Looking like a Torchlight: Watercolour Edition, Akaneiro: Demon Hunters is a free-to-play ARPG set in a 19th century Japan with slightly more monsters. Developed by American McGee’s Spicy Horse Games, the game is all set to enter open beta this January but the studio are looking for $200,000 to finalise content and get the game ready for its full release later this year.
More below.
According to the pitch video, the bulk of the game is already complete: most of the levels are in the game; all the models for thecharacters weapons, and enemies have been finished; and theseparatesystems that compose an ARPG (combat, skills trees, trade hubs, etc) are all working. The money they’re looking for is to interlace these systems in a polished manner. Essentially, they’re wanting to do what Blizzard spent yonks doing before releasing Diablo 3, though faster and for less.
While the art style is the most immediate draw of the game, and it is an eye-binding look, there are a few features that are particularly intriguing. For one, there’s only a single class: you are a human warrior in a the Order ofAkane, you don’t need to limit yourself to a single tree of abilities to work through. Instead you’ve three available to explore: Prowess, which is all your aggressive High damage, area-effect attacks; Fortitude, defence and regeneration moves; and, Cunning, the dexterity-based high damage and ranged attacks. Any of the three trees can be explored and mixed to create a balanced character.
More interesting is the game’s co-op. It technically doesn’t have any true collaborativemultiplayer- it’s something that they’ve included as a stretch goal. Instead, you’ve a follower roster populated by your friend list. So while you can’t play with your friends you can summon them into your game to act as an AI-controlled companion. Better still, you both share experience from the event. So each time you log in there’s apossibilityof a nice little experience bundle.
As a free-to-play game, Spicy Horse are, of course, looking for a way to coax money out of you, they’re doing that with their karma system. Each of the enemies you slaughter explodes into little red karma shards that are used to upgrade your levels and, thus, skills. You can either get this by repeatedly playing through the levels, much like Diablo players farm dungeons to get the best items, or you can drop some currency and buy a bundle.
You can read more about the game over on its Kickstarter page.