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| Mike Salbato |
The new 3D dungeon crawler misses its planned September release (in a good way).
08.17.11 - 11:20 PM
If not for the little development update on Fara you see below, this was going to be a one-note iOS update. While it's both a noteworthy release and a surprise (given the anticipated release date), things are surprisingly slow this week on the App Store, especially RPG-wise.
Emissary of War (Universal)
by Cedar Hill Games Inc.
Price: Free + IAP [iTunes link]
It's not every day we get an iOS game from a company founded by a former BioWare employee, but that's just what Emissary of War is. Cedar Hill Games is a Victoria, BC-based development studio created by Tobyn Manthorpe, who besides having an awesome name, worked on titles such as Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: The Old Republic. These facts and more were covered less than a month ago. At the time, the game was slated to release in September, but it seems development wrapped up sooner than expected.
Along with the early release, we now know the title is Universal, and runs at full resolution on all iOS devices. What's also new information is the game's price: Free! Sorta. Cedar Hill is doing what I think is a good method for getting people to try your game - giving out the first portion free, with the rest of the game available via an in-app purchase. This is something that obviously works out well for Sony and Microsoft on their online stores (hey, Nintendo, you should think about it), so this may have been a good move. After the first chapter, $2.99 will unlock the rest of the game - Chapter 2, in other words.
We've added six new Retina Display (iPhone/iPod touch) and iPad screen shots to our gallery below. Look forward to a review of Emissary of War soon!
Finally, here's a new trailer for the game:
We first talked about Pixel and Texel's Fara two weeks ago. As the two-man studio is leveraging Kickstarter to help fund the game's development, they've provided an update on the game's official website, as the Kickstarter deadline is now a week away. As of yesterday, funding was 66% complete at $3,309. As of this writing, the game has cleared $4,000 of its $5,000 goal. Things bode well, I think, but that's still nearly another $1,000 that needs to be pledged by next Thursday if any of the funds are going to be made available. The developers also released a new screen shot, as you can see in our gallery linked below.
If you missed it the first time, here's Fara's Kickstarter video again:
This was one of the slower weeks RPG-wise, though we did get a fairly high-profile release, and it's a Universal release to boot. As for next week - while I sound like a broken record - there's a chance we'll have news on Rocketcat Games' Mage Gauntlet. For real.
