The RPG-Strategy mix Highlands has been reviewed by Digitally Downloaded - some snippets:

Highlands is a turn-based strategy game by Burrito Studio, another one of those micro indie development teams. And, as the team's first game, its a good one, with plenty to offer fans of the RPG and strategy genres.

Highlands' setting is reasonably unique, taking place on a series of floating islands and casting you as in the role of heirs to a royal family. After being attacked by an evil army these heirs, of the House of Arislaan, must fight to take back their land. Which, sure, isn't the most original story idea out there, but the storytelling is wonderful, and the game is very story driven.

The gameplay involves players moving their characters around a map to reclaim land by defeating the enemies on that area. It's all turn based, where you'll move your characters, end a turn and then fight the enemies. Every level comes with a series of different objectives; some may have you getting to a certain spot on the map to win, while others task you with defeating all enemies. There are four different types of characters. These are combatants, who are good fighters, mechanics who can fortify areas on the map and craft items, leaders who can start resource gathering in areas, and academics who can heal your wounded but at the cost of food resources.

(...)

As with any RPG, as you use your characters skills and fight they will level up, making them stronger and unlocking new skills for them. And, as you explore the map random things may happen you may get a new recruit or affect your resources in some way. There are opportunities for player choice in there; for example I once came upon a wanted criminal who said he would fight by my side and I could decide to let him fight with me or to capture him. The consequences of making these decisions are not immediately apparent, of course, keeping you on your toes beyond the on-field strategising.

Highlands is an easy to learn strategy game, but is hard to master. The story is wonderful and will have you playing more to learn about the characters and their stories. The art is some of the prettiest I have seen in a game in a long time. It might not be the most innovative game out there, but given it comes from a small indie team, it does achieve what it sets out to do admirably.

Final Score: 4/5

Hooked Gamers has the first review I could find for Highlands this week.

It’s not a perfect game, of course. As of now, there are a few technical issues that could stand to be addressed. The method of moving your troops around the screen – separating your groups by trying to highlight the specific members you want to move with the mouse and dragging them about – is clunky and a little awkward, and it stands out strangely in a game that has clearly taken such pains to be polished and ready for release. Enemy regen is fast, and it can feel a little capricious when your focus is already split between multiple objectives. Character recruitment feels surprisingly impersonal compared to the rest of the game, and the fact that your new recruits are 100% expendable is an uncomfortable source of cognitive dissonance in a game that is so strongly marked by characters trying to work their way through a tragic invasion. Some of the more unusual mechanics could stand to be explained a little more clearly.

But it’s a lot of fun, too. It has vision and scope, originality and wit, and it’s fun. Hitting the rare trifecta of beautiful, challenging and innovative, it’s easy enough to slip into the “just one more turn” refrain when you’re inches away from reclaiming a map. For a game from such a small team, this was clearly lovingly crafted, doted upon, and released to us as a surprising little mashup of genres and influences that, overall, works really well. If you’ve ever wanted to send a wide-eyed Disney princess and her siblings into battle against the forces of darkness, miles above the original home of man, you really should give it a spin. I feel like you’re unlikely to quench that specific desire anywhere else.

Burrito Studio the developer of Highlands announced today the game is now available on Steam for $14.99. They also released a new gamepaly video to go with the news.

RECLAIM YOUR BIRTHRIGHT IN THE SKIES IN HIGHLANDS

Turn-Based Strategic Warfare with RPG elements available now on Steam for $14.99

MONTREAL - April. 21, 2015 - Burrito Studio, an indie team led by former Ubisoft developer Alexandre Borgia, announced today that Highlands, a turn-based strategy game, is now available on PC via Steam for $14.99 USD. Play the heirs of a royal family sent into exile and reclaim the stolen land by raising an army and rallying allies along the way. In celebration of the release of studio’s first original IP, Highlands will be 15 percent off during launch week!

Download and purchase Highlands for PC on Steam today.

