The brothers of Foursaken Media might just be the hardest working indie developers in the business. Six months ago they launched N.Y.Zombies 2 ($0.99), a well-received sequel to the 2010 original. Then in January, they dropped Heroes and Castles ($1.99) on us, a castle defense style game that literally threw you into the thick of things from a 3rd-person perspective. Most recently, Foursaken released Block Fortress ($1.99) in March, and it expertly blended Minecraft-like fortress building, tower-defense, and first-person shooter action into one cohesive package.
Just a couple of months later and the team is already back to announce their next upcoming title which is slated for this summer. It’s called Monster Adventures, and it’s a mixture of monster collecting, RPG-like character progression, randomly generated environments, and online battling pitting your own team of monsters against those around the world.
In Monster Adventures your character has a special connection to a Nature Spirit which allows you to take on the essence of monsters. You’ll be able to mix and match these monster essences, which each offer unique abilities or attributes, in order to create monsters that are tailored towards whatever specific styles you choose.
In addition there are Elements you can toss into the mix which further augment your character in various ways. With more than 50 monster essences and 5 Elements to play around with, the sheer number of combinations and amount of customization you can offer your character sounds just insane.
Monster Adventures also does something interesting with its randomly generated environments. The team wanted to add a rogue-like aspect that wasn’t quite as harsh as perma-death but still offered a similar risk vs. reward aspect that would tempt you to test your limits in hopes of being rewarded but would also give you a real sense of loss if you failed.
They accomplish this by scaling the loot and experience you earn, as well as monster difficulty, with how extensively you explore an environment. You’ll be able to warp back to a Town hub at certain points while you’re out adventuring, but if you choose to forge on instead you might come across some pretty rare or unique stuff. The catch is that if you die, you lose everything you’ve collected during your time in that particular environment. So, do you warp back to Town when you have the chance and make sure you get to keep all your stuff? Or do you keep going and face greater dangers in hopes of scoring something really cool and earning more experience for your character?
There’s sure to be plenty more details revealed about Monster Adventures in the near future, and the thread in our forums is a good place to hang out to catch news straight from Foursaken as well as discuss the game with your fellow gamers. They peg Monster Adventures at about 75% complete right now, and are hoping to release this summer, so be sure to throw this bad boy on your TouchArcade (Free) app Watch List to be notified when more news on this upcoming title hits.
