A new trailer has been released for the zombie action/RPG I Shall Remain showing off the current state of the game. Here's the accompanying blurb from Youtube:

New trailer for June 2012! Reveals many of the improvements the game has made since the prologue and hints about the game's story. It features voice work for the John Carney character by Michael Rosenblum and music "When Angels met Me" from the Atmostra soundtrack by Zdravko Djordjević and Johnathan Ochmann.

...and the video itself:

I Shall Remain, the zombie RPG we've tracked for a bit, has released a free "prologue", which seems to be another term for demo/tutorial. The nearly 1Gb file is available from IndieDB and here's the press release:

I Shall Remain (ISR) PC Game has been released!

I Shall Remain is a top-down view zombie survival RPG that forces you to use teamwork and make leadership decisions in order to survive. Features include sandbox style maps to freely navigate, a complex RPG system with many different ways to complete the game and impressive graphics, storytelling and sound.

The game will be released in parts, each building on the previous release. This first release is the prologue to the game, and is a free download on Desura. The game is the debut game production of Jacob Way, who has been producing this game for over a year now during his off duty hours in the Marines.

For more information, please visit the game's Desura page at http://www.desura.com/games/i-shall-remain or its website at www.ishallremain.com

Jacob Way, the Producer of the Zombie Survival RPG, I Shall Remain, talks about how to kickstart a creative project using crowdfunding based on their recent experiences:

Kickstarter had a relatively high sucess rate that was very attractive. We believed it could one, help fund our game's development, and two help spread the message. Our game, I Shall Remain- just had a rough time on Kickstarter. At first it did great. In the first ten days we raised almost $1300.00 dollars for it. Then the pledges ended and never came back. Our Kickstarter page ultimately did not bring in enough money to reach our $12,000.00 goal. It wasn't all for nothing though. We learned a lot about marketing and we hope by sharing this knowledge we can help others be sucessful.

So, why did we end up with a flop?

Read it here.

Jacob Way has uploaded a new gameplay video for I Shall Remain. Enjoy:

Jacob Way, Producer for I Shall Remain talks about several ideas that popped up during production of the game and the need to prioritise them in the light of development resources:

Some more ideas that were to be or not to be:

Drivable vehicles in the game demo → not to be due to time constraints. Though they will be there for players in the full game.

An incredibly complex single player story → we turned this down in favor of free roam with a series of 'story' missions. This in the end will free up man hours for the multi player platform.

Zombie virus travels in clouds, after zombies are killed the remaining virus particles lifts up into the air and flies away to an unknown location. → (shh!! ) This one's on the back burner. You might notice the zombie bodies disappearing into a black cloud in the demo. Now you will know what this is.

Read it all here.

Jake writes in to introduce his project I Shall Remain, an indie "zombie survival RPG" currently in production. No doubt the subject will instantly draw comparisons with Dead State but this is a more combat-oriented experience based in a freely explorable city. Looking at the screens (which look quite nice), there seems to be a fully developed stat and skill system, although Jake acknowledges combat is central.

The official site is here and they have a Kickstarter page here to encourage funding - although the development is well underway, so this isn't one of those pipe-dream projects.

Here's the feature list:

• A huge city to freely navigate. Hundreds of objects to interact with.
• Recruit, equip and maintain men and to fight with you.
• Use vehicles to navigate through the zombie crowds.
• A compelling story of a young Marine written by Jacob Way.
• Astounding visual art, sound effects and music.
• Designed by a team that is dedicated to the game's  players and their ideas.

You'll find some videos and screens here and I'll embed one five minute video: