Like five years ago, I am giving aways some of the physical stuff I still have left from Gamescom visits. It is all related to games, but some of it has been gathering dust for some time and the T-shirts are because of this in need of some washing and ironing. None of it has been used though.

You can find the list of stuff here,

We will be doing a raffle for this and as always raffles come with their own set of rules, which for this one are the following:

• You can participate if you registered before the 25th of October 2021
• You need to reply to this post by stating which items you would like to win in the order of priority (if there is a priority for you). It is also fine to state you are happy with anything
• You can win only one item
• Nobody (except me) is excluded from participating, so even team members and moderators can participate. As long as the above rules are taken into account

As it is a raffle there are also tickets available. As we want to reward those who have been here for a long time and are active a lot, you are awarded a number of tickets based on de following:

• Everyone who registered before the 25th of October gets one ticket
• For every full year you are a member of RPGWatch, you get an additional ticket. This means if you registered in October 2006, you will receive an additional 14 tickets
• For every 1000 posts you will receive an additional ticket.

At the end of this event, all tickets with the name of the ticket owner are thrown in a virtual hat and a ticket is taken from that hat. I then look at the list (if any) the person has posted and take the first item on the list that is still available. If there is no list, I just randomly select something. This could eventually result in drawing a winner who has a list with items that are already given away. That's too bad, but can't be helped. it just means that the rest with less restrictive lists have a better  chance of winning something.

This event will run for one week, so will end somewhere on the 1st of November 2021.

Good luck.

P.S. To scroll through a large version of the images, use this link. Do note that this also has images from the previous giveaway, so look at the date. Only images from October 2021 are related to this giveaway.

The RPGWatch is 15 years old these days! The successor of RPGDot started in October 2006 and here's Myrthos' story of the beginning.

In the comments please tell us:

• Why do you visit the Watch?
• What is your favourite thread?
• Who do you miss?
• What's your favourite RPG?
• ...

Myrthos: Here is some of my history with RPGDot and the start of RPGWatch.

Next to running RPGDot, Rendelius was also running a hosting service on BlinkingDot, where people could get their site hosted for free, by placing some ads on their site. At the time I was operating The Locus Inn, which was focusing on Infinity Engine games (some more and some less in detail). This was the year 2000.

I'm not sure when exactly, but at some point in 2000, Rendelius was looking for people to post news for RPGDot and I applied for that position, finding myself posting news after that. I don't even recall what we used for that, but it wasn't that great, so in 2001, a guy named Stijn, Garrett and me worked on creating a new design from scratch creating our own CMS. This first version was written in PHP, but had the layout embedded in the PHP files. This actually meant that we only had one design and it would be really problematic to make design changes to it, but it was working.

The year after that I redesigned the whole thing and separated the controller part from the view part. This allowed us to create different skins, which we used a lot for the hosted sites we had, of which there were plenty. Any game of some substance had its own hosted site at RPGDot. The best known ones were the Gothic and Arx Fatalis sites. Next to that we also had a site dedicated to adventures and a site dedicated to MMORPGs. Most of these sites also had at least one person posting news and articles for that site, but news posted on RPGDot would also be automatically visible on hosted sites when it was applicable for them. So some sites only functioned as a filter of news and articles, similar to our current indie site. In any case this kept us going until 2006.

The RPGDot forums were a place that was reasonably well visited and at some time we decided that it would be a good idea to create user groups and provide those groups a space on the forums that was only visible to the members of that group. Several groups were founded, with the biggest group being the Non-flamer's Guild. These groups were one of the two main reasons that the RPGDot forums became a somewhat desolated place. What happened was that people spent more time in their dedicated group forums than they did in the rest of the forum. Some people only spent time in their group forum. This drove the number of public visible posts down.

The second reason was the moderation policy. We had quite a strict policy, even more strict than what we have now, which resulted in bans, warnings and other moderation actions that drove the number of public posts even further down. The end result was that it didn't take too long to check out the new (public available) posts for a day.

