We’ve brought you news about previous Bundle In A Box bundles here at The Indie Mine, but this latest one is near and dear to my heart because of the genre it features. The Indie RPG Bundle has launched and it includes up to 13 indie roleplaying games for just around $1.99. Lest you fear oversaturation of the genre, the bundle contains a wildly different array of titles. The list of eight games that consumers will get at the pay-what-you-want rate includes:

• Unemployment Quest (Windows/Desura): fight the monster of unemployment in a modern-day RPG.
• The Siege of the Necromancer (Windows/Mac/Desura ): horror choose-your-own-adventure RPG.
• Hack, Slash, Loot (Windows/Mac/Linux/Steam/Desura): a contemporary roguelike indie classic!
• Styrateg (Windows/Mac/Desura): a strategy based RPG with a strong narrative.
• Inaria (Windows): today’s Ultima, complete with retro pixel-art and wild ideas.
• Dungeon Fray (Windows/Linux/Desura): you have never seen a roguelike play this fast.
• Empires and Dungeons 2 (Windows): Tactics and dungeon-crawling.
• Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon (Windows/Desura): huge, humorous 3D RPG.

Bundle fans who pay more than the average will get access to five additional titles:

• Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land (Windows): Lovecraftian, turn-based horrors that have already been accepted on Steam. Codes coming soon!
• The Wizard from Tarnath Tor (Windows/Mac/Desura): a gloriously illustrated and highly polished gamebook.
• Northmark: Hour of the Wolf (Windows/Mac): stunning RPG card game.
• The Wizard’s Lair (Windows/Mac/Linux/Desura): RPG with roots in classic Roguelikes and the Mystery Dungeon series.
• Telepath RPG: Servants of God (Windows/Mac/Linux): a unique hybrid western RPG/strategy RPG.

As usual, the bundle will help raise funds for the Indie Dev Grant and for the Hellenic Centre for Mental Health and Treatment of Children. If enough people get in on the deal, extras like game soundtracks and artwork will be unlocked. For more information about these individual games including screenshots and video trailers, be sure to check out the official Bundle In A Box website. You can also enter to win a bundle in our giveaway below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Telepath Tactics is aimed at fans of turn-based strategy series like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s a purely multiplayer game with support for up to six players. While the game can technically be played over the internet, developer Craig Stern hopes to emphasize local multiplayer in what he calls a “Super Smash Brothers experience”. If you’re short on friends, Tactics will also support playing against up to five A.I. opponents.

Multiplayer mayhem ensues

Multiple classic modes will be available including Last Man Standing and Capture the Flag. You can fully customize the matches as well with options like fog of war and custom respawn settings.

The game will feature a variety of strategies you can employ to defeat your opponents. The environment offers the ability to destroy walls and lay explosives, along with natural hazards like cliffs, water, and lava that you can force your enemies into. Your army can be created from 22 different classes that each offer their own movement abilities, unique attacks, and elemental properties.

Telepath Tactics is slated for an end-of-year release on Windows, Mac, and Linux. There’s also the possibility of  it ending up on Android and iOS platforms. Check out the pre-alpha trailer below and stay tuned for more information as development progresses.

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The top-down camera style is upheld throughout and supported by excellent hand-drawn watercolor pictures. Character animations seem basic both in and out of battle, but the environments, accompanied by pleasant music, are lush with detail when combined with appealing flash-style graphics. I was highly entertained by traversing in a world akin to Disney’s Aladdin… if only I could have found a magic flying carpet!

The Marketplace, an early location in Telepath RPG Servants of God

If the story doesn’t appeal to you, the gameplay may not either. The battles are a puzzle/tactical hybrid containing tutorial-like sequences until about an hour or so in. There are plenty of skills, magic orbs, and character customizations to acquire. Unfortunately, you shouldn’t expect to see even a small bit of that until after ten battles or so.

Another barrier occurs during installation. The process is clumsy and requires third party software. Granted, this program is Adobe AIR and not a hidden magic lamp, but for the price I’d expect the installation to be easier than making a wish to a big blue genie. If you have a dire need for tactical RPGs, dig up the earlier titles in the Telepath series first. They’re mostly available for free and playable within your browser.

If you enjoy reading, perhaps you are the type of player this game appeals to. For $25, you get an epic novel set within a video game; conversely, you could always go get a slew of other  titles for less. The story takes shape like a “choose your own adventure” book and the ending is driven by your own actions. This is somewhat difficult to follow, however, because there is little indication of which path you are currently on.

Arman is a dark mysterious character who has dealings with some unsavory folks

What Telepath RPG has to offer is really quite fun and interesting; unfortunately, Sinister Design chose to half-pack it in a clumsy installer and layer it with an hour of tutorials and foreshadowing. Once I got into the game, I enjoyed it, but it is difficult to recommend spending more than you would pay for many AAA games. Considering the monetary and time investment required, one must be a fan to warrant a purchase. The rewards are there, it just takes a bit to get to them.  There is no instant gratification here. This one is heavy on the “R” and light on the “P”. For my money, it would be worth waiting until the price drops to get your hands on this “G”.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Brandon: Can you tell me a little about the history of Sinister Design?  I’d also ask you to tell me what roles you fill within the studio but it seems you handle them all.  Is that true?

