GamerEscape

We had a chance to meet with several developers from Daedalic Entertainment to see what they have coming up on the horizon.

We had a chance to check out three titles, one of which is already in early access.

Iratus: Lord of the Dead

The first title we previewed was Iratus: Lord of the Dead- a game that takes an idea from something like Darkest Dungeon and then flips it. Instead of playing the heroes and making your way through various dungeons, you play as Iratus: Lord of the Dead as you fight against what would, in any other game, be the good guys.

I had a chance to play a few rounds and while I haven’t played something like Darkest Dungeon to be able to make the comparison, I did find myself enjoying the strategy that goes into each fight. You can divide up your minions into four groups to quickly select when going into battle. When making your teams though, it’s important to consider the abilities of the units and what will be better against each opponent. Iratus himself also has abilities that can be used in battle, and as you progress through the game, you’ll be able to unlock additional talents in a skill tree. Your monsters can be leveled up as well over time, by using the items you collect from your enemies (such as bones, or even brains).

Iratus: Lord of the Dead is set to release soon, so make sure to keep an eye out for it!

Barotrauma

We also had a quick demonstration of Barotrama, a game currently in early access that has an amazing mod community that’s been supporting it. Sharing similarities with FTL: Faster Than Light, Barotrauma puts you in charge of your own submarine as you explore the frozen oceans of Jupiter’s moon, Europa.

As you progress and collect resources, you have to be careful not to disturb the life living in the oceans of Europa. If you do, you’ll have to scramble to fend them off and repair the leaks that appear in your vessel, which at a glance, looks incredibly complex with switching between different characters in order to mend parts of your hull, or go to one of the turrets to fend off the creatures in between looking at the various maps and data that the game makes available to you.

The game also features an in-game editor which can be used to make, well, anything you want. You can design your own submarine, characters, or even your own monsters if you want. Together, with the option to play this cooperatively with friends, it’s no wonder that there’s such a strong modding community supporting this game.

Iron Danger

The final game we saw was Iron Danger – an RPG that features an innovative timeline mechanic which allows you to – at any time and as often as you want – reverse time in order to change your plan of attack.

Kipuna, the primary character, and your traveling companion each have what is reminiscent of a music or video editing interface meter along the bottom of the screen. As you make decisions in the game, the meters will track each of those decision – whether that decision is to move in a certain direction, attack an enemy, walk into fire, get attacked, etc. Each action requires one or more “heartbeats” and as you play the game your meter will fill up and reflect what you have done and how many heartbeats each action took. Since some actions require multiple heartbeats, you may attempt a particular move that doesn’t work – maybe you miss the enemy, or the barrel of oil you attacked in order to defeat multiple enemies wasn’t close enough to them, or you were simply defeated from behind. Stop the action. Rewind. Try again. Change an attack that took 3 heartbeats to something faster. Take an extra step, or one less step. Or, swap to your companion’s meter and have them change something up. The decisions are endless.

With this gameplay mechanic, Iron Danger plays like a hybrid action RPG, strategic turn-based RPG, and puzzle-based RPG. Because of the ability to rewind at any time, and because the battles can therefore be thought out and planned to perfection, the levels and enemies are hard. Each level will have different objectives – such as getting to a destination or completing all enemies. The enemies might be able to one-shot you, you might be massively outnumbered, or maybe they will have high HP. You will watch your death countless times, only to rewind, make another plan, and retry.

The gameplay was incredibly unique and, after a bit of a learning curve, quite fun. If you like something a bit out of the ordinary that requires patience and strategy, this is one to keep an eye out for. Iron Danger is set for release later in 2019.