“We’re thrilled to see the launch of our first original IP and are excited to share our game with the community,” said Jonathan Ortega, co-founder and game designer for Burrito Studio. “Highlands offers a unique turn-based strategic experience where player choices will determine whether they return to exile or march victoriously to crush their enemies.”

Exiled from their homeland and faced against overwhelming odds of defeat, players in Highlands are tasked to build an army and retake what is rightfully theirs from a group of mysterious overlords and their mechanical army. These noble leaders will manage key aspects of their army and population including food, weapons, recruits and other resources to get stronger and advance in the game. As they march on, they will unlock new territories and production areas where individual characters will be able to use their skills to strengthen their position. Combat relies on a simple card-game where characters will be put to the ultimate test by destroying the invader’s forces. Choose wisely on which sectors to conquer and relinquish to the enemy in order to push new frontlines and find your way back to power.

It has been a while since I mentioned Burrito Studio's SRPG game Highlands. To remedy that here is a new gameplay trailer from IGN about the game taking a big risk.

Burrito Studio's latest update for Highlands shares a few images that help to explain the game mechanics. As for the game it still needs $9.000 to get funded.

More Game Mechanics Explained!

Let’s resume our mid-campaign crusade explaining the gameplay features of Highlands!

Wounded Characters

Academics will use your food resources to prepare potions and ointments that will heal characters injured in battle.

Upgrades!

Academics will also spend their time testing strange contraptions and try to discover new ways to make your resistance more effective.

For instance they can increase the ballistic range of a bombardment or find ingenious ways for your mechanics to make their barricades stronger.

Special Buildings

Here are a few of the special buildings you'll want to secure and defend along your way.

Tavern: a place to meet wanderers and know the local folks. Use leadership points to recruit people and assign leaders to generate leadership points each turn.

Workshop: where your mechanics have all their tools to craft weapons, grenades and other useful items.

Medical Ward: a building where you can assign characters that are very injured. They will not be able to perform any other action but will recover Combat Points more quickly.

Barracks: a building where your combatants will train and setup artillery bombardment.

Burrito Studio's next kickstarter update for Highlands explains why the game is different than others to help interest more gamers to back the game.

Today, we delve deeper into the mechanics that make Highlands such a unique and great game. 

1)  The maps are populated by ‘Sectors’ which you reclaim by battling enemies present. Each sector under your control can contain one or a combination of these:

• Resources: Food, leadership or scraps.
• Special buildings: Taverns, workshops and many more buildings where you can accomplish special actions.  
• Story events: Situations where something happens and you have to decide how to proceed.

2)  You’ll have different strategic options when choosing how to face the enemies.

Strategic actions: You can also use leadership points to do a variety of strategic actions outside of Direct combat that will weaken enemy position.

• Support Strike: Assist your combatants from an adjacent sector. 
• Skirmish: Launch a quick assault on an enemy sector in order to kill some of its troops 
• Bombardment: Bombard your enemies from afar without risk of retaliation but cost scraps. 

 3) The crafting system Items work like so in Highlands: 

Equippables will be anything from swords to helmets. Consumable items like a steam-bomb for example will tip a fight to your advantage but are used only once. Using them wisely in order to win crucial fights will be part of an efficient strategy. 

Mechanics will -

• Erect barricades in sectors next to the enemy in order to keep the enemy at bay.
• Work relentlessly in workshops in order to craft a bunch of items that will give you the edge in combat. 

Burrito Studio's next kickstarter update for Highlands has a few answers that backers have asked about the campaign, and as usual here is a small sample of them.

Highlands Q&A

We are dedicating this update to shed more light on the gameplay aspects of the game. We’d like to give a special mention to Asa who sent us a nice message with questions she was having. Here are the answers: 

You compare your game to ‘Risk’ which is quite simple strategically, does Highlands have more depth? 

We use the ‘Risk’ analogy to give a quick idea of what the core mechanics look like because ‘Risk’ is a very popular game. 

