Whale Hammer Games latest kickstarter update this week shows how the developer animated  the characters for Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire.

Hi everyone! We're sleep deprived and struggling to be coherent so rather than write something utterly mad we thought we'd share some videos with you today. When we were just starting out as a company in 2013 we spent some time developing our animation process. Stoic, the lovely team behind The Banner Saga shared some detail about their process and it really helped us develop ours. Here are some of those tests.

Juggernaut Games released a new post-funding update for StarCrawlers with information the game will be launching on Steam Early Access on March 17th.

Rumours have been swirling on the Wire and we can confirm:

StarCrawlers is coming to Steam Early Access on March 17th!

Thanks to the amazing contributions of our Alpha and Beta backers in both crushing bugs and contributing feedback, StarCrawlers is in a great place and we’re excited to open it up to the Steam community at large.

In just 1 year our small team has been able to take a small prototype to where the game is today - all thanks to your support. As a special “thank you!” to our backers, we will be kicking off Backer Appreciation Week on March 10th. You will receive your Steam key through BackerKit, allowing access to the Steam version of StarCrawlers a week earlier then it will be available to anyone else. In addition, we’ll be sending out the official KickStarter survey to find out how you want to be immortalized in the credits for helping bring StarCrawlers to life.

Our focus until now has largely been on the core systems and ensuring the AI storyteller is doing a solid job on the side missions. With the Steam release, you’ll have the first look at the main campaign: custom built content, story missions, challenging events, boss fights, and secrets galore. We're hope you're hyped too :D

Lars Simkins latest kickstarter update for Frontiers has information about how he will focus on updating the game from now on, and he talks about Trapping & Fishing.

New Approach - Focus Updates

FRONTIERS is a big game - I've cut a lot of features since the Kickstarter, but it's still really big. And until we can grow the team some more most features can only be worked on one-at-a-time, so I get a lot of messages asking 'Hey, are you working on this or that or the other thing?'

Those questions gave me an idea. I can't work in parallel so why not embrace linearity? Starting today I'll announce which feature I intend to focus on. I'll still work on major bugs & performance along the way of course, but overall that feature will get most of my attention until it's finished. And you can help me finish it faster by focusing on it along with me.

The next time you launch FRONTIERS you'll see a little popup window that tells you which feature I'm working on. You'll also be given a cheat code - eg, if I'm working on the bow & arrow, the code will give you a bow & some arrows. Some of you will play normally, some of you will use the code, but either way I'll get a whole lot more reports on that one feature than I might otherwise - and you'll know at a glance what I'm working on at the moment.

We'll see how it goes!

Developer Turning Wheel sent news about their Roguelike game called Barony.

Barony is a 3D, first-person roguelike. The goal of the game is to descend to the bottom of a dark dungeon known as the Devil's Bastion and destroy an undead lich named Baron Herx, who terrorized the peaceful town of Hamlet in life and is now harboring a curse against the land from beyond the grave. To aid you in your quest are friendly humans who have been eeking out a rough life within the dungeon for generations, as well as any friends you can bring with you in real life: Barony is the first of its kind as a first-person roguelike in that it fully supports cooperative multiplayer for up to four players.

Well to me it looks like a Minecraft RPG.

Double Bear posted a new February Progress Update on Steam last week with news on what the developer is working on, and what will be included in the next patch.

Hi everyone! We just wanted to check in with you and let you know what's happening behind the scenes at DoubleBear, since we know some of you are wondering.

We're making good progress on the content and fixes for Update #6. As previously mentioned, this one has brand new, somewhat complex features, so it's taking longer than the usual patch turnover time. Right now, we're done with about 75% of the new features, but we need to finish the remaining 25% and squish bugs that surfaced during testing, so there's still some work left to do.

Thanks for hanging in there while we get everything ready! We don't have an ETA yet, but we're *really* excited about what's coming up and we think it will be worth the wait :)

A new interview was published for Rain of Reflections on a site called Sem Tilt.

How long has the game been in development for?

It was in pre-production for about six months, with just the closest core team concepting everything, eventually creating a vertical slice. We scaled up the team and entered actual production just a couple of months back.

How much are the player’s actions and choices going to influence the outcome of the story and its characters?

