RPG News
Emma Delage and Studio Camelia’s Alzara Radiant Echoes (GamesIndustry.biz)
Ex-Ubisoft developer Emma Delage wants to bring back the golden age of JRPGs starting with her new studio’s title, Alzara: Radiant Echoes.
The former Ubisoft dev who wants to bring back the golden age of JRPGs | GamesIndustry.biz
ALZARA Radiant Echoes | A vibrant tribute to JRPG classics by Studio Camelia — Kickstarter
Square-Enix plans to “aggressively pursue” multiplatform game releases (The Verge)
In their earnings report, Square-Enix plans to pursue multiplatform game releases to better secure proifts for future ventures. These platforms include Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
Square Enix plans to ‘aggressively pursue’ multiplatform game releases – The Verge
Financial Results for Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2024 (square-enix.com)
Shin Megami Tensei V to be delisted to make room for SMT V: Vengeance (RPGamer)
ATLUS will be delisting Shin Megami Tensei V and its DLC from the Nintendo eShop on June 13th, 2024. Shin Megami Tensei: Vengeance will replace it.
ATLUS releases massive summary of changes and additions to Shin Megami Tensei: Vengeance
On May 9th, ATLUS released a stream about the upcoming changes and additions to Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. The 13 minute video goes into extreme depth about the upcoming version of the game.
Weekly Discoveries
The weekly discoveries may or may not be directly related to RPGs or role-playing game development, but will usually at least be RPG-adjacent. They’re mostly a list of some of the cool things I found this week that would be beneficial to RPG developers.
Avoiding the Compliment Sandwich when Mentoring Level Designers (Game Developer)
Christopher Totten discusses ways to mentor new developers and interns on level design whether in school or as junior developers.
Unreal Engine 5 – Gameplay Ability System – Top Down RPG (Udemy)
Stephen Ulibarri covers the creation of a full top-down action RPG with tiered ability system that has combat, experience, level-ups, enemies, spells, menus, and game states. It also covers multiplayer gameplay mechanics. Note that it is an intermediate to advanced level course that uses both Blueprints and C++.
World of Darkness Unbound (Paradox Interactive)
I had forgotten about this. It spawned out of a Vampire gamejam event, and Paradox decided to open the World of Darkness to game developers with itch.io as their distribution platform of choice. As long as you use itch.io, you can work within the confines of the Vampire: The Masquerade, Hunter: The Reckoning, or Werewolf: The Apocalypse intellectual properties and retain up to 67% of the profit from your games.
Featured Game
The featured game this week is Run=Dim as Black Soul, a turn-based strategy mech role-playing game for the Dreamcast. It was released in 2001 in Japan and was exclusive to the Dreamcast. Other games in the Run=Dim franchise were released for the Wonderswan and Playstation 2 respectively. While not as popular as Front Mission, Sakura Taisen, or Armored Core, it holds its own as a serious strategy RPG.
Until the English patch was released in 2022, though, it was largely impenetrable to non-Japanese speakers since it had a large number of complex strategic interactions that were difficult to parse through gameplay.