Indie RPG Driftmoon - to be released Feb 26th 2013
 

I've just (02/2013) updated the outdated description and screenshots of Driftmoon, so that the information in this first post is up-to-date (unlike the info and screenshots in my other replies. So after reading this first post, please skip to the fourth page, somewhere around reply #81).

Here's a link to our official launch trailer!

Please leave us your reply, or send us feedback through the game (Press "F" for feedback while playing). We'd be happy to hear your thoughts. :)

Welcome to the world of Driftmoon!

Driftmoon is an adventure-roleplaying game, full of exploration, smiles and surprises, captivating stories and quests, charming and quirky characters, and countless details.



Features

The Story
The beautiful, enchanted world of Driftmoon trembles in the shadow of a forgotten evil, for the dark King Ixal is again gathering his forces.
Hope lies in an unlikely alliance: A young man joins forces with a little firefly dreaming of stardom, a panther queen with the ego of a moon whale, and a very determined fellow who's lost everything but his bones, and still hasn't given up. Knowing nothing of the amazing adventures and the fearsome foes that await them, the party embarks on a journey like no other.

The Legend - There were still some who remembered, some who believed. Most of Driftmoon had once fallen into terrible slavery and despair, but the memories of those days had almost faded away. You knew nothing of the Dark King Ixal, or of your family's mysterious past, but you were soon about to find out…
Adventure - Experience a grand adventure and many fascinating quests, as you strive to unite the forces of good, and fight the dark powers threatening to enslave the whole of Driftmoon.
Enchanting world - The world of Driftmoon is filled with personality, wit and goodwill! Explore the dungeons, wilderness and villages of Driftmoon: You'll discover hidden places, treasures, quirky characters, quests, puzzles, unique magical items, secret doors, artifacts, and more.
Friends & Foes - Fight the forces of evil and meet charismatic and personal creatures, some of which may accompany you on your quest. The inhabitants of Driftmoon have distinct personalities, histories, humour, and abilities.
Character Development - Learn many impressive and powerful skills: Your choices will affect your possibilities, when facing foes or travelling the world.
Rich Soundscape - Carefully constructed sound effects, and atmospheric background ambience. Including a memorable and melodic soundtrack by the talented Gareth Meek.
Powerful Editor and Mod Sharing System - Driftmoon comes with the full editor tools used to create the game, and the possibility to play mods created by other users. The editor includes an easy scripting language, animation tools, and a great level editor with numerous other possibilities!
Adjustable Text Size - Can't read tiny text? No problem! You can freely change the text size in Driftmoon.

The game-play of Driftmoon is focused towards exploring the world and interacting with it's strange inhabitants. Driftmoon will give you a fair share of surprises and hopefully put a smile on your lips. There are numerous quests and side quests to solve (with various alternatives to go about solving them) and also some physics puzzles. You'll meet many different foes, which require different tactics, but you might be able to talk your way out of some situations, and battles are not a major timetaker in the game. Driftmoon is not a remake of anything you've played before, nor is it an actual retro game. Somes features of the game might slightly remind you of the Baldur's Gate-series (the dialogue system), as well as Dragon Age (battle system). Also the later parts of the Ultima series, and Divine Divinity have been brought up when people have compared Driftmoon to other games.

In-game screenshots

The screenshots are all straight from the game. Some are up close, some a bit further away, there's a possibility to zoom in&out while playing.













Credits
Driftmoon is made by our tiny indie game studio, Instant Kingdom. A bigger chunk of the work is by my husband, Ville Mönkkönen. He is the one doing all the coding, but I, Anne, get to be involved in almost everything else. We make a good team - especially when it comes to throwing around new ideas. We've also had the pleasure to work with a very talented composer, Gareth Meek (we recommend him to other developers as well!), and most of the portraits in the game are by our friend Johanna Sundström. We've also received a huge amount of valuable feedback and ideas from players, and our beta testers.

If you want to see more screenshots or read more on Driftmoon, head to our website. Should you want to try the Driftmoon demo, you can download it right here.

Ville and I'll gladly try and answer any questions you may have, so do leave us your comments, give us your suggestions, or ask away!

