The Watchlist: Killers & Thieves

Title: Killers and Thieves
Developer: Candle & Key
Platforms: PC
Releasing 2016
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Control a feudal thieves' guild, preying on the riches of an old and corrupt city

From Mark of the Ninja and The Swindle to Gunpoint, Ronin, and even This War of Mine, 2D stealth is flourishing.  The upcoming Killers and Thieves will add to that growing list with its blend of thief guild management and medieval heists.

In Killers and Thieves, you don't simply control a single thief, but maintain an expanding guild in a city of skilled rivals and houses waiting to be looted. From your tavern hideout, you can plan heists. recruit new talent and upgrade your thieves, and can further expand with new additions such as the spymaster room. Each thief is unique, with special abilities and attributes, both positive and negative. One might be able to scale the outside of buildings, while another might be able to slink into the shadows more effectively.

From the hideout, thieves can be sent out on missions or controlled directly, taking a team of up to four into the dark city streets. Rather than offering a single building to pilfer. an excursion in Killers and Thieves features an entire procedurally-generated street with several buildings, allowing you to leap across rooftops for a better entry or scout from above.

Developer Candle & Key plans for the gameplay to be a tactical experience with an emphasis on interlocking systems. You'll be able to pause the game to precisely queue actions for your team of thieves. A poorly-planned move might result in a thief captured by guards, but you'll still have the opportunity to rescue your partner before he's carted off to prison. And if all else fails, the skilled killers on your team can resort to bloody violence to fend off alerted guards.

But you're not the only faction active in the city; rival guilds and the authorities are an ever-present threat, tempting members to betray your guild or seeking out your hideout. Expanding your successful thief guilds means keeping your members well-paid, attempting more daring, more lucrative heists, and maintaining a low profile.

Killers and Thieves is currently in development; an Early Access release is slated for early 2016. You can learn more about the game and follow its progress here.

Quick Fix: Screenshot Saturday 11/14

Title: Eastward
Developer: Pixpil Games
An action adventure influenced by Zelda and Earthbound
In the world of Eastward, human societies are isolated and shrinking, due to some severe environmental problem. You will be playing a father with a following daughter, and go through this post-apocalyptic world

Title: Mordhau
Developer: Team Mordhau
Mordhau is an upcoming medieval first-person fighting game with a strong emphasis on skill-based competitive play.

Title: CURE
Developer: Cryogenic Entertainment
CURE is a real time strategy game that puts the player into the shoes of a scientist creating new life forms in order to produce the world's most powerful medicine, or perhaps its worst disease

Title: Boss 101
Developer: Donley Time Foundation
Boss 101 is an action adventure game with you taking the role of Max, a teenager with a jetpack. Help your brother and save the world at the same time. Buy weapons, hats, upgrades while you battle millions of randomly generated bosses.

Title: Nadia Was Here
Developer: Joep Aben
Nadia Was Here is an RPG about the worth of a life in a world that is about to forget you ever existed. Features an original battle system and puzzle-filled dungeons.

The Watchlist: Song of Horror

Title: Song of Horror
Developer: Protocol Games
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox One
Releasing 2017
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Story-driven third person survival horror

Developer Protocol Games first revealed Song of Horror earlier this year. Unfortunately, their first attempt on Kickstarter failed, but now the game is back, Greenlit on Steam and slated for consoles, and looking even more terrifying.

Song of Horror is a survival horror game that promises to blend the old-school fixed angle horror of classic Resident Evil and Alone In The Dark with a modern approach. You control the fates of 16 characters, all haunted and stalked by an insidious eldritch Presence, a cast of normal men and women against an ancient cunning evil.

While the characters in Song of Horror are weaponless, they aren't defenseless. You can run, and hide, slow its advance, avoid its shadowy clutches by carefully watching and listening for clues, But if the Presence does kill you, the story isn't over. Similar to games like Heavy Rain and Until Dawn, Song of Horror features a narrative that molds around character deaths.

I was able to try out an early demo of the game, featuring the first chapter set in the Husher Mansion. (Each chapter takes place in a different location.) For a game that still at least two years away, Song of Horror already feels polished and promising. Don't expect many jump scares; the tension and dread here comes from knowing you're not alone; that you're being stalked by a force that can kill you in a moment anywhere anytime; that can't be stopped, only slowed and avoided. The experience is one of measured pacing, cautious careful exploration, and moments of desperate flight as you try to outrun and delay the Presence.

Song of Horror is currently seeking funds on Kickstarter, and is expected to release in mid 2017. You can learn more about the game here; the demo should be releasing publicly soon.

IOS Review #106: Five Card Quest

Title: Five Card Quest
Developer: Rocketcat Games
Platforms: IOS Universal
Price: $2.99
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Between Mage Gauntlet and Wayward Souls, Rocketcat Games is well established as a developer that can develop a challenging quality RPG/roguelike experience on mobile. Now with Five Card Quest, they tackle the turn-based game and deliver a challenging tactical dungeon crawler

In Five Card Quest, you select a duo of warriors from a selection of classes, from the powerful support Priest to the dagger-wielding Rogue, and traverse room-by-room through dangerous dungeons. You might find a healing fountain or a merchant or another warrior to add to your party, but more often, you'll find enemies blocking your path to the exit.

