TSA reviewed the sandbox RPG Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord:

Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord Review

The original Mount & Blade holds a special place in my heart. Where The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was the hottest RPG at the time, there I was on a battered old school laptop, playing a janky old build of what would later become one of my all-time favourite PC titles. That was almost 15 years ago and as much as Mount & Blade 2 evolves the original formula, there’s still a scrappiness to this ambitious blending of genres.

[...]

Summary
My return to Calradia wasn’t entirely jubilant, though Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord is a game I’ll likely stick with, simply due to my love of the original. A wealth of new systems and activities help this sandbox strategy sim feel more alive than ever, though the busywork required to get anywhere can feel like a grind. Overall, existing fans will rejoice while newcomers may look on unimpressed, unsure what all the fuss is about.

Good

• Modding potential
• Story mode is a helpful new addition
• More systems and activities
• Defined factions, each with their own flavour

Bad

• Finicky console controls
• Uninspiring visuals
• Combat hasn’t developed much since the original
• Initial grind isn’t particularly exciting

Score: 7/10

Wizard Worm checked out the old-school dungeon crawler Swords and Sorcery: Underworld:

Swords and Sorcery Underworld Review (Dungeon Crawler RPG)

The Action RPG Vranygrai has been announced:

Vranygrai

Vranygrai is a story driven action-adventure game with RPG elements. The setting combines several real historical events that formed the first major state of Slavs in Central Europe, the Great Moravia. During these turbulent times, people worshipped pagan gods. The game takes inspiration from traditional beliefs, fairy tales, and stories passed from generation to generation, to provide the most accurate experience.

STORY

The Volkhv, a former Slavic priest and the main protagonist lost his sister in one of the Avars raids - the nation that was supposed to be defeated. He feels he failed not only as a priest, but as brother and protector as well. A story of a broken man that needs to fight his inner demons as well as several mythological creatures and the remains of once great Avar Khaganate. All while the war between Slavs is coming.
Perhaps there is more to his personal history than might be gleaned at first sight...

KEY FEATURES

EXPLORE THE WORLD OF GREAT MORAVIA

• A relatively small, but all the richer and dense, semi-open world that offers itself for exploration. Discover hidden characters and maybe you will come across a rare reward.
• Immerse yourself in the world full of pagan culture set in real world locations. From simple huts hidden in the woods to great fortresses. All inspired by archeological research.
• A dynamic world where characters, animals, and mythological creatures behave differently during the day than at night. Think twice before going into the forest in total darkness!

MEET THE SLAVIC MYTHOLOGY

• Engage in quests inspired by location-based tales and stories.
• A linear main story rich with dubbed dialogue, twists, turns, and suspense. Find out where Volkh's steps lead and what hides in his past.
• Side story lines with the option of choosing and enriching the progress of the task. Get to know the world in which our ancestors lived and the legends associated with it.
• Bestiary - find out everything about the creatures you meet or fight and about the old rituals and beliefs.

IMMERSIVE COMBAT INSPIRED BY MODERN GAMES

• Lots of different types of enemies. You will face fallen Avars, enemy soldiers, and most of all creatures that no one was supposed to meet.
• The hero has at his disposal a rich arsenal of historical weapons and armor for various types of melee and ranged attacks.
• A skill system based on mythology. Unlike ordinary mortals, you will have unique spells as a Slavic priest. Their use will not be frequent, but their impact will be significant.

The Scarlet Seeker checked out Shadows over Loathing:

Shadows Over Loathing Gameplay Overview

Shadows Over Loathing is the new game we are looking at today with an Overview/Review of what it is and how its gameplay plays. First we will review the need to know basics of Shadows Over Loathing before jumping into deeper gameplay impressions. Shadows over Loathing — a slapstick-figure comedy adventure-RPG full of mobsters, monsters, and mysteries.

The sandbox RPG Kyseed will be released on December 6:

More News on 1.0 and...

A mysterious cloaked figure lost in our castle dungeon (it’s a deathtrap down there!)

Hello Seedlings!

Soon you will be Seedlings no more, but beautiful, growing trees.

Our street date for V1.0 is December 6th 2022!

That is the time we open the castle portcullis, after many years of crafting, scribbling and redecorating and send our creation out into the eager arms of our loving community.

Guided by your feedback we will be continuing to tweak, balance and polish V1.0 while mixing meaty new content for your gaming pie.

The tavern update will follow early in 2023 with beer crafting, entertainment hiring and mopping up the mess from happy gnomes and fairies. The months after will bring two large story updates with more characters, events and intrigue.

We also found a mysterious cloaked figure lost in our castle dungeon (it’s a deathtrap down there!).

When he revealed who he was, we discovered it was gaming legend, Sir Ian Livingstone
!

