Auro is a turn-based tactics game about, well, pushing monsters out of their hexagonally-tiled dungeon and into a huge underground lake. It’s also the new project from Dinofarm games and designer Keith Burgun, not to be confused with another Auro (Free), which is a steampunk puzzle game.
In any case, Burgun’s Auro will be released on the App Store on July 1, according to a new post on the Dinofarm blog.
Dinofarm’s previous game was 100 Rogues ($2.99), and Burgun was the lead designer for Crazy Monkey Studios’ Empire ($2.99). We liked both of those games very much, so it’s nice to finally hear tell of a new project.
The titular Auro has access to nine different spells (in three different skill trees), as do the rats, bats, and demon imps he’ll be fighting against. Auro‘s real hook is in figuring out how these various spells and skills interact with each other. Judging by the beta footage below, for example, Auro’s ice spells make the dungeon floor slippery, which makes it easier to push heavier brutes to their watery deaths.
It’s tempting to look at Auro as a Hoplite derivative, but Douglas Crawley’s game (which we also liked) was made in a week in March 2013, as part of the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge. Auro, on the other hand, has been in development since at least late 2011, per a thread on our forums. The games may share procedurally-generated dungeons, but Auro‘s complex interactions and hand-created pixel art are probably enough to set it apart from Hoplite’s comparative sparseness.
So, anyway, Auro comes out on July 1st, at which point you’ll finally be able to push a dopey-looking imp into a freezing lake with a fireball.
