By Jim Rossignol on September 5th, 2012 at 4:00 pm.
“Big Men Announce Guts” was not a headline I’d anticipated writing today, but there it is. Big Men Games have announced via Blues that they are working on a turn-based action-strategy called Guts. It’s at a super-early stage, but there’s already a playable alpha (requires Unity plugin) and it’s looking pretty promising. They’re calling it “a smashup between Tactics and Rogue-likes”. As you can see from the trailer below, it’s got a sort of turn-based dungeon-crawler thing going on, and the core battle maps are linked together by a big map, which you can get a glimpse of in that alpha demo. They also have a Kickstarter page, which is gestating over here.
05/09/2012 at 16:03 Sensai says:
I love that trailer, with all those high recommendations.
05/09/2012 at 16:07 Revolving Ocelot says:
YOU ARE HUGE! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS!
05/09/2012 at 16:40 Synesthesia says:
Hey! isn’t that the bastion kid after the hormones got him?
Looks good, but im too hungover to not notice he wiggles his mouse all over the screen after every action?
05/09/2012 at 17:40 NooklearToaster says:
If you look closely it looks like you can get bonus gold that gets knocked out of enemies during attacks if you sweep over it quickly. I was confused too until I noticed that the gold was vanishing in the cursor’s trail.
06/09/2012 at 05:59 Wisq says:
I did indeed notice that, but it just made me groan and ask “whyyyyy?”
That is the worst gameplay-interface idea I’ve seen in a long time. Are they trying to give us all RSI?
06/09/2012 at 09:38 mondomau says:
Play the Alpha, it’s quite fun and not RSI inducing at all – you don’t actually need to be that manic collecting the gold.
05/09/2012 at 16:47 Vesuvius says:
I was mildly curious until I saw Chris Haga of that whole D3 facebook debacle is involved. Granted, he was hardly the worst of the lot, but he started it all and that forever sours me on him.
http://static.strategyinformer.com/r/game_images/thumbs/647x/0134/0026975.jpg
05/09/2012 at 18:28 Troll says:
Guts just became Shites.
05/09/2012 at 18:32 BurningPet says:
What? why? because he expressed his feelings in the way he had?
05/09/2012 at 19:19 Vesuvius says:
Like I said, it’s not an entirely rational thing but basically- I didn’t like the nastiness of the dogpile all his friends had going on. I didn’t like all the “I wish I could like that more than once” comments and the fact that 12+ people liked the curses towards a dev who not only led the two games that preceded his, but also towards a dev who was giving only constructive criticism. I understand that Chris was pretty tame, but the nastiness of his fb pals / coworkers altogether, the fact that he let that go on, and the high likelihood he was one of the people who liked that nastiness (which yes, I know isn’t fair… I’m not claiming my reaction is)… all of that makes me not feel well disposed towards his work.
I’m not saying you should feel the same way, I’m just sharing my reaction.
06/09/2012 at 17:47 Haga says:
This is well written, so I’ll respond:
I can only hope that through my actions, I can change your mind about who I am. Someday I hope that you will judge my efforts with GUTS on their own merits, rather than view them through the lens of my peccadillos; although I would understand if you couldn’t.
Thanks for your time.
05/09/2012 at 16:54 Bhazor says:
Turn based action RPG? Is that even a thing?
Also “You should have never left the Blizzard gravy train”? Is this another studio of Blizzard veterans? Christ alive how many people worked on Diablo 2 because it seems like there are hundreds of these veterans starting up studios now.
05/09/2012 at 17:25 Hoaxfish says:
As far as I know, only one is a Diablo 3 “veteran”, not earlier.
06/09/2012 at 02:09 tangoliber says:
“a smashup between Tactics and Rogue-likes”
Sounds like Disgaea’s item worlds… I was just thinking the other day about how it would be nice to have Disgaea on PC.
06/09/2012 at 04:38 cog says:
Just played the Demo/Alpha and really enjoyed it. Combat has rogue-like movement combined with the turn based tactical combat from the original Fallout games and special ability/skill use. There’s some ARPG style loot hoovering and there is an interesting character upgrade/item management component that employs a mini-Diablo 1 inventory tetris system to customize your character’s stats. All in all, lots of fun and familiar stuff arranged in interesting new ways. I recommend giving it a try.
06/09/2012 at 06:10 amishmonster says:
Will this game let me go home with a piece of the Super Mega Aggro-Crag?
06/09/2012 at 06:54 GonzoDamon says:
I am really enjoying the GUTS alpha. My next stop after this comment is Kickstarter.
However, does anyone know how to drop an item after picking it up? My backpack and inventory are both full, so I can’t put it anywhere. I’m probably missing something obvious.
06/09/2012 at 10:40 ShineyBlueShoes says:
Add this to my list of games I’m excited about!