Sir Ian is best known as one of the founders of Games Workshop (Warhammer), co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy series of adventure gamebooks, Eidos (Tomb Raider) and a General Partner at Hiro Capital. Sir Ian is an investor, advisor and business mentor at PixelCount, and has lent his decades of expertise in gameplay mechanics to the development of Kynseed.

Here is what he had to say…

“When I first discovered Kynseed, I immediately wanted to find out more about the team behind it,” said Sir Ian Livingstone. “I reached out to Neal and Charlie in 2020 and learned that they were former members of the Fable team at Lionhead. To my mind, Kynseed was a game with incredible potential, and I wanted to help them bring their vision to the world. There is so much to do when playing Kynseed, from exploring, questing, foraging, farming, and crafting to thrilling combat with strange creatures. The combat alone deserves to be a game in itself! I hope people will enjoy Neal and Charlie’s beautifully-crafted game because what they have developed is something rather special.”

Sir Ian now sits like a warlock in our highest tower as chairman of PixelCount. His invaluable experience, guidance and skills have proven to be a great boon for the game.

We want to take a moment to thank you all for your tremendous support over the years.

To quote our co-founder Neal…"Kynseed is the game we’ve always dreamed of making,"

This dream wouldn’t exist without our community and those who took a chance on our humble little (little?!) game, so for that, we are eternally grateful and hope you enjoy V1.0 and the start of a deeper story.

The comedy RPG Shadows over Loathing has been released:

Shadows over Loathing

Mobsters, monsters, and mysteries — welcome to Shadows over Loathing, the shady side of an already black-and-white world, and a follow-up to the award-winning West of Loathing.

Your Uncle Murray has requested your aid at his antique shop in Ocean City, but upon your arrival the old man is nowhere to be found. Your investigation into his disappearance and the artifacts he’s been collecting takes a turn when you stumble across some shadowy plots (and a bunch of squirming eldritch tentacles) that threaten to bring about the end of the world.

Explore a sprawling open world chock full of danger, quests, puzzles, and stick figures in this single-player comedy adventure/RPG set in the prohibition era of the Loathing universe. See how many enemies you can stuff into a phone booth as the athletic Pig Skinner, control the curds and whey of the cosmos as the cunning Cheese Wizard, or march to the beat of your own inscrutable purposes as the hip Jazz Agent.

Features:

• Thousands and thousands of jokes, gags, and goofs
• A bunch more locations, items, friends, foes, and familiars than West of Loathing
• The same quality line art you’ve come to expect, but way more of it
• Superior stick-figure customization
• Strategic turn-based combat (but only if you want it)
• A corrupt government for you to overthrow at your leisure
• Authentically baffling 1920s slang
• Multiple cursed antiques
• Inappropriate fishing
• Non-Euclidean horrors from beyond the edges of the screen
• A time-travel side-quest given to you by your future-self
• An infinitely tall building
• Sentient math, talking frogs, and pettable cats
• No booze, as far as the feds know 

SplatterCatGaming checked out Gedonia:

Gedonia - Open World Medieval Fantasy RPG

GameLuster reviewed Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord:

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Review - We Recommend

Dr. Incompetent looks back at Underrail:

Underrail | A Review in 2022 and Should You Play It?

The Brizz Loves RPGs reviewed the retro RPG Rise of the Third Power:

Rise of the Third Power review

The DLC Roots of Evil for the Action RPG Yaga is now availble for consoles, too:

Yaga - Roots of Evil

Oakvale - a village under siege by corrupted beasts. The fleeing refugees suspect Leshy, the forest spirit, and wish to have him destroyed. The Woodsman thinks otherwise and comes to our hero, pleading for a more peaceful way.

Will Ivan bow to the anger of the people, listen to the Woodsman's plea or decide Leshy's fate all on his own?

Find out if he's strong enough to defeat the festering corruption, while also crossing paths with vibrant characters such as the fabled Kuma Lisa, the Trinket Kid and Gigi the Loan Shark inside sidequests of their own.

• See the Woodsman near the village gates!
• The Loan Shark needs some help, if you're up to a gruesome task.
• A smart young boy wants to help. Will you help him help you?
• New Tool, New Magic, New Ore, New Enhancements, New Items

BestNerdLife checked out Live by the Sword: Tactics:

Live By The Sword Tactics Preview Review | BestNerdLife

Maverick Games posted an update about Stellar Tactics:

Engine update, radar mini-map, career bonuses and starting ship selections

Engine update, radar mini-map, tutorials, more choices when creating a new character, and ship class bonuses.
Lots of changes today and a few bug fixes. Meanwhile, I am working on the Chapter 2 content which should be released late December or January. Notes below.

GAME ENGINE UPDATED:

Much smoother gameplay even with saves that have hundreds of hours played. In general, the updated core engine will provide better visual fidelity and smoother camera movement

Camera smoothing updated.

