Tomes of Mephistopheles - First Alpha Released

Kot-in-Action has released the first Alpha version of their first-person dungeon crawler, Tomes of Mephistopheles. The patch notes can be found here and you can head to the official site to buy into the Alpha. A short sample from the changelog:

CHANGELOG 02/16/12:
Dungeons:
+ removed large open empty areas from dungeon and added several more architecturally stylized areas
+ greatly improved dungeon generation time
+ torches now only allow a gap between them of 2 pillars in most cases
Graphics:
+ added texture blending to dungeon floors
+ player blood now just spurts once, but harder so it's still visible (still not final)
+ added blur effects for damage, overall health condition with heartbeat rhythm and sounds
+ added death effects
AI:
+ added Trap Skeletons (watch out for suspicious piles of bones)
+ improved ai spawning pattern to not be completely random
+ ai now bounce on death
+ added sight and idle sounds for skeletons
+ ai now has a buffer space between them and their target where they play a creep anim or a walk anim

More information.

Definite purchase as soon as I can get the money together beyond that which I have written in stone for Desktop Dungeons beta and ADOM II: Legends of Ancardia Deluxe.

A bold move as something big on Roguelike sensibilities---games like this are the sort of thing that SHOULD have continued coming out steadily from all manner of developers all these years since Hexen and other nifty old takes on it beyond the Bethesda doings.

It seems interesting, to say the least.

I couldn't tell from the website but do they plan on having inventory and towns quests etc?

Yes, that would appear to be so according to a dev post on their forums, at least the town part and I'm just assuming inventory is a thing given the RPG/Roguelike trappings and reckon they just didn't get into it video-wise thus far as I think they've just got potions handled.

http://www.kot-in-action.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=21 Bottom pair of topics have some dev feedback on things that alludes to some of the seemingly immediate goals as it all shakes out.

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this. I've always wanted someone to make a 1st-person action-RPG roguelike with modern graphics (or to make one myself). The alpha footage shows a solid tech demo. I like the destructible environments. I might wait to see the gameplay fleshed out more before buying it though.

I just had a thought - I wonder if they've considered doing a Kickstarter campaign for this? It seems like the type of niche project that could do well with that. Kickstarter is in the news a lot lately so this could improve visibility.

They mention in their forums that if they don't reach a certain amount of sales in about a month or so they'd have to go to part-time development - maybe a Kickstarter campaign could help that along.

Dunno, Kickstarters are generally used by folks before you even have an Alpha available---though I guess there's nothing to say you couldn't and they are based out of Texas IIRC so the "international problem" wouldn't be a thing either. They'd have to come up with a slew of rewards and such though, as well as really stepping it up in terms of media samples and so on as it strikes me that a fair potion of the Kickstarters that do well outside of just striking the jackpot pretty much blitz it HARD on the media/ pomp and circumstance.

I agree it would take some extra work on their part - and I think they need to step up the media samples in general even if they don't do a Kickstarter. The website is a bit minimal aside from showing the alpha videos. These are good as a tech demo but I would like to see more stuff, like concept art for upcoming monsters, items and new environments, etc. Stuff that shows it will be a fully fleshed out game. This will make me more likely to buy into it.

Anyway, I'd think the extra work involved should be worth it for the prospect of continuing working on it full-time.

looks like quake with swords

Originally Posted by turian
looks like quake with swords

That might be the Darkplaces Engine at play, as I think that is what they are using again.

I found the silly blood fountains humorous, for some reason. I liked the fireball flame effects and dynamic lighting. Gameplay looks simplistic, but count me curious.

http://www.daemonforge.org/tom/changelog_full.txt <- keep watch here for updates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mS23S4LXJk