Massive Chalice - Preview at Rock Paper Shotgun

[killias2]

Following yesterday's sad news from Double Fine, we have a new preview of Massive Chalice from Rock Paper Shotgun:

Score one for diversity in games: the realm has just been saved by a nearsighted, asthmatic, drunk lady. Marginalised wheezing pissheads rejoice! (Though do keep an inhaler and bucket close to hand.) Massive Chalice combines XCOM’s turn-based permadeath squad combat with Crusader Kings’ management of bloodlines across multiple generations, inducting heroes into a ruthless breeding program intended to foster a roster of noble characters with superior physiques. But, well, you have to work with what you’ve got and what I’ve got is a malformed, shuffling host of genetic wreckage. For the first time in games, I am among my people.

While RPS laments some of the randomization elements, they seem positive overall:

Perhaps it’s more aesthetic than mechanic, that sense of ages passing, sweeping beloved heroes into the dusty annals. When Alyx’s beleaguered liver finally packs in, she becomes nothing but a red skull icon, flying across the timeline at the top of the screen and into the past, further and further. I dearly wish the game offered some way to salute her – a statue, or one of those blue plaques. She wasn’t the toughest or the fastest. She wasn’t a sure shot or a braveheart. But she still stepped up and did her bit: truer heroism games have rarely seen.

And, by god, could she drink. You have to raise a glass to that.

More information.

 

[Hexprone]

This game gives me old-school Fire Emblem feels -- the fourth game in that series also featured hero-breeding, although only two generations of it.

 

[killias2]

In my mind's eye, it's sort of an XCom RPG crossbred with Rogue Legacy's family elements. Here's hoping it reaches its potential.