Rendelius paid the server fees and tried to earn some money by selling adverts. I don't know how well that worked, but at some point in time Jolt came into the picture. They were most interested in the MMO side of the RPGDot sites as that fitted in their business model. I don't know how much money Rendelius made of selling it to Jolt, I hope for him it was plenty, but somewhere in the first half of 2005 a deal was made. I think his biggest motivation in selling the site was that he wanted to pursue other things than running an RPG site and Jolt was willing to pay him for doing that.

Jolt wanted to make some real money of the sites and a few months later the design had changed in such a way that there were several ads on each page, but especially on the front pages of RPGDot and all the hosted sites. It slowed things down, but it also became annoying to navigate and work with, in my opinion.

So somewhere in the first half of 2006, I decided that it was time to move on and start a new site. I asked around in the team and everybody in the team wanted to move with me to that new site.

Even though the source code and designs of RPGDot were not part of the deal that was struck with Rendelius and Jolt, I decided to start from scratch again to create a new site from the ground up. Arhu took up the responsibility of designing the lay-out of the site and together we created what you see now. I don't exactly recall how we got to the name RPGWatch, but I think it was a combination of interesting names and available domain names.

Arhu and I worked on the site throughout the summer until we reached a point where we felt that we could go public in the near future. At that point I informed Jolt about the decision that I would leave RPGDot and move to a new site and that it looked like all team members would move as well. As we were all volunteers, there was not much they could do about that, but they did ask me to make sure news posts were added to RPGDot until they gathered a new team. So I implemented a way to transfer the RPGWatch news postings to RPGDot and make them visible there as well.

On the 17th of October we launched the new site, starting with a first news posting by Dhruin. In the meantime I already filled the site with the news posts of the previous months that were until that time only visible on RPGDot.

I don't recall that there was a filter implemented on the RPGDot forums that prevented to use the word RPGWatch, but we felt it was not in the interest of RPGDot to publicly advocate there was a new site named RPGWatch, where almost the whole team moved to.

Some time after that there were two new persons working on RPGDot and I severed the last tie, which was the news syndication from RPGWatch to RPGDot. After that Jolt found out, that it is really hard to find a dedicated team that would be willing to post news on a regular basis. I belief they also had issues in keeping volunteers working for RPGDot. The place never recovered from us leaving, which in the meantime also included many of the active forum forum members.

And 10 years later we are here. We are probably in need of a new design, but neither Arhu, nor I have time available to accomplish this anytime soon, so you still have to look at this design for a while.

[...]

Volga Studios tweeted a small update on animations.

The Emperor's Own | 3D Scanning Studio

loading...

Hello, everyone! We've heard your responses about the animations in the demo and are working hard to improve them. Today, we will show you how. We set up our own 3D scanning studio to scan facial expressions and emotions on real people. It’s made of more than 20 synchronized cameras, that simultaneously take pictures from different angles. Those pictures then go to our 3D artists and are converted to 3D animations. However, a picture (or a video) is worth a thousand words.

As announced last week, the next update for Gamedec adds a timed-limited event for Halloween, along with improvements and bug fixes.

HALLOWEEN IN WARSAW CITY - TIME LIMITED EVENT

BOO!

Are you not scared? Visit Warsaw City to join the spooky season festive.
We've prepared pumpkins, treats, or tricks, depending on what you choose when some little ghosts with child voices knock you at the door.

As a game detective, who has seen and lived through a lot, it may not be easy to scare you, but we've done our best to send shivers down your spine.

[...]

In the patch series, ATOM RPG: Trudograd received an update on Steam, GOG should get it shortly. No pumpkins announced in the log.

Patch 1.032

Hello, friends!

We are happy to announce that this update added two new translations to the game: Spanish and Traditional Chinese.

In addition, we corrected a number of typos and item names. Thank you very much for helping us find these issues in the game!

