Dragon Fin Soup - Preview @ The Escapist

The last time I saw Dragon Fin Soup was at Gamescom 2014. Unfortunately they weren't there this year. They are however at PAX Prime this year, where we are not. However others are, like The Escapist.

For the uninitiated, Dragon Fin Soup is a bit of a twisted take on the Red Riding Hood fairy tale, with Red being a badass, drunken bounty hunter, rather than hapless innocent girl. She comes ready to fight with guns, bombs, and, of course, plenty of booze. The drunk mechanic is an interesting implementation of health potion restrictions, which are often simply limited to some number of potions in a specific time frame. Despite Red's affinity for hooch, even she has her limits, so if you quaff too many spirits to keep your health up, her drunk meter will fill up, which triggers a drunken rage. In the rage, you lose control of the character, and she will recklessly throw herself at enemies, regardless of the probability of success. It's an easy way to get yourself killed, but sometimes, you need that health boost, so you'll need to take the risk.

Despite relatively simple gameplay, there is a surprising amount of depth to DFS, with 27 equipment slots, as well as several action bar slots for spells and consumables. You've got a deep crafting progression system, with simple recipes being discoverable by trial and error, and more advanced recipes dropping as loot throughout the game. Recipes have levels, which aren't strict limits, but do impose harsh penalties to your success rate, if your crafting level is too far below your desired recipe level. I didn't get to see any of the craftable gear, but given the apparent depth of the system, I expect it to be a fairly robust means of boosting your survivability.