The game engine now requests the highest power GPU for laptops and systems that have both Intel and NVidia/ATI GPU's. In the past, this was a problem. In many cases the default settings on Laptops were trying to render the game on the Intel GPU which was much slower and in some cases did not fully support the shaders required to render game effects, causing crashes on these systems. The work around was to manually force high power rendering through the control panels.
NOTE: The new engine only supports 64bit OS. For 32bit OS, the game will fall back to the older renderer/engine.

[...]

Thanks Redglyph!

Live by the Sword: Tactics has left Early Access:

Time to save the Kingdom

The day is finally here, after 15 months of Early Access we are fully releasing

Hello everyone,

The day has finally arrived it is launch day and with it the excitement of getting the game out to you all. So many of you all have contributed to the game in one way or another through the use of the in-game feedback system, this would not have been possible without you so please pat yourselves on the back because you are also part of this game.

Seriously, I can't get over how amazing a lot of you all have been. If you can, please leave a steam review, they are so important to the health of a game.

What started as just a board game a few years ago has transitioned into a game that has taken some risks with bucking trends and trying to do something new in the genre. While it may be tough to see at first we promise that if you stick with the game we have so much more to offer and provide. All of us here at Labrador Studios are committed to the development of new content and making the experience even better over time.

Over the next few days as you play please send in your feedback, let us know what you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to see more of. This is your game as much as it is ours, let us know your thoughts, we can better serve you all with more information. Use the in game feedback system or post on the forums or even shoot us a message in Discord. Any way works for us.

To show our dedication we have created a content road map with the first update coming this winter in December.

TLDR:

• I love you all
• Leave a steam review please
• New content on the way
• Voice your opinion to us
• Please like and share this update

Dualshockers has reviewed Mount & Blade II:

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Review

An improvement on Warband in every possible way.

Early on in my Bannerlord career, I was captured by bandits (embarrassing, I know). They killed the half-dozen or so starry-eyed young men I had recruited from a nearby village, stole all my money, and even once I had escaped their clutches, I was left utterly helpless. A humbling experience to be sure, the memory of which brought a wry smile to my lips as I sat atop my throne, lord of all that I surveyed, 20 or so hours later.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is the latest open-world strategy RPG by TaleWorlds Entertainment. Previous games in the series, Warband in particular, are rightly regarded as classics, and so Bannerlord has big shoes to fill. I've been playing since the early access release, and have seen Bannerlord evolve into a truly special game in that time.

[...]

Grind and jank aside, there is nothing else like a Mount and Blade game, and Bannerlord is undisputably the best one yet. Its uniqueness alone makes it worth playing. To talk about it that way is to do it a disservice though; the true marvel of Bannerlord is that it actually delivers on what is an astonishingly ambitious concept. The two halves of the game complement each other perfectly. It may be on a slow boil, but once it gets up a head of steam, you won't be able to put it down.

Score: 8.5/10

TaleWorlds Entertainment has released Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord on Steam and GOG, together with Dev Update #11. The game benefits from a -20% release discount until November 8:

Development Update #11: Banners, Cutscenes and AI Updates

Thanks Redglyph!

Live by the Sword: Tactics will be released on October 28:

Launch Day Preview and Next Content Update

Learn about what changes will take place on launch day and what future content you can look forward to.

Hello!

We wanted to give you a full list of all the changes going live on release (October 28th) as well as what content is coming next. If this looks great to you please share it with friends!

Release Patch Notes

Additions

    Act 3 of Story Mode added!

• Online Multiplayer Cross-Play added! Play against random foes from around the world via Steam, Nintendo Switch Online or Xbox Live.
• Cross-play for Online Custom Games, which will allow you to face off against your friends regardless of what platform you're playing on, will be added in a future update.
• Four new boards added for Skirmish and Multiplayer, with the old "Peaks" board retired.

Gameplay

• Panicked Shout no longer affects characters diagonal to the Medic.
• Abilities where characters jump forward (Superman Punch, Rush etc) can now target characters on the same height level when the Heavy Feet debuff is active.
• Fix for Charged Draw still working with the Bear Hug debuff on the Archer.
• Fix for Phase buff also preventing Basic Attacks being used against the Medic.
• Fix for Fireball AOE not staying within 1 height difference of the main target.
• Fix for Ricochet and Healing Aura retaining targeting information if the action wasn't completed before the player ran out of time for their turn.
• Fix for characters which should be killed due to Share Pain damage from multi-hit attacks not dying if there was a miss before the killing blow.
• Fix for using a Basic Attack removing the Crotch Kick debuff (Steam only as of writing).
• Fixes for some abilities not removing the Crotch Kick debuff after being used (Steam only as of writing).

[...]