• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Iron Tower (Age of Decadence) announces their next game: Dungeon Rats (Tactical RPG)

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
http://steamcommunity.com/games/aod/announcements/detail/975416562635551870

ITS said:
Dungeon Rats, named after the 7th Heavy Armored Division of the Imperial Guards, is a turn-based, party-based dungeon crawler set in the same world as Age of Decadence. This is an RPG focused almost exclusively on squad level tactical combat for players who enjoy turn-based games in general, and AoD's combat systems in particular. If fighting your way out of a prison mine - and frequently dying in the attempt - is your idea of a good time, you've come to the right place.

Starting out as a new prisoner at the bottom of the gangs-ruled prison hierarchy, and of the prison itself, you must fight to survive and develop your combat skills, acquiring better weapons and equipment as you go. Recruit allies to your struggle or carry on as a lone wolf, and kill anyone foolish enough to stand in your way.

Notable changes from The Age of Decadence:

  • Party-based - the most frequently requested feature
  • Flanking and other strategic bonuses. Positioning matters a lot.
  • Manual placement of your characters before a fight
  • Charisma determines the number and quality of your party members
  • Skill points are split between the party members: more people means fewer skills points per person and slower level ups.
  • 10 possible companions, not all of them human (maximum party size is 4).
  • New weapons, armor, and creatures
  • 3 difficulty levels: Nice Guy, Tough Bastard, Murderous Psychopath

linkfilter


linkfilter


linkfilter


linkfilter


linkfilter


linkfilter


linkfilter

Age of Decadence, for all the praise it gets for having great writing and a lot of incredibly in depth non combat options, had a really deep well fleshed out combat system. This should be excellent.

EDIT:

Release date - Nov 4, 2016. Here is a trailer:

https://youtu.be/xsu0EnKH_Zw
 

aravuus

Member
Looks like they're using the same engine, for better or for worse.

The combat in AoD was pretty enjoyable though, so I'll definitely check this out.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Looks like they're using the same engine, for better or for worse.

Yea this is a smaller scope game using a lot of AoD's assets to help keep the lights on while they work on their much larger scope sci-fi colony ship RPG.
 
Have a hard time imagining this will wind up anything other than great all things considered---especially considering the foundations being flexible enough to support solo runs as well.

If they can be on the ball with post release support, this definitely has the potential to be a nice hit to carry them forward to their much larger scope project(s) that still have quite awhile to cook.
 

Arulan

Member
I'll gladly check this out when it's released. I really appreciate the design goals Iron Tower Studios is going for in their games, and The Age of Decadence proved they could accomplish it. I'm very excited for their Colony Ship RPG too.

Also, Murderous Psychopath sounds great. ;)
 

Vince (ITS)

Neo Member
The combat in AoD is very underrated. Maybe because the excitement over the non-combat paths through the game allowed most players to ignore it?

I'm so ready to dig my way out of a megadungeon with that style of combat. I wonder if trash mobs will pop up as a means of depleting your resources, or if each encounter is still going to be the brutal, every single decision counts style of AoD?
No trash mobs or grinding. Each encounter is hand-scripted, so it will be very challenging on Hard (there are 3 difficulty levels affecting the enemies' THC, so on Easy your Dodge or Block skills will be much more effective, ensuring that you last longer).
 
No trash mobs or grinding. Each encounter is hand-scripted, so it will be very challenging on Hard (there are 3 difficulty levels affecting the enemies' THC, so on Easy your Dodge or Block skills will be much more effective, ensuring that you last longer).

It will be very interesting to see just how many viable approaches can be squeezed out of a hard mode solo run given how the systems are aligned and interact.
 

Carcetti

Member
*sigh*

Larian and Obsidian doesn't do this junk.

My most beloved genre is traditional RPG and the most depressing thing about it is when people playing or making them go full RPGcodex and start to drink the master race kool aid for real.

On topic of the game itself, sounds a lot like Blackguards.
 

Volodja

Member
AoD was a pretty damn unique experience, so I'll be there day one to enjoy all the weird bugs and possible missing quest beats!

To be fair, I never actually got that far in a combat run.
 
The surviving and rising up the prison ranks is a cool framework. Like a gritty fantasy RPG version of Escape from Butcher's Bay
 

Decado

Member
Maxim party size of 4 in a tactical RPG? Doable of course, but more would be preferable in a game where positioning is key.
 

Arulan

Member
Trailer looks great. An easy purchase for me.

Oh, and I don't know who your artist is, but they do a fantastic job. The style really evokes the setting in my opinion. I'm specifically referencing the still with the warrior holding the centurion shield in the trailer, the portraits in AoD, the main menu in AoD, and this header:

header.jpg
 
It's almost necessary to brand yourself that way with games like these. Like, you can make a bad build and just never have a chance of completing AoD. The game exists precisely to serve players who want a challenge, that requires learning systems and maximizing the benefits of smart choices.

It's quite effective in the context of the game, too. It doesn't just tell you repeatedly how dangerous the world is, it simply really is that lethal to try to get by in AoD.

In a genre like RPGs where many fans treat them like visual novels with grinding, it'd a distinction worth making. Even though something like Pillars of Eternity seems "hardcore" compared to the average game, it still adheres to basic safety nets like not being able to break your builds to the point of ruining a playthrough.

I'm a huge Dragon Quest fan, by the way, so I'm not just some pretentious jackass who only likes unforgiving games.

After last generation's witch hunts of even the slightest whiffs of elitism, to directly antagonize this is stupid. And as we both saw from SF V earlier this year, even BS reasons still spark "buh buh wut about us casuls!!!" rants.

It's even worse looking in light of so many other chewy grognard RPG developers coming in these last few years market with inticement as their message. "Hey look there player-who's-never-played-any-RPG-more-complex-than-Mass-Effect, this new-to-you complexity is fun!" and so many found those just that, and that they're graspable with effort that they didn't know they had.

"need not apply" just...yeah.
 

Syril

Member
After last generation's witch hunts of even the slightest whiffs of elitism, to directly antagonize this is stupid. And as we both saw from SF V earlier this year, even BS reasons still spark "buh buh wut about us casuls!!!" rants.

It's even worse looking in light of so many other chewy grognard RPG developers coming in these last few years market with inticement as their message. "Hey look there player-who's-never-played-any-RPG-more-complex-than-Mass-Effect, this new-to-you complexity is fun!" and so many found those just that, and that they're graspable with effort that they didn't know they had.

"need not apply" just...yeah.
I don't know dude, it looks to me like they're just poking fun at themselves and showing some self-awareness that they're making a game that only a very small audience is likely to enjoy, no different than Wizardry IV labeling itself being for expert players.
 

Vince (ITS)

Neo Member
^ Pretty much. I don't know about Dungeon Rats, but AoD was definitely not for everyone and the casual gamers were having a very hard time with it as they are accustomed to a very different design. I don't think our games would ever sell more 100,000 copies and we're ok with it.
 

Arulan

Member
unnamed_zpsoot5rwyf.png


I find it delightful that the everyone plays by the same rules difficulty is called Murderous Psychopath, and is the thought-of default.
 

Volodja

Member
Damn at that price point.
Insta bought, I guess.

Well, the game has easier fights at the start than Age of Decadence did, that's for sure.
In AoD I'd have basically no hope of ever winning anything through combat.
 
Top Bottom