Combat in Five Cars Quest is an interesting blend of card game and lane-based strategy, reminiscent of Zachtronics' Ironclad Tactics (however less complex). Your party is one side of the screen, enemies on the other, spread out across three lanes. Each turn you have five skills to use from, a mix of random abilities from each of your warrior's pool of skills, and with each action, your enemies move down the lane, closing in until they're within striking distance.

The combination of random abilities and staggered enemy approach gives Five Card Quest's combat a unique feel and allows various strategy and tactics. Abilities don't just inflict damage; they let your characters swap lanes, freeze an enemy's movement or knock it back to its side of the screen. Some attacks may take three turns to charge up, forcing you to consider how long it will take certain enemies to close the distance to strike. Other attacks do lane-based damage or injury the front-most foe.

You never know what attacks and abilities you'll have at hand during your turn, resulting in tense and desperate strategy as you use whatever's available to postpone incoming attacks, heal and prepare blocks and parries, switch characters across lanes, and so on. Five Card Quest pulls no punches, and a careless strategy will only get you killed more quickly.

Your enemies are just as varied, ranging from shielded brutes to archers and spellcasters. Each area has its own array of enemies, enemies that can stun and poison, among other actions. Friend and foe alike are brought to life on a bright angular art style, giving Five Card Quest a unique aesthetic.

Five Card Quest is available on iPhone and iPad.

The Watchlist: Wizard of Legend

Title: Wizard of Legend
Developer: Contingent99
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Releasing 2016
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A fast paced 2D dungeon crawler where you assume the role of a powerful wizard on his quest for fame and glory!

Often in games, wizards and mages are designated as support. Powerful but fragile units kept away from the fray, helping out the warriors with magic and healing. Wizard of Legend takes the opposite approach. In the fast-paced dungeon crawler, you're a force to be reckoned with, wielding the might of the elements to decimate enemies.

The set-up is simple. You're a mage facing a series of trials to prove your skill and join the Council of Magic as a new Wizard of Legend. Those trials will take you from dense forests to dank dungeons, each featuring procedurally-generated layouts and dangerous enemies.

But you're more than capable of surviving these challenges. There's a vast array of magical abilities to choose, ranging from chain lightning and devastating fire blasts to summoning meteors and dropping totem turrets. Chaining together your chosen abilities is key to defeating the hordes of undead foes, beasts, and bosses; combat is a spectacle of powerful screen-filling effects, as you control crowds, stun enemies, evade attacks to get into a better position, unleash flame and ice and wind.

Special items and perks will complement your magic, but if the challenge proves too much, Wizard of Legend lets you team up with a friend in local co-op. If you'd rather prove your superior wizardry, you can face your friend in spell-slinging PvP combat.

Wizard of Legend is expected to release in mid-2016, and is currently seeking votes on Steam Greenlight. You can learn more about the game and follow its development on TIGSource and Twitter.

Quick Fix: Screenshot Saturday 11/7

Title: GoNNER
Developer: Ditto
A fast-paced run-n-gun shooter/platformer

Title: RoboCorps
Developer: Entropy Machine Games
RoboCorps focuses on smashing together the quick, addictive action of Quake with the carnage and spirit of Worms, all fine-tuned with single-player and couch multi-player in mind.

Title: Dragonpath
Developer: Fainzeraier
Dragonpath is a Diablo-like action RPG. The game has 15 levels, each with an unique boss. You get all abilities directly from equipped gear, so go ahead and experiment with different combinations.

Title: Trashomancer
Developer: Fat Pixel Games
Strange things are happening in a weird building that emerged from the ground... It's up to you, the trashomancer, to investigate what is happening in that place!
But you never liked getting your hands dirty anyway so you decide to send your minions made out of the trash you find lying around everyday. Play with your friends as the true disposable and recyclable heroes!

The Watchlist: Skychasers

Title: Skychasers
Developer: Alexis Eshford
Platforms: PC
In development
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A story-driven fast-paced 2D arcade shmup about supersonic jets, intense dogfights, and giant bosses

Fighter jets carve through the skies, leaving coiling contrails in their wake and unleashing blinding explosions and streaking missile barrages. Amidst the aerial chaos, a singular pilot deftly weaves between the opposing planes and projectiles. That's the core gameplay of the in-development high-flying shmup Skychasers: vibrant, frenetic, bullet hell action in the skies.

At the controls of an extremely mobile and well-equipped fighter jet, you'll face down squadrons of enemy planes, pulling off precise aerobatic maneuvers to evade bullets and missiles. While the game might seem reminiscent of the other 2D aerial bullet hell Luftrausers, Skychasers stands apart due to its colorful visuals, stage-by-stage progressions and bosses, and a focus on letting the player remain untouched through skill alone.

A stylish barrel roll move lets you dodge incoming projectiles, and by combining that maneuver with your fighter's agility, it's possible to beat levels without getting hit once. Complementing your superior mobility is a customizable loadout to blow your enemies out of the sky. EMP bombs, rocket swarms, homing missiles, and more are available, along with a sizable array of modules to further alter your play style.

Skychasers is still relatively early in development; you can follow its progress on TIGSource and Twitter.