It’s a matter of life and death, and eventually the fate of the entire city. Our goal is to make the player feel responsible for every action and cope with the consequences. There is no undo button, no game over screen, no retry from checkpoint.

In what genre falls the style of combat of Rain of Reflections? 

I would say it’s a completely fresh and unique combination of real-time and turn-based strategy, with RPG and even point and click elements.

Developer Seith released a new update last month on the Ghost of a Tale website.

Welcome to a new game development update! This will be a lengthy one, so please bear with me. In order to make your reading more palatable I’ve interspersed a couple of screenshots for your viewing pleasure.

The last couple of weeks have been particularly productive. Paul and I met to lock everything in terms of quests, story and structure. The result is an even clearer understanding of the game’s scope.

Regarding that topic, it is interesting to note how much the game has evolved since the Indiegogo campaign. At the time I only had a very rough idea of what I wanted the game to be, but many important elements were still up in the air.

Team 21 posted a new update about the inventory GUI for Dungeons Of Aledorn. 

Greetings friends, developers, players and fans of the game Dungeons of Aledorn. Time is running out slowly (10 days until the start of the Kickstarter campaign) and again we have something from development. This time we will show you how GUI inventory looks like. As is evident from the screenshots, the slots on the equipment will be more than enough. As always, we are grateful for any feedback.

Bare Mettle Entertainment posted an update on the comment section for Sui Generis. Just for reference it has been a few months since they released a kickstarter update.

We've recently done a very big update to the prelude and with the help of our alpha tier backers we've been hunting down and fixing every bug and making various improvements. The game is working great now and already has a lot to offer, we're just about ready to go beta and lift the NDA, this will be accompanied by an update of course. A full relase to all backers is close, at the moment we're working on a release trailer and adding more content.

We apologise again for the lack of recent updates, it's just been a very hands-on stage in development and we're doing everything we can to get something solid in your hands. There has been a very real and in depth interaction with alpha and beta backers on our forums. We are very present there and we take everyone seriously, if you want to get involved don't hesitate, interact with us! Our forums aren't just for insiders.

Liminal Games released the next weekly update for The Memory of Eldurim on Steam.. They also released the next development stream about Parrying & Dodging. 

We got some good changes into the game this week. We think it really improves certain aspects of game play. 

Changelog:

-Enemies and bosses re-spawn and get full health when the player dies.
-Parrying added. Press TAB key to parry. Parried enemies take 2x damage when attacked immediately following a successful parry.
-Dodging/rolling greatly improved. The player can now dodge in every direction. Player can now dodge enemy attacks and some spells if timed correctly.
-Battle music added.
-Day/Night cycle reworked. Day time lasts longer, night time is shorter.
-Starting player health increased.
-Many small balancing tweaks, less health on all AI (this is not the balance update, just a general tweak before the big balance update)
-Multiple Bug fixes.

More work was done this week on a few upcoming features. We are attending the GDC next week. We will start development again following our return. 

The big balance update, the archives, item stacking, and item throwing are on the horizon. We will see you guys in San Francisco.

Whale Hammer Games released a quick update for Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire.

Midgar Studio announces in a new update that Edge Of Eternity has earned over $100,000, and talks about the next stretch goal for music composer Yasunori Mitsuda.

It’s not a goal but crossing the 100K$ line after only 13 days is a huge success for us. Now you backers are talking really serious!

So it’s approaching. We already said a lot about our dream of working with Mister Mitsuda. Do not believe this is just words. We really love this man and his musics. If you are a big JRPG fans as we are there are no doubts you know Mitsuda San and you probably fully understand our excitement.

Just in case, now is a good time to tell everyone a bit more about this video game music legend that was once called “The Mozart of video game”.

Yasunori Mitsuda entered the legend of japanese video games in 1992, when Hironobu Sakaguchi gave this self-taught artist the opportunity to join Squaresoft. He joined a music team that was composed of almost only video games heroes like Kenji Ito, Nobuo Uematsu or Hiroki Kikuta. With this crew, he is credited on legendary games like Final Fantasy V and Secret of Mana.

Ultimate Fantasy Studio's next update for The Meridian Shard has information on what the developer is currently working on. Hint: the game is getting close to being finished.