The game itself is much more complex than ‘Risk’ for various reasons: the different classes, the resources management, the RPG elements, the crafting system, the story events. Take the story events for example, the choices you make during story events will determine how your characters evolve throughout the game. All of these features make Highlands a game which is very dynamic and has a lot of depth. 

What about re-playability? 

On one hand we focus on a 15-20 hours of solid gameplay telling a story. 

On the other hand, it is our goal to make a game that is very challenging at harder difficulty levels. The dynamic nature of the game (fights, story events) combined to the decisions you make on how you progress on the map, who you recruit and how they level will definitely make each replay unique. 

In fact, failing a level and trying again will give a new experience in a lot of aspects. Trying on harder levels will also force the player to come up with strategies he wouldn’t have done otherwise. 

Our 60,000$ stretch-goal would add a new Skirmish Mode that would be the ultimate replay value. 

What does a typical map progression look like? 

You have total control of which sectors you want to conquer. In order to win a level you might have to reach a specific goal but how you progress toward it is up to you: will you advance through the city? Or from the docks district? Or maybe both? This will be completely up to you.

How does combat work? 

The combat spans over many turns. Each turn consists of an attack by the allies and an attack by the enemies. Both attacks occurs simultaneously. The combat points represent the attack strength of a character, but also its health points or “HP”. The combat ends when a side has its combat points drop to 0. At the start of each turn you may designate a character to block enemy damages. You also have the possibility to use a consumable (once per turn) or withdraw if the odds are not in your favor. 

The combat is fast and simple: we purposefully made it quick in order to focus the attention on the strategic choices you make rather than tactical combat itself, yet it can still lead to impressive boss fights! 

All of this is regrouped in the FAQ section. If you have further inquiries, we invite you to comment and we will answer you as best we can.

The fourth kikcstarter update from Burrito Studio for Highlands explains the Enemy Warlords Stretch Goal, So if you're intrested read on if not please move on.

Enemy Warlords  

We are almost at 50% of our initial goal and are super excited at the prospect of seeing the game funded. The possibility to reach our first stretch goal is very real and that’s why we would like to talk about our 30,000$ Stretch Goal: WARLORDS!!! 

Warlords are enemy heroes that will appear in the map and start advancing toward your territories. Once at your doorstep, these Warlords and their armies will shatter your sector fortifications in a pinch and battle whoever is present in a sector. They will occupy your territories and march onward until someone stops them. 

You will see them advancing sector by sector and you will have to prepare accordingly because no fortifications or barricades will protect you from rival Warlords. Will you hold your ground or take the matter in your own hand and fight them off before they even set foot in your territories? 

Warlords will add a lot of variety in the fact that you will not be able to predict the outcome of war depending on the current state of things. Reinforcements are a part of war and we are turning it in something different than normal spawning. These guys will hunt you down and give you a hard time but push them back and watch your morale boosts as you rejoice in victory and precious loot!

Burrito Studio posted the third update for Highlands wit news the game is now half funded on kick stater. So it's looking good so far here ate the details.

The glass is getting half full! Going toward 10,000$

Already at more than 8,500$ (43% funded) and the first week is still not over, we could not be more thrilled at the studio!

We still have 24 days to continue spreading the word. It has been a frenzy week for BurritoJo and BurritoAl and we’d like to thank our good friend Félix for jumping in and lending us a hand part-time with communications.

Thanks everyone for your positive feedback it’s what keeps us running and running through our days!

Less than 1,250$ to reach 50% funded, we can do it!

Highlands is a new hand-drawn strategy game with RPG elements from Burrito Studio that is asking for $20,000 to get funded on kickstarter. Here is the usual information.

Highlands is a turn-based strategy game similar to the classic board game Risk but with a variety of resources management mechanics as well as RPG elements.  Instead of controlling anonymous armies you recruit characters with backstories who level up in various stats and fight by your side to build a resistance.