Guardian Of The Galaxy: Zeboyd's Cosmic Star Heroine

The story of Zeboyd is a strange one, but perhaps a slightly familiar one. Creating a bit of buzz around their Lovecraftian RPG Cthulhu Saves The World on Xbox, only to find that to be a cold and uncaring land, things were a lot rosier for the subsequent PC release. That in turn led to the opportunity to tackle a new game for the even-tempered and all-embracing fellows over on Penny Arcade, which in turn led to a sequel, and now they're at the point where the announcement of their new game creates headlines. As well as having a most excellent title, Cosmic Star Heroine will include "turn-based RPG gameplay that takes the best elements from our past games while adding a few new ideas."

The titular heroine is one Alyssa L’Salle, agent of the galactic government who finds herself betrayed by her bosses and fighting "every villainous organization she’s ever crossed in her career."

Oh God.

Oh God.

Sorry, I just imagined having to meet everyone I've ever had a Twitter or comments argument with/abuse from at once, and it was just the most terrifying thing. Urgh.

Back to Zeboyd's lastest. They're not saying too much outside of the plot summary as yet, but then again they're also making no bones about the fact that it's an evolution of what they've already been up to with Cthulhu and Breath of Death so perhaps we can abide by the More Of A Good Thing Principle. Here's the main run-down:

Future sci-fi setting
2D pixel art visuals (but with various improvements over our previous games including bigger and more animated ally sprites)
Created with Unity so that we can cover more platforms
No separate combat screen – combat will occur directly on the same maps that you explore on
Turn-based RPG gameplay that takes the best elements from our past games while adding a few new ideas.
Enemy groups will no longer just stay in one place on maps but will patrol and chase after the player as appropriate
Not a parody but will still have plenty of humor
Players will be able to customize their own spy headquarters by recruiting more agents (think the Suikoden series)
Will be trying to get Hyperduck (who worked with us on our last game) again for the music (they’ve already agreed that they’d like to do it but we haven’t signed anything yet)

As with the rejiggered version of Cthulhu, they'll be taking to the Kickstarters with this one. Not sure if that's because they need to, or because they can, but if people are interested people are interested. They're also planning to be very open about the game's development, so keep an eyeC on their site if you're interested in such insights.