Hey gang! How are you guys and gals? I've been working hard to get things wrapped up for you as soon as possible. I still have months of work ahead, but I am putting 7 days/week into it, so with every day that goes by on your calendar, The Meridian Shard is getting that much closer to being finished. 

Here are some of the things that I have done since the last update, without any major spoilers:

• New and improved widescreen battle system UI with character bust displays when selecting commands.
• New spoils-of-war system that changes the reward outcome and item drop count after each battle depending on your overall performance and awarded score. The ratings range from 1 - 6 and add a great new way to increase item recovery and fortune! 
• New and improved menu system UI border graphic for all menu windows.
• New and improved native widescreen game resolution (16:9) 1024 x 576, with full screen stretching option for large monitors (was previously 4:3 with no widescreen fitting).
• New custom vanishing key system programmed and tested for the dungeons, which will make access to locked gates and rooms a little more challenging and thought-provoking.
• New mini HUD for the vanishing key system that displays them on-screen in a separate window, and has been programmed to track them as a separate inventory item from the main menu items.  
• World Map travel system programming finally completed, tested and working 100%! All that's left to do on the world map are the remaining entry locations for some side-quests.

Snowbird Games released a new patch for Caribbean! on Steam this week.

The first post-release update for 'Caribbean!' is coming today. A little clarification: right now we're focusing on things the community considered the most critical for our game.

Update notes:

- The classic M&B troop control system was combined with our new order system. You can either control troop types with hotkeys or give out orders for selected troops with the mouse.
- Returned old loot system. Loot won't be accessible in as large amounts as before, but players will be able to lay their hands on a set of old boots and hats from defeated bandits.
- Changed player icon on the tactical map, now the player is marked as an arrow which depends on player's view direction.
- Dramatically decreased ramming damage which previously could cause flagship's sinking upon boarding.
- Added new siege location.
- Added quick-access button for player's 'Storage' in a town if he has any property there.
- Bartender in the tavern now gives a hint on where you can find companions.
- Removed additional damage to player's crew during boarding which could lead to illogical loss of sailors.
- Fixed a bug which caused loss in boarding if the player had low HP even after he won the fight.
- Fixed a bug which caused 'NO_STRING' messages to appear in the shipwright's menu if a shipyard didn't have ships for sale.

We'll keep working on two directions: fixing the most unpleasant bugs and filling the game with new content as well as more diverse gameplay.

Trexrell's latest update for CT: Demon's Revenge has information about the developers plan for march. The update talks about a new demo, and release date.

Big Plans For March

So we are ending our February and coming into what could be our biggest event since our Kickstarter campaign. We are on a schedule of releasing our playable demo by the third week of March. We want to give you guys a little incite of what the demo will contain and how things have changed since our campaign up until now.

Demo News

The demo will be about an hour long depending on how you play it. It will be more or less an intro into the actual story and feature our main character. When we release the demo we are really going to be looking for some strong feedback, everything will be upgraded and we feel we can not make a great experience without your input. Our goal is to make a really great game, we want the game to do well commercially and critically.

The Full Game

We have plans to release the game in the near two to three months. That being said, I want to clarify what this game will feature and what may be left out as far as the first chapter goes. As you all should know, this game is going to be chapter 1 of a full length RPG experience. We aim to make the chapters at least between 14 and 17 hours. We have 3 playable characters, 8 areas in 4 locations, and a few secret ones too, all in the first chapter.  

What we may or may not be leaving out is an additional playable character and 3 more areas which would just take a little bit more time but could be added to the next chapter. We shall find out what we could do with that by the end of March. 

Let us know how you feel about this as we want you all to feel like you are getting your pledge's worth. We want everyone to feel satisfied with our game and their pledge so if you have any concerns at all please feel free to let us know! We are always willing to talk about it and we will respond promptly.

Midgar Studio's next update has information the Crafting Stretch Goal was funded.

You all must wonder why nothing happened on our side since we passed the 95k$ goal last night. To be honest we were a bit taken by surprise by a very generous donator from the US that backed us for... 10 000$. He crushed the goal all by himself!

