Screenshot Weekly – Earth, Wind, Fire… and Snow?

Welcome back to Screenshot Weekly !

! Every Tuesday, IGM brings you exclusive 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 (make sure to click the pics to see them in their full screen glory)! Without further ado, let’s take a look at this week’s screenshots:

Cast of the Seven Godsends

Italian devs Paolo and Vincenzo at Ravel Travel Studios are working on Cast of the Seven Godsends , a 16-bit era throwback that promises “100% pure arcade action.” (Hopefully that doesn’t include that part about me being 100% broke after spending all my quarters on X-Men .) The team also offered the following description when asked for a more detailed synopsis of the game’s storyline and features: “The game will be a classic run ‘n gun platformer straightly from the old arcade days. The story features a newborn baby to save, a demonic horde to wipe off, five different kinds of weapons to launch, seven different kinds of armors to wear, thirty five different kinds of magical spells to cast, a journey across seven long levels, each of which presenting a mid and final boss to defeat, plus different endings and an achievement system.” More info can be found on the game’s website. If you’d like to keep up with the team  and receive up-to-the-minute updates about the game, you can follow along on Twitteras well.

Empires in Ruins

The great thing about indie development is that it can happen anywhere, and teams can link up even if they don’t share office space. The developers behind Empires in Ruins span the globe, with members in Italy, Greece, Sweden, and Germany. (Okay, so they span the European globe.) Their take on Tower Defense is aimed to offer something a bit different. Designer and developer Emiliano Pastorelli told me that, “The ‘traditional’ TD maps of the game aim at having much more depth compared to the standard TD games, so there is a building system with workers moving around the map, a variety of towers and special skills, and more than just a single way to win a map.” He added that, “on top of this we are developing a tactical turn based map from which the single scenarios can be accessed.” It sounds like the team has a lot on their plate, and they’ll be relying on fans to help get them through it, as they plan for a Kickstarter campaign launching sometime in January 2015. You can catch all the latest news about that on Twitterand Facebook.

Nivearum

A very unique approach to game design, Nivearum will certainly play with your expectations for a video game. (Fans of Etrian Odyssey will want to pay especially close attention.) Developer James Cox explained that “ Nivearum is a game set in a pale hellscape; void of almost all life besides the player, abandoned and isolated in this blank winter. The player will need to print off and draw on a map in order to navigate this space, or else there is a very good chance they will become lost: Forever wandering a vacant wasteland.” So, we have to draw our own maps? Where’s the gameplay? “While there is some interaction within the game, it is about the satisfaction of finding landmarks, interpreting what happened in this frigid once-land, and possessing a physical map that you made of your journey,” Cox said, adding that “I find the map aspect particularly interesting, as both the player and the character are lost within the game world, so the map provides the only real structure for navigation.” You can follow him on Twitterfor more.

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!