Naturally, we have also fixed several important bugs:

• Fixed the unique TT pistol class in Ivan Doe’s chest;
• When moving incomplete stacks of loot, the current weight does not change for the character and companions;
• Fixed incorrect AP numbers which previously displayed in descriptions in the modification window;
• Lockpicking the door no longer breaks the logic of Kondrashkin's quest;
• Fixed a bug in the attic that did not generate opponents when choosing the combat option via the vignette;
• Fixed the logic in the Dandelion quest when completing the quest with the help of Ruta;
• Fixed the disappearance of Arashi on the cargo ship;
• Fixed a bug in a random encounter with mercenaries;
• Fixed a bug with the box with the GP-25 at the underground training facility;
• Fixed a bug in the Big Cave caused by saving after destroying the wall;
• Fixed the behavior of Laptev the Musician.

SplatterCatGaming checked out Sands of Aura:

Sands of Aura - Open World Endless Desert RPG

loading...

Sands of Aura gameplay with Splat! Let's Play Sands of Aura and check out a game where you'll sail the sandy seas in a sandship while trying not to get cut into chunks by the ravenous hordes of thirsty critters.

Dark Crystal Games uploaded a little post-release update about voice acting in Encased. The video gives a few glimpses of some famous locations in early builds.

Development update #15: Voices under the Dome

loading...

Vagrus receives a new patch, 10 days after the last one as usual ;)

A New Build is OUT - Patch 1.012. - Codename: Settled

This patch brings bug fixes, tweaks, and improvements

Hey everyone,

A new week, a new patch! We keep tweaking things and adding smaller stuff for now while fixing bugs. Some are tougher than others, of course, so bear with us. Most of the fixes and tweaks were made possible due to a passionate and active player base - we can't thank you enough!

Important Note: Considering the extent of these improvements there is little to no chance that we broke nothing in the process. Assume that we did not want to make anyone's life harder. If you see something amiss, please flag it to us using the usual channels, like the inbuild reporting tool (F1 button), forums, and our Discord server. [...]

PCGamesN reports on a studio purchase by CD Projekt RED of The Molasses Flood who are ex-Bioshock people.

In a statement today, The Molasses Flood announced that it was joining CD Projekt. Buying an indie studio is an unprecedented move for the studio behind The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, which normally builds all of its projects in-house – from its biggest titles to smaller games like 

The statement and accompanying tweet also confirmed that this meant the formerly-indie studio is building “a completely new game in the universe of an existing CD Projekt IP” – meaning The Witcher and Cyberpunk. Beyond that, the statement doesn’t reveal much more, other than The Molasses Flood would continue to make “games with heart built on rich gameplay systems”.

[...]

A new version (1.16) of Battle for Wesnoth has been released.

loading...

October 2021. The development team is proud to present version 1.16 of The Battle for Wesnoth!

This release features a variety of improvements to many areas of the game including many improved campaigns, a fully re-balanced Dunefolk faction, new portraits and units, upgrades to the AI, a variety of new features for add-on authors, many many bugs fixed, and much more besides. Try the new features for yourself, or take a look below for more details.

For Players

Players will be automatically upgraded to a new stable series for the first time since Wesnoth was released due to our use of more modern distribution platforms such as Steam, itch.io, Flathub, and others. To support this, an option will be shown the first time 1.16.0 is started after being upgraded from 1.14.17. This will provide the option to migrate settings as well as download the 1.16 version of any add-ons that are installed, if they have been updated to work with 1.16. To go along with that, Wesnoth is now able to select save files from previous versions from within the game itself.

Addressing a long-standing pain point, especially for players with low download speeds and/or data limits, updating add-ons will no longer result in the entire add-on being re-downloaded — instead only the files that have actually changed will be downloaded, which will significantly reduce both the time it takes to update add-ons as well as how much data is used when updating. Additionally, any version of an add-on that has been recently uploaded by the author can be selected for download, thus allowing for downgrading an add-on if needed for any reason.

Many aspects of the AI have seen improvements as well, with much of the experimental AI having been merged into the default AI. This allows it to better handle healers, poison, retreating, and other behaviour.