So yeah, ok, we did wait and see if that was really real or if this amazing support turned out to be some kind of joke. A few PM later it’s seems to be all real. If it’s confirmed, man, you are really amazing! We will have to think a very special reward pack just for you.

With this unexpected support we did achieved the Crafting goal. Yet another cool feature we will be able to add to Edge of Eternity. As we said, we want to put a particular attention on this and make it really interresting for our gamers. We read several interesting comments about what you would expect and how you would improve the system we presented. Be assured we are reading. Keep on giving us this kind of feedback, this really helps.

iqSoup's latest update for Age of Grit explains what the developer has been working on in the last few months since they posted the last kickstarter update.

We've been pretty busy over here and have made a lot of progress!  Age of Grit is gradually starting to coalesce. A big chunk of the game's back-end systems has been taken care of. The dialog system is working well and the questing system should be finished very soon. These are two critical systems that lay the groundwork for much of the game's complexity. We are also making strides forward with the combat sequence.  The combat UI is underway and the ruleset has been fleshed out and is being fine tuned.  We'e implemented the system for building ships from within the game--which is important for the modular design we are going with for the airships. 

We're also hard at work on NPCs. We've finished a bunch of NPCs already and we're chipping away at more each day. I spent much of the last week or two finishing up all the NPC briefing documents. The art team uses these documents to create the artwork needed for each NPC. Usually I will try to finish the briefing docs as they are needed by the art team, but now they are all completed for all the NPCs in the entire game. This a huge milestone--there are hundreds upon hundreds of in-game NPCs that I needed to write out detailed descriptions for. It is one of the major writing tasks on my plate, finishing it means I can now focus more time on other areas of the game.

Our Backerkit fundraising campaign will soon be coming to an end.  We haven't seen as much success as we've expected, but perhaps that's because our main push was during the last few months when the crowfunding season typically tends to slow down.  Next week we are going to give it one last push to try to raise some extra funds through add-ons and preorders. All of you have already done so much and we're so incredibly grateful, but if you'd like please check out some of our add-ons and see if you're interested.  We'd greatly appreciate it and every dollar help make the game a bit better.  All funds raised through Backerkit will go towards more artwork for the game--predominately more airships designs.

Alex Fuller of RPGamer shared his thoughts about Hand of Fate in an new article.

Hand of Fate has a lot going for it. The card-based encounter system is highly engaging and does a great job keeping the tension, with players never certain whether the cards they were hoping for or fearing are going to appear next. It's a very good debut outing with plenty of areas that can be built upon; the action-RPG and card game combination is very much the sort of game you could see providing a ton of multiplayer enjoyment, although watching someone else play is quite entertaining as is.

The developers of Dungeon Kingdom released a new update on Steam that shares a few new screenshots based on the Alpha version of the game.

Hello everyone ! Again thanks to the nice feedback we received.

Here are a few screens from DungeonKingdom: Sign of the Moon being alpha tested. There is much more innovations for the architecture, but i'll stick on classic area of Adwij's temple to not spoil too much.

RPGFrance published a new interview with the developer of The Meridian Shard.

Q: What do you think of music in RPGs and games in general? Does it have to be emphatic or rather aim alienation (distance)? Are there game musics that left their mark on you?

Music and sound in general, is a key a part of setting atmosphere. It all depends on what you’re trying to get across to the player at that time, or on that level. Sometimes absolute silence works best. I have developed a few parts of The Meridian Shard where the only sound is of the wind and distant birds singing. 
I would say to use music sparingly, as this gives it a more powerful delivery. 
I’ve usually always enjoyed just about anything from Arnold Nesis, who scored games like Path of Exile and Our Darker Purpose.

Q: What are your favorite (Western and Japanese) RPGs?

The first RPG-like game I ever played was Dragon Warrior for NES. From there, I really enjoyed Final Fantasy 9, Baldur’s Gate and Dink Smallwood.

Q: Do you feel a difference in the European, US and Canadian publics'tastes?

I can see that the online media for games in general does change slightly depending on region, but I believe that with the progress of Steam’s growing international community, and the ability to digitally deliver virtually anything, 
that gamers from all over the world will soon have shared tastes in just about everything. There is no doubt however that the eastern European market is ravenous for dark fantasy RPGs. I think it is largely influenced by what you’re exposed to at a young age. Each country has had their introductory game titles over the years, but soon, it will all be at our fingertips at the same time.

