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Divercast is now on Clowdy

8/28/2015

Divercast is now available to stream on Clowdy! Starting with Ep.17, all new episodes will be uploaded to our Clowdy profile page. Not to fear, as new episodes will continue to be uploaded to our Mixcloud, Soundcloud and InideDB.

Be sure to Follow, Subscribe, Like, Comment and Share Divercast. Thanks for your support! New Divercast episodes posted every month!

Music, film and photography on Clowdy.com

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100

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Indie Arcade: Ronin

8/1/2015

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On a Mission

Welcome to this month's edition of Indie Arcade. This month I take a look at a turn based stealth/action games known as Ronin.

Note: I played through the Demo, which includes the first assassination target.

Premise

You play as a lone ninja who must track down five members of a secretive corporation.

Your first target is an old man. Players must sneak in hack a computer system in order to make their way up to him. However, the compound is guarded by gun wielding security forces and enemy ninjas.

Ronin is a game that is full of dark colors, but nothing is every lost. The protagonist wears a dark jump suit and red motorcycle helmet and their sword sticks out perfectly.

Enemy characters are angular and easily read as a threat. Later on larger enemy ninjas begin to appear. What is interesting is that the combat is all turn based, yet the design of these larger ninjas tell us that they are going to be much harder to deal with. This is all done visually with their design and silhouette.

Art and Design

The world the player explores is a harsh one, sort of a cyber punk near future look. There are skyscrapers in the distance and keypads on doors.

Combat is turn based. Once the player has been spotted by an enemy they must plan their next action. They must use their environment around them in order to dodge incoming attacks and then move in for their attack before they deliver a killing blow. The player must be wary as it only takes one hit from an enemy to be killed.

Early on the game will give you the hint "This is not a stealth game". Which I interpret as, be aggressive in your actions. As you continue to rack up kills you will charge up your combo meter (bottom left), which will in turn give you more option in combat.

A common encounter goes something like this: Player is spotted by an enemy. Player jumps and hangs on the ceiling to dodge a gunshot. The player then jumps toward the guard and knocks them down. The guard tries to stand up but the player strikes them with a killing blow.

Direct combat isn't the only option the player has. They can choose to try and sneak by and enemy or take out enemies silently by strangling them with a noose. Players can even choose to disengage an enemy once they have knocked them to the ground. A useful thing to do when you don't want to kill your target (such as a civilian).

Target In Sight

Ronin is a game that takes a different approach to the genre. It could have easily been another run of the mill hack and slash game with some stealth components to it, but it instead asks us to stop and think, to consider the next step. Check out the Demo or the full game on Steam now.