The Watchlist: Deadbolt

Title: Deadbolt

Developer: Hopoo Games

Platforms: PC

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Grim reapers are commonly displayed as a hooded figure in a scythe, sending people to the afterlife. This was good back in the old days, but today, with the invention of doors with locks and guns, the grim reaper is having a hard time reaping lives. That is where you come in, as the modern day grim reaper, with modern day equipment, ready to kill modern day undead.

Hopoo Games's last title - the popular roguelite action game Risk of Rain - had you fighting alien foes and beasts across dangerous planets, but their new game Deadbolt leaves the sci-fi world behind for the gritty buildings of undead gangs. As a modern-day Grim Reaper, you arm yourself with guns and knives, reducing your foes to bloody smears. Hopoo Games describes Deadbolt as mix of Hotline Miami's fast-paced shooting and gore and Gunpoint's tactical movement. Able to move between vents with ease, you can flank your enemies, blowing them away from behind cover or taking out the lights so you can get close with a blade and other melee weapons. Ammo is limited and a single hit kills the reaper, so planning your approach and choosing the best weapon at the right moment is critical to clearing stages.

The current alpha build consists of five stages against zombie gangs. For an alpha, Deadbolt is already fun, challenging, and polished. Blood sprays stain the walls, heads and body parts fly with every blast of a sawed-off shotgun or revolver. Luring enemies by knocking on doors and then flanking them by moving through the vents is fun and satisfying. The little details stand out, such as opening a fridge door to use as cover or pulling out knives from knife blocks. The developers plan to expand on the core gameplay by adding features, such as more factions, more weapons, and more environmental interactions.

Deadbolt is still only a few months into development, but it shows a lot of promise and feels fun to play. You can download the alpha from itch.io and learn more about Deadbolt from its TIGSource devlog and the Hopoo Games Tumblr.

Quick Fix: Screenshot Saturday 3/7

Ritual
Developer: Ellen Brown
Ritual is a 2D horror game where you play as a girl searching for her little brother in an old, haunted school. Players must partake in a twisted take on hide and seek whilst trying to find and close 3 portals to another realm, opened as part of a ritual by an unknown being trying to hunt them down!

Razed
Developer: Warpfish
Razed is a fast paced platform racer about finding kindred spirits in a lethal developing world. The controls are simple because the player has just one ability, a shout. The player must learn to use their shout creatively to collect sympathisers and interact with the evolving world around them. The abstract levels are filled with a wide variety of threats and obstacles which the player must navigate in ten seconds or less in order to reach the goal and prevent the wrecking ball from finding its target.

.Age
Developer: Michele Pirovano
.Age is an hybrid between a roguelike(-like) and an european board game village simulator (Agricola-style), as well as a reverse god-game. In .Age, you take the role of the village elder, spritual guide of a secluded village in the middle ages. A dark omen is cast upon your land, and you must help your villagers survive the forthcoming years of travail. Build, produce, assign your Pips and watch as the heavens unfold their wrath on your puny village. Also, make sure you stay alive.

Luckless Seven
Developer: Deckpoint Studio
Luckless Seven is a card game RPG set in land of Arithia. Throughout Arithia, playing card games is a common method of social interaction. The most popular game played is Ekosi (also referred to as 20), a card game in which players use decks of numbered cards to try and reach as close to 20 as possible. Players can use a side deck containing a variety of cards to manipulate their score. While Ekosi is commonly played for gambling purposes, it is also a primary source of recreation.

SitRep: Rain World (PAX build)

Title: Rain World
Developer: Videocult
Platforms: PC, Mac
Releasing Summer 2015 (Steam)
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I've written about Rain World four times on my blog. I participate in the game's devlog regularly and update the Rain World thread on NeoGAF. Suffice to say, I'm a big fan and can say, without a doubt, that it's my most anticipated indie game. So after following Rain World's progress for months, I was very excited to finally play the latest build, which will be available at PAX and soon for Kickstarter backers.