Finally, the entire Dunefolk faction has been reworked and re-balanced, including a re-imagining of the unit lines, new unit descriptions and sprites, and reworking of the liminal alignment. They should now be much closer to the factions in the Default era in terms of overall strength as well as be more interesting to play.

[...]

Ocean Drive Studio released a development update of Lost Eidolons.

Lost Eidolons | October 2021 Dev Update

October development update with ODS Creative Director of Lost Eidolons, Jin Sang. This month's features shows new UI improvements, new art, and support for the new player learning experience.

loading...

Chapters:

• 00:00 - All highlights overview!
• 00:49 - On the topic of cutscenes!
• 02:27 - A new fearsome creature...
• 04:45 - Campaign progress storytelling?
• 05:44 - Forecast UI aesthetic improvement!
• 07:17 - 3D character renders!
• 08:04 - Dangerous ground traps...
• 08:47 - Night camp lighting improvements!
• 09:18 - Cutscene improvements!
• 10:14 - New UI concepts (almost there)!
• 15:14 - Combat Music #6
• 16:17 - Camp Music #6
• 17:20 - Discussing some specific feedback items!
• 20:10 - Outro

@Xian spotted the 25th anniversary of Tomb Raider, as reported by Eurogamer and VGC (quoting the latter below since I have a problem accessing the former).

Tomb Raider is 25-years-old today

LARA CROFT MADE HER DEBUT ON OCTOBER 25, 1996; SQUARE ENIX SAYS NEXT ENTRY WILL UNIFY TIMELINES

Although the adventures of Lara Croft didn’t begin on PlayStation or PC (the formats she was most commonly associated with) until mid-November, it was October 25, 1996 when she first set foot on gaming soil.

On that date, the first Tomb Raider was released on the Sega Saturn in Europe, roughly a month before it came to other formats and regions.

The classic action adventure game had Lara travelling to Peru, Greece, Egypt and Atlantis in search of an ancient artefact called the Scion.

Reaction to Tomb Raider was extremely positive at the time, mainly thanks to its genre-defining gameplay and its impressive polygonal visuals.

The real star, however, was Lara, who was an all-guns blazing hero in an era where female protagonists were few and far between.

Lara became a gaming icon almost overnight, appearing on the covers of non-gaming magazines and appearing in sponsorship deals for products like energy drink Lucozade.

The success of Tomb Raider led to an inevitable slew of sequels, the first few of which were similarly well-received. The likes of Tomb Raider II, Tomb Raider III and Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation were praised for continuing to push the technology of the time while adding to Lara’s lore. [...]

Thanks! :)

Owlcat Games launched a giveaway event. If you have Twitter, just retweet and follow them to be part of the draw.

Today is October 25, which means that Halloween is almost upon us... And we are opening this week with a #Giveaway!  RETWEET & FOLLOW us for your chance to win one of the listed rewards! Five winners will be selected randomly on our regular Friday stream on 29 Oct!

Game Wisdom hosted a stream where the legacy and future of Star Control was discussed by the series creators Fred Ford and Paul Richie. The video starts at the 3:40 mark.

loading...

The survival game This Land Is My Land has been released:

This Land Is My Land | Gameplay Trailer

loading...

Experience the frontier as a chief of a Native American tribe and resist the onset of the settlers. Explore the vast world full of hostile humans and animals while defining your narrative through the decisions you make.

Screenrant checked out the strategy RPG Disciples: Liberation:

Disciples: Liberation Review - A Clever Story & Gameplay To Match

Disciples: Liberation marks a triumphant return for a classic Strategy RPG series by joining a witty story with engaging, deep gameplay.

Disciples: Liberation, developed by Frima Studios and published by Kalypso, is a dark fantasy strategy RPG with an expansive story and detailed combat. Following the adventures of a mercenary turned ruler of an ancient city, Avyanna, Disciples: Liberation takes players across the world of Nevendaar with a fascinating mix of narrative roleplaying, base building, and tactical grid based combat. What might sound like an overcrowded game is actually a marvel of concise, digestible pieces of what makes each genre entertaining, with enough depth to justify the 80 hour playtime.

