With a name like Emissary of War, Cedar Hills Games' RPG has to laced with all the sober-serious conceits and tropes of a traditional Western RPG, right? Wrong. As I continue playing a near, if not already, feature-complete build, I can't stop myself from thinking about how badly I whiffed in our announcement post. It's a Western RPG that's informed by other party-based, isometric RPGs, sure, but it's also one that trades in ye' old sober serious tone and goals for something different. Also, it's thrown out a lot of traditional mechanics so it can do something entirely novel on this platform: tell you a digestible, snappy story.

From a purely mechanical perspective, this is an isometric hack-and-slash. You point and touch to move the barbarian Ghent around his environment and you click on an enemy to kill it. It's pretty simple stuff. Each area operates like an arena with a finite amount of fantasy villains to maim. It's a cast that includes Mer-people, rock-spiders, ghouls and ghosts, and mercenaries.

After you take out everything, you're allowed to proceed into a new area. If you look closely enough, you'll also notice that hidden areas unlocked, too. These will provide you with some extra goodies to use in the game and lead to some of the more challenging fights you'll have.

Ghent is accompanied by an old friend, Hassock the alchemist. He functions as a foil of sorts to the raw brawn of Ghent, but he's also a handy design element: he'll heal you as you fight, as well as add ranged support to battles. You don't directly control him, but you can queue up his actions in the corner of the screen if you don't agree with what the AI has in store.

This frees up you to focus on the action, which is typical hack-and-slash fare: you click on a dude and you swing until it explodes and rains crimson and coins. You don't earn experience points or pick up loot. Instead, you'll earn gold coins which can be exchanged for weapons in a hunk of UI that also includes ability upgrades which you can unlock by collecting Runes. I realize this might turn a lot of you off, but a streamlined upgrade path is a cool and functional way to cut out the standard RPG fat and really get to what really matters to Cedar Hill Games: Ghent and Hassock and their part of the unfolding story.

The duo, before and after battle, have scripted, but also real-time conversations. Most of the time, chats break down to the two simply reinforcing the notion that they're in this for the long haul together, but they'll also talk about the next objective or the one they've just accomplished. Bigger, more produced 'movies' compliment this stuff.

I'll be vague since I don't want to kill the story for you. Ghent and Hassock are, as the namesake of the game says, emissaries setting up alliances. Their unusual brand of bartering has made for a lot of solid partnerships across the realm, but suddenly, all of it is being undone. The quest revolves around figuring out who is doing this, and of course, why.

One thing that really caught me off guard is the tone. It's light. Hassock is a bumbling, but brilliant dude who is prone to tripping over his shoes. Ghent is heroic, but dim. You'll see these two ham it up a lot, even when the situational circumstances turn quite dire.

The writing as a whole isn't going to put Valve or BioWare or whatever out of work. But it's some of the sharpest stuff we've seen so far in this genre on this specific platform. Also, Cedar Hill Games isn't trying to stretch the story over 50+ hours. This is a four-to-five hour romp, which means its story flows in a much more natural, less fluff-ridden way.

As for the lack of the traditional loot-grind driver, I was initially surprised that Emissary of War has retained my interest over the course of several hours, but the upgrades come quick enough to feel like you're actually being substantially rewarded for fighting, so it operates in much the same fashion. Also, the story works well enough to keep you plodding along.

I certainly haven't seen the entire game, so I'll definitely be checking it out a little later this August when the game is slated to hit. You can hear Cedar Hill Games' CEO Tobbyn Manthorhpe on our podcast this coming Monday if you want his perspective on the title.

Needless to say, we'll be keeping our eyes on this one.

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In case you didn't know, Unity provides the glue that makes a considerable amount of iOS games work. It's a game engine, development environment, and multi-platform publishing tool rolled into one easy to use package. (You can read all about it here.) The magic behind Unity is what brings the world of Aralon [$4.99] to life, and what allows you to level up in Order & Chaos Online [$6.99]. Similarly, it's what allows Gameloft to take Order & Chaos and seamlessly turn it into a Facebook game. The engine isn't limited to 3D either, it's what's behind fantastic 2D platformers like Max and the Magic Marker [99�] and too many other games to list.

Recently, Unity 3.4 was released which brings a whole boat load of new features, functionality, and other tweaks. So many, in fact, that it's hard to pick out which to highlight. Personally, I'm excited for better water effects, because who doesn't love water effects? Also, finally having gyroscope support is going to be great. The best part about these kind of engine upgrades, is that most of the tweaks and enhancements are essentially "free" just as part as developers upgrading to the new version, and testing to make sure that nothing breaks in the process.

If you're a Unity developer, download 3.4 and give it a shot. If you're a gamer, keep an eye out for upcoming Unity titles that benefit from the mile long feature list of the 3.4 upgrade.

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We see the "one man designing an ambitious game on his own" story a lot, but this one has a couple of cool twists. It involves a comic book illustrator and a game set to tackle an age-old genre and inject some really neat-sounding concepts.

Steve Uy is our designer in this story. He's an artist whose credited in several Marvel and DC comic books. In our forums, Uy listed Uncanny X-Men, Iceman, Legion of Superheroes as titles he's touched. And as you'll see from the game images, dude knows what he's doing.

Uy is the illustrator, narrative designer, and concept artist behind World Without End, a great-looking strategy RPG in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics. But while Uy is doing the lion's share of the actual game design, he has actually enlisted some programming and audio design help.�This video explains how he's using the help�in a little bit more depth.

World Without End, as described by Uy in a conversation with Wired, is a 15+ hour tactical RPG. Like Tactics, its battle system is turn-based and you move different characters with different abilities, strengths, and ranges around a designated battle area in order to get the best possible outcome against the enemy. As you attack, you'll expend action points that will regenerate over turns.

Where it differs, it differs pretty wildly. World Without End is grid-free. You'll be able to move your characters around the battlefield and around its 2GB world map wherever you please. Battles, as indicated by this video, are highlighted as "green" areas. Once you hit them, the fight starts immediately and without a load screen.

Uy's game doesn't have experience points. Instead, it has Battle Points, which are a currency that you'll exchange for upgrades and the like. Uy doesn't want grinding to be a mechanic, so he's designing a BP upgrade system that gives you no clear-cut advantages. You'll win fights based on how you play, as opposed to how many hours you've spent leveling. Honestly, this latter concept couldn't possibly sound more appealing to me.

As for the story, Uy is being way too cautious about its details. We know a couple of things, though. For one, you'll play as a dude with amnesia. Also, when you meet (old) friends, you'll find out that they know so much about you that they can predict your actions and thoughts. Neat!

Uy hopes to get World Without End out of the door by this fall and we definitely wish him the best in this endeavor. We'll stay tuned to his updates as development continues.

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