First a refresher: Rain World is a platformer with a focus on stealth, exploration, atmosphere, and AI. It's set in a world once inhabited by some intelligent civilization; now only the local ecosystem roams and thrives in the weathered, ruined industrial landscape. You play as a slugcat, a lithe agile creature, both predator to the fluttering bats that migrate throughout the world, and prey to the beasts that hunt you such as deadly lizards and terrifying alien vultures. Rain batters the surface periodically, crushing and killing everything, so between downpours, you need to leave your den and gather food while evading and dealing with predators. Rain World's procedural animations and atmospheric visuals bring this struggle for survival to life.

The PAX build consists of four regions out of a planned twelve: the overgrowth-choked rooms of Suburban, the dank water-logged tunnels of Drainage System, the rusted machinery of Heavy Industrial, and the open spaces and heights of Chimney Canopy. Lizards roam the lower regions, leeches swarm in the sewer water, and vultures rule the skies around the canopy. Your goal in this build is simple: explore, eat bats, and return to your shelter before the rain comes.

Visually, Rain World has progressed massively since the early screenshots and videos seen on the game's Kickstarter page over a year ago. This alien world feels alive, as shadows shift across the background, water drips from above, and the sky rumbles. The game's ecosystem cements the atmosphere. Each lizard looks unique, with different body sizes, spines, ridges, tail turfs, and each species reacts to each other and to your slugcat in their own unique way. White lizards blend into the environment, surprising you with their chameleon-like tongue, while heavy green lizards charge forward with unexpected speed. Blue lizards scale walls and ceilings and pink lizards chase you down relentlessly.

Enter a room and you might see lizards of the same species fighting for dominance or hunting another lizard. But lizards pale in comparison to the vultures. These aerial creatures swoop down from above, their fleeting shadow your only warning before they descend for the kill. Using biological thrusters and their tentacled appendages as both wings and walking limbs, vultures are fast, agile, near-unstoppable apex predators. As a slugcat, your best options are to flee and hide or...better yet, lure a lizard into the vulture's waiting mandibles.

The world of Rain World isn't the only aspect that's been improved. Your slugcat is more agile than ever before, able to backflip over lizards, roll and perform high jumps, and chain these new maneuvers together. These skills are your greatest strength, allowing you to deftly evade predators and scurry out of sight or provide some breathing room to nail a devastating spear throw. Jumping and climbing around is fun thanks to the fluid animations, and using your agility to avoid or fight predators makes each encounter a tense game of cat-and-mouse.

Rain World is far from complete. New creatures and regions in development, such as the pack-hunting yellow lizards and the Garbage Wastes, promise to evolve the game even further. But even now, as an alpha with a few (albeit quite large) regions and species, it's already an impressive and engaging experience.

You can follow Rain World's progress and find many more GIFs and in-depth development updates in the game's TIGForum devlog. You can also add Rain World to your wishlist on Steam.

Quick Fix: Screenshot Saturday 2/28

MegaSphere
Developer: Anton Kudin
MegaSphere is a sci-fi themed action platformer with a big shiny gun, mad battle robots and unpredictable world that is different each time you play. Fight enemies, search for loot, hack AI's, upgrade weapons and your suit. No hand holding, no tutorials — play like a grown-up!

Courier
Developer: Adam Creations
Experience a role-playing game where the focus is on the world, exploration, characters, puzzles, and avoidance instead of battling. Peacefully reverse an evil plot to bring a kingdom to its knees while uncovering ancient secrets, hidden conspiracies, and helping the lives of all in Veilend. Communication routes have been severed and all signs point to retaliation by Veilend's neighboring enemies, the Ignetiles. Help restore routes and stop the conflict from the inside before it erupts into a second war between the two kingdoms.

Scrap Mechanic
Developer: Axolot Games
Scrap Mechanic is a multiplayer survival game with creativity and ingenuity at its core. In Scrap Mechanic’s interactive open world, you explore, scavenge and collect objects and then use them to build shelters, impressive moving vehicles and other machines that will help you survive the treacherous adventures lying ahead! Team up with friends or fight against robots and other players who are out to steal your stuff.

Flotsam
Developer: Pajama Llama Games
Flotsam is a building sim where you try to survive and build a functioning society in a world flooded by water. 