[...]

The bottom line is that Disciples: Liberation is a fantastic experience. From the engaging story to the deep but approachable Strategy RPG combat, this is the type of game to suck players in until the wee hours of the morning. There aren't many games like Disciples: Liberation on the market these days, especially when the old champion, Might and Magic, has become an autobattler. Disciples: Liberation a welcome breath of fresh air that delivers hope for the future of the Strategy RPG genre.

Score: 4/5

Mortismal Gaming reviews Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning - Review After 100%

loading...

Grinding Gear Games posted an update about the launch of Scourge. Another update revealed the Atlantis Mystery Box, a series of cosmetic effects obtainable through microtransaction.

How Scourge's Launch Went

Over the weekend, we launched Path of Exile: Scourge and were thrilled by the number of people who joined us for launch day. In fact, we reached 254,570 peak player concurrency which is 96% of our previous highest record!

The actual deployment was fairly smooth. We had one issue in the first hour where our regional routers were crashing occasionally when routing chat packets containing linked items. Each of these crashes would disconnect about 10% of players. We temporarily disabled chat, which mitigated the issue, and were then able to restore chat functionality without item linking.

Item linking functionality will be restored in our next realm-restart patch, which also fixes another problem that is causing rarer partial-realm crashes (one so far). If all goes well, we expect to deploy this today at around 10pm PDT.

[...]

According to Wccf Tech, new community mods add support for nVidia DLSS 2.3.2 in Cyberpunk 2077, improving performance but often showing artefacts.

Cyberpunk 2077 New Mods Introduce Unofficial NVIDIA DLSS 2.3.2 Support, New Street Kid Themed Apartments

New Cyberpunk 2077 mods that have been released online introduce unofficial NVIDIA DLSS 2.3.2 support as well as three new great-looking apartments for V.

The DLSS 2.3.2 Update mod introduces support for the latest version of NVIDIA's technology by lifting it straight from NVIDIA's SDK. According to reports, the new version brings decent performance improvements, especially on mid-range systems, although many are also reporting some noticeable ghosting issues. You can download this mod by heading over Nexus Mods.

Some new videos for hack 'n' slash game Leshy.

loading...

We are happy to announce our game - Leshy - third person hack'n'slash where you take the role of a Slavic demon, the guardian of the forest.

loading...

Keep in mind that this is an early gameplay footage. The final version may differ from the depicted one.

Thanks Farflame!

Knight by Night posted a new update, in which they announce the launch of the Kickstarter this week. The game update balances the weapons and brings some QoL improvements.

THE SEEKERS UPDATE PART #3 (KICKSTARTER ANNOUNCEMENT)

In this update multiple weapons have been rebalanced, as well as other quality of life improvements.

Hey, Death Bringers. In this new update players will see the following improvements to the game.

• Hyper Armor has been added to Great Hammer attacks to improve viability.
• Twin Blade and Twin dagger have had their air attack changed to be more effective.
• Vampire Boss Changes to prepare for future changes once new voice actor is acquired.
• New Dialogue Paths for certain NPCS
• Further weapon trail improvements

And much more. Also I am happy to announce the game has officially reached the threshold state for us to head to Kickstarter. I believe that a project should only seek crowdfunding if they know they are at a turning point in their projects development or at least have enough to show for the games core loop. In this case, FADE has delivered on multiple features I planned to have added to the game and is now ready to approach Crowdfunding so we can get these three necessary things added to the game.

• Fully Voice acted Dialogue Trees.
• New Character Models for future enemies appearing in the coming update.
• A Character Creation/Customization System similar to MetaHumans.

loading...

[...]

Owlcat Games hosted a stream to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and discuss various topics on the Pathfinder theme - including the possibility of a third game by Owlcat Games. Paizo guests are James Jacob (Creative Director) and Mark Moreland (Director of Brand Strategy), and Owlcat Games is represented by Alex, Yuliya and Lisa.

Dev Stream with Paizo

loading...