Gotta love the strange inhabitants :)

Well first thank you for taking the time to come here and give so much detailed information. I actually did purchase Driftmoon some time back when I heard about it. Ultima 7 is my favorite game of all time and Driftmoon looks somewhat reminiscent of it so I had to get it. :)

The one main criticism I would give is that given the top down view I really wish there were face portraits of the people you talk to and your PC. I never really noticed until I didn't have it, but seeing the faces really does help me connect with the characters in the world so I hope that you might add them at some future date.

And I'd love to try this game, since I have played Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn, as it's my childhood love. By its pics, it really reminds me of that game in gameplay-wise, not only the dialogue itself. :D

I hope you give us a demo or the already released Driftmoon to try. :D

Good luck.

Judging by this description and the trailer, Driftmoon sounds great as an indie RPG. Wish the team success on the project.
Anyway, in case of improving the future trailers, using a better music is necessary. The soundtrack of the current trailer wasn't very fitting.

Good to hear it's not just me and my motherly affections talking. ;)
…Hey - did you ever spot the skeletons at Eldar's tomb chatting with each other (you wont notice, if you play too fast)? And did you try Fizz and his/her almost boundless capability to answer you with a Fizz-like positive statement? :D

The demo is surely coming! We can't expect you to buy a game without trying the demo, just because we say it's a good investment. :) I'm hoping RPGWatch will post a newsbit when it's released, but you can of course sign up for our newsletter as well.

That is a good idea. Ville and I did discuss it at some point, and if we have the possibility, we'll get to it at a slightly later stage in the dev process. Ville is good with the paint brush, so it is only a question of dev time, if we'll be able to do it.

Thanks for the tip! We have a nice soundtrack by Gareth Meek, with lots of good pieces, so there are luckily quite a few options.

I remember the skeletons and was why I commented on the inhabitants :) Fizz though….I don't remember fizz. I played the beta a while ago maybe you added fizz in later or I just don't remember.

The beta slice you have isn't that long so I think I'll give it another whirl.

Oh and yes, we'll be covering the game.

As Skav said, we will be covering the game, but getting people talking about it in forums is an excellent way to let others know that it even exists. Keep posting here (and elsewhere) and you'll keep people interested!!

Thanks skavenhorde and Corwin! It's really nice to know RPGWatch will be covering the game. :) And thanks to everyone else for your comments!

Funny, I'm filled with almost a Fizz-like (see above) level of excitement about releasing our Alpha 6 build. I'm quite confident you'll like it. We'll try to work hard to get it finished soon(ish).

Welcome to rpgwatch btw! Nice to see more finns in this quality site. The game doesnt look bad either. I would best enjoy game like that on ipad (low system req).

Thanks for the message and the welcome zakhal! I gather from your message, that you come from our part of the globe. :) True, Driftmoon would probably be quite playable on something like an ipad. Ville has said porting Driftmoon to ipad is a real option if Driftmoon does well on the PC. Lets hope it does.

looks kinda interesting!

And I believe when you play it, you'll find it's more interesting than it looks. ;)

Here's one of the new screenshots that was just added in the database under Driftmoon. This is from the relatively large Monastery level (with a long and complex main quest), that will be opened to players in our next Alpha:


And a real treat, a COMPLETELY NEW screen I just captured from combat. The combat looks a tad different from what it's like in the fifth Alpha, because of our recent changes:

Nice looking screens. This is a great way to build interest.

I would agree if I could see them :P

I hate that frozen frog.

Awesome! Can't wait to try it out! ^^

Thanks everyone!

So doesn't imageshack work for you at all, or is it just temporary?
If it's a permanent problem I'll try to find the time to fix it. Would you happen to have any suggestions on a better image hosting site? I could link those pics that are in the RPGWatch database straight from there - that would help some. But in the case of completely new ones… I wouldn't wanna bother Dhruin or someone else about uploading new pictures in the database every other day.)

Well, while I'm at it, here's another screen, now linked directly from the Watch database. The man holding the torch on the right is Abbot Fern, whom you'll meet in the monastery. The large black panther is Queen Velvet. She'll accompany you - if you can persuade her to - but prepare yourself for a Royal Attitude. ;) This should be visible to everyone, I suspect:

Anne Monkkonen, try this www.photobucket.com . And you have PM. :)

that camera angle is just nasty.. change it