Screenshot Weekly – Gravity-Bending Vikings Go Bounty Hunting

Welcome back to Screenshot Weekly !

! Every Tuesday, IGM brings you exclusive early looks at upcoming games in various stages of development. The featured image introducing each game will always be original, and made especially for IGM, so you’ll see them for the first time right here! Without further ado, let’s take a look at this week’s screenshots (remember to click the pictures to appreciate them in all their fully-sized glory):

AirScape: The Fall of Gravity

This may sound like a cop out, but sometimes a development team pitches me their game with a synopsis that perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the project better than I ever could. That’s the case with AirScape , developed by project lead Daniel West and the rest of his globe-spanning student team, with members living in Australia, Germany, and the US. Oh, and as for that synopsis: “ Airscape is a gravity-shifting action platformer about an octopus, a dangerous world, and questionable physics. The gravity follows the surface of every floating landmass – there’s no upwards direction at all in Airscape . Later on, you’ll encounter floating pockets of water, and as an octopus you’ll naturally be able to explore these formations with a unique mechanic that only works in a game with ambiguous gravity.”

Day of the Viking

Developer Vorax is working on an action castle defense game for those who rightfully believe there’s more to the world of Thor than… Loki. (Seriously! I know, it’s hard to believe.) With that in mind, the team set out to create a game full of charm, personality, and angry vikings. Yes, angry vikings who seemingly want nothing more than to destroy your castle and steal your princess. To halt their advances, players can shoot arrows and operate giant rock-tossing slingshots, afterwards sending in some soldiers to collect the items, power-ups, and gold littering the battlefield. Gold can then be used to upgrade soldiers, weaponry, and the castle itself in order to survive the 80-day march. (Probably should’ve been called “Days of the Viking”, eh?) For more information about Day of the Viking , be sure to check out the game’s website, and follow the team on Twitter.

The Bounty

The Bounty is a unique title with an interesting approach: It’s a high score-based, competitive retro RPG. Team Lead Dave Vogt also describes the game as “a roguelike dungeon crawler with arcade sensibilities.” The game will be broken into three chapters, with each chapter containing a few levels. Levels and loot alike are generated by a process called “smart-randomization” which Vogt says will ensure that scoring and treasure pickups are always balanced. The game revels in its steep difficulty, and while it does offer a save feature, using a save point will diminish the player’s score each time it is used. There is no leveling system, a departure from typical RPGs, so players instead increase their attributes through the use of Soul Orbs, obtained during exploration and battle. Eagle-eyed seasoned gamers will also be able to spot a number of references to old-school games. Check out the game’s crowdfundingeffort for details.

That’s it for this week’s Screenshot Weekly . Be sure to come back next week to see more exclusive looks of the latest indie games in development! Let us know in the comments section what upcoming indie games you’d like to see featured in a future installment. As for any indie developers who would like to see their screenshots featured in an upcoming segment, feel free to send an email to IGM at editors@indiegamemag.com with the Subject Line: “Screenshot Weekly”. Or, if you’d like to be part of our Magazine’s Screenshot Monthly segment, include that in the email as well!