Special stream for Kingmaker Anniversary and Wrath of the Righteous release! Our Guests: James Jacobs (Creative Director) and Mark Moreland (Director of Brand Strategy) from Paizo.

(stream starts at 4:22)

Thanks @purpleblob1! :)

Two updates to catch up with Everspace 2: general news related to the project and the experimental build released 2 days ago, and the next preview episode on its new content (quoted below).

VOD: New Khaït Nebula Location Preview | Fresh Concept Art | Experimental Drop

Hey there, pilots!

The VOD of yesterday's Khaït Nebula gameplay preview is up. Ace pilot and beloved Community Ambassador Erik Schrader showed fresh concept art of the new Redeemers faction as well as a brand-new location in the new star system, featuring new types of Ancient puzzles and more:

loading...

TL;DW: Here are the Khaït Nebula: Stranger Skies update experimental release.

Sovereign Syndicate has a new dev update.

Sovereign Syndicate Development Update October 2021

Hi Everyone!

It’s been a little over two months since our last development update, wanted to share some of what we’ve been working on.

We continue to be surprised and humbled by the positive response from media and the gaming community. We had an article in PC Gamer that gave us exposure with thousands of gamers, many of whom added Sovereign Syndicate to their wishlists and joined our Discord community. It was great for the game and the community, but also felt really special to have an article in a major publication that I grew up reading and have been a fan of for years.

We’ve also been in talks with several publishers who have shown interest in helping bring Sovereign Syndicate to market. While we haven’t secured a publishing deal yet we’ve received some great feedback that’s helped guide our development efforts and we look forward to continuing the conversations.

We’ve also added some new folks to the development team focused on game design, interactive design, and animation. They’ll help us to better define our tarot card and skill mechanics, improve narrative and quest design, and develop more custom animations to supplement the mixamo animations we’ve been using during initial prototyping. I look forward to working with the team to continue improving the game with the goal of completing a vertical slice demo and having it up on Steam for you all to play by the new year.

Since the last update here are some improvements we’ve made:

New Content:

• Added two additional scenes, working on interactables, NPC’s and dialogue for these “levels”
• Additional original music and sound design

[...]

The Early Access version of the action RPG Sands of Aura is now available:

 Sands of Aura - Early Access Launch Trailer

loading...

The Choose Your Own Adventure-RPG Mother of All Secrets has been announced for 2022:

Mother of All Secrets

Mother of All Secrets is an RPG full of occult mysteries, investigations, and intrigue. Become a young ward at an old and remote orphanage. Live your new life for fourteen days as the enigmatic masters of the House prepare you and your mates for the impending visit of the mysterious Guest.

The House's walls conceal a small world of stories, plans, and conspiracies. Every hour is fateful here. Decide where to go, what events to participate in, which goals to pursue, and who you should influence. Will you be ready to learn the ultimate truth on the last night of your stay at the House?

A Living Breathing House
Become a part of the close-knit community of the orphanage. Other wards, your teachers, caretakers, and even the family of House owners — behind every living soul, there are goals, plans, and desires. With every hour, individual plots progress, secrets unfold, and choices are made that alter the House forever.

Your Own Story
Create your own character and live out a unique story — only you decide how to spend each and every hour. Go about uncovering the asylum's secrets however you like. Make friends or enemies at your own discretion. Explore the darkest and most dangerous corners of the House. Unravel other people's schemes and draw up your own plans. Obey or risk breaking the cryptic rules that govern the orphanage and face the consequences. What will you do with your freedom of choice?

High Stakes
Perform actions in every scene by playing cards. These cards determine your character's skills, items, and even relationships. Different cards allow you to influence others, gain an upper hand during encounters, apply the knowledge and traits you have acquired, or push the narrative towards the desired outcome. Remember that other characters possess their own set of cards which they can play against you! Study the abilities and intentions of others before reshuffling their decks and transforming their personalities. How will you play your hand?

Thanks Yemeth!