Thank you Toupilitou for sending the link.

Whale Hammer Games released two more updates this week for Tahira: Echoes of the Astral Empire. The fifth update talks about a character called the claw.

One half of a renowned mercenary duo, the only thing The Claw is more famous for than his ego is his skill with the blade. Born in the Republic of Oran, The Claw joined the Oranian army at a young age. His star was rising quickly before the betrayal of Queen Delphine of Babylon during the Oranian Wars lead to his nation’s destruction. Now homeless, he wanders the lands with his partner The Hammer, fighting for the side that will pay them best.

The sixth update has news the game is Greenlit , and has 300 backers.

Just a quick update today. We've been Greenlit, so we're coming to Steam! It only took a week. Thank you to everyone who voted for us!

We've also crossed the 300 backer threshold. There's 310 of you lovely people to be exact. We're just a little off $19,000. Let's see if we can push past that barrier by the end of today!

Haemimont Games posted the Development Roadmap for Victor Vran on Steam.

Thanks for the overwhelming positive response to our Early Access launch, guys! You rock!  Here is our current plan for the development of Victor Vran during Early Access and beyond. Keep in mind that we will change priorities and add features based on your feedback. Balance changes and bug-fixes are not described in this roadmap and will happen continuously throughout Early Access.

Ben Cordell published a new Early Access preview of Project Zomboid on StickTwiddlers.

As it currently stands, Project Zomboid is a lot of fun, but don’t expect an action-packed adventure as the majority of your time will be spent wandering the wasteland combating whatever current ailments your character possesses. There’s a lot of walking around and praying you find the supplies you’re looking for without stumbling into a massive horde of zombies that will end your long journey of survival. It’s a game of will and persistence to stay alive (and in the case of the multiplayer, to find your friends). It’s about true survival and it’s incredibly addictive.

Liminal Games will be at GDC 2015, and wil be showing a  CRYENGINE Demonstration of their new RPG game The Memory of Eldurim. Here the press release with more info.

Liminal Games to Offer CRYENGINE Demonstration at 2015 GDC

LOGAN, UT — Liminal Games, a small game development studio, will be demonstrating the capabilities of the new CRYENGINE with their debut RPG game, The Memory of Eldurim, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco March 2-6.

As the first company to partner with Crytek under their indie license agreement, Liminal Games was invited to host a live theater demo of their game, The Memory of Eldurim, during the expo portion of the conference. This presentation will provide audience members with a firsthand look and understanding of how indie developers are using CRYENGINE to create astonishing projects.

“Our game serves Crytek as a demonstration of how their powerful engine can be used by anyone to make a beautiful game,” said Liminal Games founder, Bryan Excell.

Using CRYENGINE has allowed Liminal Games’ small studio to create a high-end game that touches on all aspects of quality gaming with the contributions of only a few committed developers.

“Most indie games sacrifice great graphics in favor of faster development cycles and thoroughly fleshed out game mechanics…Therefore I have to give major props to this team for attempting to sacrifice nothing for a great gaming experience,” said one Steam reviewer.

Being able to participate in the GDC offers a unique opportunity for Liminal Games to demonstrate the progress they have made on their debut game and interact with their growing fan base.

“We look forward to meeting with anyone who has questions or comments about our game. It is very exciting for us and we love being a part of the gaming world,” said Excell.

Though it is not yet finished, Liminal Games has released their game, The Memory of Eldurim, on Steam Early Access. The studio believes in ongoing development and invites users to play their game and offer feedback.

“We think it is fun for gamers to be a part of the creation process and be there with us as we develop something together,” said Excell.

The Indiegogo page for Sierra Ops has news of a new Battle System Poll.

For the current battle system , do you prefer top down view or side view?

You can vote at the forum poll and see the main differences:

http://innomenpro.com/forums/index.php?topic=1093

You can reply at the forums for further thoughts about the change, or send us an email at jason.m.cheng@gmail.com or using the website contact form.