The Watchlist: Slain!

Title: Slain!
Developer: Wolf Brew Games
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PS4, PS Vita
Releasing May 2015, consoles planned for September and December
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Prepare to be Slain! Our homage to the gory hack and slash games of the 80's and 90's. We promise stunning visuals with gore galore.

There's something so satisfying about playing a brutally difficult game. Be it Volgarr The Viking or Super Meat Boy, succeeding where you failed myriad times before, mastering a game's seemingly insurmountable challenge, is always rewarding. Slain! harkens back to the days of brutal games like Shadow of The Beast and Ghosts 'n Goblins, a lone hero against grotesque odds, across Gothic landscapes of blood and death.

At a glance, Slain stands out due to its lavishly detailed pixel art. Clouds drift above and fog rolls across the swamps and underbrush. Torch lights flicker and sway in the breeze. The otherworldly abodes of werewolves and spirits and undead beasts drip with blood, walls choked with vines. Gruesome creatures, from skeletons and witches to more dangerous horrors, are displayed in grisly detail, all decayed flesh and tattered clothes.

But Slain! promises more than just wonderfully-realized Gothic environments. As the reawakened hero Bathoryn, you must traverse these lands and free seven towers from the grip of their monstrous overlords. From the crimson halls of Blood Tower to the lupine effigies of the Wolfwoods, Bathoryn strikes down creatures with his sword and mana abilities, while also dealing with each tower's puzzles and deadly traps. Master your skills, know your enemies, or die.

Slain! is estimated to release on PC, Mac, and Linux in May, with console releases rolling out in the months to follow. You can learn more about Slain! on its official site and TIGSource devlog, as well as support the game on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight.

The Watchlist: Icy

Title: Icy
Developer: Inner Void
Platforms: PC
Releasing mid-2015
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Icy is a dialogue based RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world where a new Ice Age stormed our beloved planet. The player will be the leader of a nomads group and will have to take difficult decisions to survive against all kind of dangers. The game will offer a lot of dialogues and meaningful choices capable of affecting the plot, but also a survival gameplay that will allow the player to hunt for food, scavenge for items and fight against beasts, monsters and other humans. 

An endless winter, where food is always scare and ruthless predators - both man and beast - prey on the weak. This is the world of Icy, a post-apocalyptic narrative RPG about surviving a world in the cold grip of a new Ice Age. Similar to games such as King of Dragon Pass and Neo Scavenger, the experience is presented through flavor text and artwork, as your nomadic group roams the frozen wastes, scavenging, hunting, fending off bandits and wild animals, making decisions, and enduring the cold. 

The developers plan to provide a deep experience that captures the danger and tough decisions of leading a group in this harsh world. Bullets are both your currency, to trade with other groups and settlements for much-needed supplies, and your ammo against wolves and bandits. Venture into the woodlands to hunt, always wary of roaming predators or the danger of spreading your party too thin. Being an RPG, skills can be upgraded and improved, and could mean the difference between lynx meat for your starving group or missing a crucial shot with your bow. Sickness, devastating snowstorms, and even evolved creatures roaming the wilderness are only some of the dangers you'll face in Icy.

Icy will release around June; an IndieGoGo campaign is planned for next week. You can learn more about the game and its progress on the developer's site. 

No Money, No Problem: JET/LAG

Title: JET/LAG
Developer: svblm
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, Browser, Android
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Made for the Procedural Generation Jam 2014, JET/LAG is described as a "Hyper Minimal Rogue-like-like-like featuring unforgiving tactical gameplay". What does that mean? You're a square, dropped into random arenas of dangerous geometric foes, each one with own unique behavior that you must learn how to avoid. Pick-ups imbue you with special abilities such as homing drones and a close-range electric attack, but your main means of attack is ramming into enemies. The controls and objective are simple - click to move in that direction, clear the level - but add the varied enemies and different skills and JET/LAG evolves into a fast-paced game of evasion and close calls as you move in close to ram your foes while also dodging laser-firing triangles, charging squares, homing projectiles, and more. It's a fast, frenetic, and addictive challenge.

You can download JET/LAG or play it in your browser here.