Craig: I began Sinister Design back in 2006, shortly after the release of my first Flash game on Newgrounds. I was starting law school at the time, and I’d made that one game as sort of a summer side-project. I expected to release it and then put the whole thing aside until after graduation. The only problem is, I loved designing the game so much that I wanted to keep doing it. So I kept designing games throughout school. My girlfriend at the time teased me because I spent more time coding than I did actually studying the law! Sinister Design is about making whatever games I want to make, those generally being RPGs and turn-based strategy games. Sinister Design is indeed a bit of a one-man band, though I do tend to bring in outside visual artists to help out on whatever games I’m making. I hope to change that in the next couple of years, provided that I can get enough cash flow to maintain regular paid staff. That said, the one-man-and-some-contractors model is working out well enough for now.

Brandon: You have a new game coming out in February, Telepath RPG: Servants of God.  This game is the latest in your Telepath RPG series for PC.  Tell me, are these games tied together?  Is it possible for a player to jump in on this latest game without being lost?  On the flip side, are there benefits to players who’ve been with the series the whole way?

Craig: The answer to both of those questions is “Yes.” Telepath RPG: Servants of God has a storyline all its own that doesn’t continue directly from any of the previous games, so new players will be able to jump right in without a problem. People who’ve played the earlier games will still get some benefits in terms of having a deeper knowledge of the world, its factions and its characters.

In truth, I actually try to discourage people from playing through the games in order; Telepath RPG Chapter 1 is an absolute embarrassment, and a terrible first impression for someone new to the series. It’s the first game I ever made in Flash, and it shows. Telepath RPG Chapter 2, by contrast, is a decent little game. If you absolutely must play a predecessor to Telepath RPG: Servants of God, play Telepath RPG Chapter 2. I’d still recommend just diving right in to Telepath RPG: Servants of God, though.

Brandon: Although the game’s not set to come out until February, you have made a demo available online.  Not being that familiar with the series I jumped right in and have been very pleased with what I’ve seen so far.  I happen to be a big fan of turn-based RPG’s that use a grid map.  Are there any other games you feel have influenced your work, not just for that design element but for anything?  In other words are there any games you feel yours compares favorably to?

Craig: My biggest inspirations for the combat system were the old Shining Force games (by which I mean Shining Force 1-3, not the heinous action RPG reboot they tried). As for the open world, dialog trees, quests with multiple endings, and characters who remember what you’ve said and done, Fallout 1-2 were probably the biggest influence on me. (I haven’t gotten around to the third installment yet.)

As for games that Telepath RPG: Servants of God compares favorably to, let’s put it this way: if you like being able to actually role play, you’ll find that it compares favorably to most indie RPGs out there right now. If you prefer turn-based combat to real-time, you’re probably going to find that it compares favorably to pretty much any AAA RPG released on PC in the past ten years.

Craig: Telepath RPG: Servants of God is a very complex game, so I won’t claim that developing it solo has been easy: it hasn’t. There were many times that I wished I had a team at my disposal so I could delegate certain tasks. The inherent limitations of being one person who can only work on one thing at a time have caused development to take far longer than it would have taken with a team. However, with that said, the game is just about complete. It would seem that I did indeed have a strong enough vision to see it through by myself, even if it did take upwards of four years to do it.

Brandon: Have you considered where you’ll go from here in terms of your next project?  Would a smaller game with a shorter development cycle be more ideal, or do you think you’ll stick to making games that border on epic in terms of scope?

Craig: The next project is going to be smaller in scope. I intend to follow up on Telepath RPG: Servants of God with a multiplayer turn-based tactics game; I’ve been working on the engine for it here and there for over a year already. It’s set in the same universe as Telepath RPG: Servants of God, but with an intricate and robust engine that allows for pitched battles among up to six players at a time, each controlling up to 24 units from among two dozen unique classes, across huge battlefields with destructible terrain and elevation effects.

Once I have that one out of my system, I expect I’ll be returning to single player projects with an epic scope.

Brandon: Well this project is obviously the culmination of a lot of hard work over a long period of time and I have to imagine it’s been quite the learning experience.  What advice can you give to rookie developers looking to break into the indie development scene?

Craig: Start by making a game you can easily finish, and do an excellent, excellent job on making that game be the best that it can possibly be.

That’s half of it, and you can read advice about doing that just about anywhere. The other half of it is social, and people don’t tend to talk about this part as much. The indie scene isn’t really something you “break into”; it’s something you ease into, like the shallow end of a lukewarm pool. A lot of new developers make the mistake of showing up on a place like TIGSource with their games, thinking they can self-promote and immediately receive recognition for their work. That is a huge mistake! Spamming forums is just about the worst strategy you can possibly use.

The indie scene is just like any other scene: you need to socialize with people and make friends before anyone will care about what you’ve been doing. Approach it as a community rather than as a place to market. If possible, attend game jams, panel discussions and other events so you can meet people face-to-face. Drink beers together; talk shop; inquire with about what other people are doing. You’ll build relationships, and those tend to pay huge dividends over the long haul.

Remember: these are the people who are going to retweet your game announcements. These are the people who are going to share sales data and press contacts with you. Don’t start off by trying to promote yourself to them; just make friends. That is my best advice.

Brandon: Good rules that I think apply to everyone trying to break into internet marketing.  I know our site has faced those same situations as we try to grow.  Well before we finish, is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers that might be interested in playing your game?

Craig: Yes: Telepath RPG: Servants of God is like an inverted funnel. If you’re a veteran gamer playing it for the first time, have a little patience. The linear introductory sequence takes about 15 minutes and eases you into the game both story-wise and mechanics-wise. After you fight the first boss, the thing opens up, and just keeps on opening up the further you go. After a certain point, it blows fully open and becomes a completely nonlinear quest that you can complete in a variety of different ways.

Telepath RPG: Servants of God debuts February 14th, 2012 for PC, Mac, and Linux

© 2012, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.