We need your feedback as soon as possible, as we can't wait for too long to implement this change, and this would also determine how we'll work with the 500$ ship backers' ships as well as the 150$ ships.

Updates:

Common Route is technically done, Youko has been working on the alternate dialogs for it for the NG+.

We also have two new Ares characters, Executive Delegate R. Maximilien and Executive Delegate Sigurd Ottmar IV. They're both found at the bottom of the character list at: http://innomenpro.com/sierra-ops/characters/

We're also switching from the overworld/sector selection mode to a purely huge mission map (similar to Venus) which will represent the entirety of Earth's Orbital Space, as it's more fitting to the way the events are executed.

The next beta will be around March 1-15 (can't promise an exact date), and it will contain the new common route scripts,overworld system and the decided battle system.

It has been almost a week since Caribbean! was released.and Snowbird Games posted the tenth status update on Steam this week. The update is about negative reviews.

Let's discuss something. First of all, we want to draw attention to the fact that 'Caribbean!' does not contain the words "Mount & Blade" in its title. And there's a reason for that — mainly because our game is not a continuation in Mount & Blade series. Yes, some traditional features known to M&B fans are not in the game, but at the same time we added a lot of new things which were never before seen in those games.

Sure, a good portion of negative reviews is justifiable. But is our game that bad? We'd like to think it's not. In any case we'll do our best to change your mind with an upcoming set of updates in the near future

The next update this week for Edge Of Eternity is about item crafting.

Here at Midgar Studio we are all big RPG fans. We bet you got that already. Not only JRPG but also western ones, especially the work of some people like Bioware. And we also played quite a lot MMORPG.

What’s my point, you would say? Well, something we got from this gamer experience is that building a pleasant crafting system is not that easy. But when its good, its a real big nice addition to a game.

We chose to make crafting an additionnal feature of Edge of Eternity because we wanted to have the time and resources to make it good, otherwise we would rather not make it at all.

As you guys are crazy enough to support our project, this goal is now at sight. With a little extra help from your friends, there’s now chances there will be crafting in Edge of Eternity. And here’s some details about how we see it.

We would like our crafting to at the same time simple and explicit but yet powerful with a real impact on your gameplay. This is why we aim to propose diversity not in the way you will have to do things, but in the things you can do.

There would be four crafting categories in Edge of Eternity : Weapon Smithing, Armor Smithing , Alchemy and Crystals Fusion. Each are ruled by simple rules but rich of many recipes and possible unique items.

The Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen website has a few more updates this month. I will share the links to both of them below with a short summary of the content of each update.

Pantheon Update: 2.20.15

As we said at the beginning of this year: we are making a consciousness shift to raise the bar of Pantheon's visual quality, while not compromising performance. We have put a great amount of energy and research into making the Unity Engine give us everything its got! We've purposely not shown much of the game during this time until some of these visual overhauls had been completed and streamlined. Now we're ready to share some of the fruit of this work in today's update. This video is focused on highlighting our new World Building and Environmental Art workflow, and the visual improvements of this new pipeline.

The Dwarves of Khadassa

Few races can so intimately trace history back to the moment of their creation. Yet, so few gods were like Khazas of Oldassa and so few races show the fealty of his Dwarves. For a lone celestial to bring forth a new race is not unheard of; even among those now on Terminus, such ancestry exists in some number. But no other creation has remained so united with their creator as the Dwarves are to their king. And no other celestial has so stewarded their creation as he, forsaking even his own immortality to lead them.

Visual Outbreak next update on Steam is an update on the games progress.

I know things have been quiet, but I've been struggling MASSIVELY to get a final couple of bugs fixed over the past few weeks which just kept eluding me over and over, and keeping me from being able to push out the banks/balance update, but I'm very excited to announce that I just sent an updated build to the test team for approval which seems to work just fine!

Anything they find should be a minor fix and I'll be able to get the build out to you all to play with!

Now these two issues have been solved, I can finally finish off the updated magic system, which will be in the next major update after this one!

Thank you all for your patience! And special thanks to those of you who have taken the time to leave supportive comments or give us some lovely positive reviews for the game! We love to read them!

I'll be pushing out the update soon and with it will be one of my customary update videos which will sum up what's in the update. I think you'll be excited!