@DSOGaming In some not surprising news the next gen update for The Witcher 3 has been delayed until Q2 2022.

From what we know, The Witcher 3 Next-Gen will feature a range of visual and technical improvements — including ray tracing and faster loading times. These improvements will be present across the base game, both expansions, and all extra content. Furthermore, modder ‘Halk Hogan‘ will be contributing to this new version of The Witcher 3.

Spire of Sorcery is available in Steam Early Access and is described as a turn-based party RPG where you use spellcasting, alchemy and a bit of equipment to explore a world full of dangerous encounters.

loading...

Spire of Sorcery as a turn-based party RPG where you use spellcasting, alchemy and a bit of equipment to explore the world full of dangerous encounters. Engage with creatures from the realms of life, death and chaos to help the sentient citadel mend the broken world!

• Explore the original world of Rund to discover creatures, resources and recipes
• Cast spells, including combos, to affect opponents and trigger environmental effects
• Concoct substances that range from curative to explosive
• Prevail in encounters by combining the effects of spellscasting, alchemy & equipment
• Manage your party, considering mood and personal traits of its members
• Find new party members and increase their stats to reach their true potential
• Taste any resource that you find to modify the looks of your party members
• Collect resources to cook food that may taste great (or horrible)
• Expand the Spire with new rooms that offer new mechanics
• Break into ancient barrows, dispel cursed weepers & battle infection-ridden gigglers
• Resolve mini-stories that pose moral choices, affecting the mood of your party

The world is larger than just one play-through and every challenge has alternative solutions. Try and succeed – or adjust and replay!

THE WORLD

On the western cost of Rund stretches the Empire, the last known shard of human civilisation. The Emperor controls the lords, and the lords exploit the rest of the population that is already hardened by the unfriendly nature. To the east of the Empire, across the Great River, begin the Wild Lands. Once civilised, they are now home to predators, ghosts and demons. Further to the south-east lie the lands of the non-human tribes: Dismal Marshes, Elderwood, Blue Mountains, Deceiving Plains... all ripe with resources. And further yet are the Distorted Lands: the source of Chaos, and a cause of growing concern among the non-humans.

THE MAGES

Occasionally, a person with the magic talent is born on Rund. This invisible power is feared by the established order of the Empire, for little is known about the potential of a trained mage. The Inquisition, a force of its own that reports to no state official, roams the cities and villages, sniffing out the use of magic that they label as corruption. Packed into the Sanctuaries for the Corrupted, under the watchful eye the suspected mages are made to work for the good of the Empire. The general population supports the policy – for magic is an unknown, and on Rund, you avoid dealing with the unknown.

THE SPIRE

Deep in the Wild Lands, at the feet of the Blue Mountains, rests the Spire of Sorcery: a sentient citadel that spent centuries in slumber. Maybe it was a place of sacrifice, maybe it was a moving castle, maybe both. It's a dark legend from the past, just like the Rusted Forest and the Sea of Bones. Yet one day, the Spire awakens – threatened by the Distorted Lands that begin to encroach on their surroundings, as well as by the amassing of imperial legions intent on marching east to plunder the settlements of the non-humans. Fresh from its slumber, the Spire sends a Call that reverberates across Rund, reaching the mages that are confined by the Inquisition. Among the mages who answer the call and attempt to escape, three manage to cross the Big River, and here the story of the Spire of Sorcery really begins...

Henriquejr spotted two Gloomhaven reviews:

Rock Paper Shotgun:

Gripes aside, I love Digihaven for everything it does, and I love it even more because of how accessible and simple it makes such a magical tabletop experience. It’s not just a great tactics game in its own right, but a gateway to introduce the Monopoly-scarred to how nifty, gratifying, and ambitious the best digital board games have become over the last several years. Gloomhaven? Massive bloody grin-haven, more like.

The Gamer:

Gloomhaven is a solid version of the classic tabletop experience that offers turn-based combat, unique classes and abilities, and detailed quests. 

Score: 4/5

VGC spotted that the remastered Definitive Edition of the game trilogy was to be released on November 11th.

Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition remasters will launch digitally on November 11, 2021.

The release date was revealed via developer Rockstar’s online marketplace, where the game is now available to pre-order for $59.99 / £54.99, ahead of an official announcement expected imminently.

The game is also set for a physical release on selected platforms in December, according to the store listings, although the specifics are a little unclear as the website may still be in the process of being updated.

UPDATE: Rockstar has officially announced release plans for the collection, which has been adapted to modern platforms by Grove Street Games using Unreal Engine. [...]

loading...

As promised, Encased has something coming for this period of Halloween!

Halloween under the Dome!

Employees: the Dome is once again in danger and it is far more terrifying than any anomaly. On 28 October, the dead will rise from their graves and hunt the living.

Fight the undead and gain cursed seeds for your victories. You can exchange these for a valuable artifact or useful equipment from a new merchant.

Survivors will receive a unique pumpkin helmet; it can be upgraded up to three levels, using the seeds of the dead and other resources.

To get some of the valuable prizes, you will have to meet the Halloween Merchant who is waiting for you in the heart of New Committee City. She sells not only the usual first aid kits and anti-radiation drugs, but also a new valuable artifact available for purchase only in exchange for cursed seeds.

By the way, the merchant will remain in the world under the Dome even after the Halloween event ends, so if you forget to sell the seeds before the end of the event, fear not. However, the skeletons WILL disappear from the game and you so will not be able to get new seeds once the event ends.

Also, to celebrate Halloween, we'll stream via Steam, showing off new content and trying to answer the most interesting questions. Stream will be held at 19:00 CEST on 28 October. See you there!

lionheartx10 checked out Gloomhaven:

TACTICAL RPG DIGITAL BOARDGAME ADVENTURE! Gloomhaven First Look Gameplay

loading...

Thanks to Asmodee Digital for Sponsoring This Video! When Boardgames come to Life! After 2 Years of Early Access, Gloomhaven has reached its full released! Based on the Epic Boardgame of the same name, Gloomhaven is a Tactical Turn-Based RPG Adventure, available for adventuring Solo, or Via Online Coop!

The Iron Gate team has a new developer update.

Development Blog October: Moving Forwards After Hearth & Home

[...] Releasing Hearth & Home was a big milestone for us as it was our first big update, and it feels really nice to have finally gotten to share that with you. There are always more bug fixes and balance adjustments that can (and will) be made, but we have also begun looking at things for future updates, this time focusing more on adventure and exploration than on building.

Those of you who follow Richard on Twitter might have noticed that he’s experimenting with the terrain and textures for the Mistlands, which will be our next big biome update! However, please keep in mind that this is not a final version, and that the landscape will likely change quite a bit before we figure out just exactly what the Mistlands will look like. It’s also still too early to say what the implementation of the Mistlands will mean for your existing worlds, but we will keep you updated once we know more. [...]

RPG Fan posted an article on the characteristics that made great RPG dungeons.

Dungeon Crawlers #1: What Makes a Great RPG Dungeon?

I don’t know about you fine folks, but the RPGs I grew up with were chock full of dungeons to explore — whether they were caves filled to the brim with bats and other nasty critters or traditional elemental dungeons (think lava caves, water temples, and dark forests) filled with traps and puzzles. Dungeon navigation has always been one of my favorite aspects of any good RPG.

That said, most RPGs I’ve played over the past several years featured mediocre dungeons that left me questioning what makes a good RPG dungeon. This thought experiment led to what you are reading now, the first in what I am hoping will be a series about what goes into making great dungeons. This first feature covers the elements that one might consider when thinking of dungeon design. Subsequent entries may take a closer look at series-specific dungeons, concepts, or other aspects of dungeon design.

Without further delay, let’s get to crawlin’!

[...]

Mortismal Gaming shares his 5 top encounters in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. The video contains spoilers, obviously.

Pathfinder: WotR - Top 5 Memorable Encounters

loading...

Taking about my personal most memorable encounters from Pathfinder: WotR