First-Order Games is a one-man indie game development studio founded by John Sahas who previously spend the past 12 years with Neversoft. He was a designed / programmer on four different Tony Hawk titles as well as 6 Guitar Hero titles. He then went back to the Activision studio family, after a short stint working with different indie studios, to take a role as Multiplayer Designer at Infinity Ward for 2 Call of Duty games. Needless to say, he has some experience. Well he has now branched off to make his own game development studio and now his first release, called Swipey Rogue, will be heading our way soon.
Swipey Rogue is a hybrid game, which we seem to be reporting on a lot of lately, which blends a few different genres into one title. This game blends together Swipe-Action, Auto-Running with Dungeon-Crawling, and Room Puzzling. What does that mean? Well basically you will be using swipe controls to make your way through puzzle-filled dungeons that you will have to figure out the solution to in order to progress to the next stage. All of that will take place while your hero is automatically running forward.
There are two different game modes available in Swipey Rogue. You have your core game, with a story and a set amount of content (albeit a lot of it), which is called Challenge Saga mode. The other is Free Running mode which brings the game into a roguelike status with “Procedurally Generated Caverns of Procedurally Generated Rooms”. You’ll also be able to continually build up your character along the way as well, until you die. If that happens you are permanently dead on that character.
Challenge Saga mode:
– 200 Hand Crafted (non-random) Challenge Rooms
– 4 Themed Areas with unique Gameplay Mechanics
– Per Room, Per Area, and Global Progression Stats
– High Score, Speed Run Leaderboards and Achievements
– Video Replays
Free Running mode:
– Procedurally Generated Caverns of Procedurally Generated Rooms
– Unlock Areas in Challenge Saga mode to be included in Rogue Run mode’s Caverns
– Dynamic Character Build (xp gain yields perk choice unlock, many perks to choose/experiment)
– Perma-Death (run ’till you die, go as far as you can)
– High Score Leaderboard and Achievements
Players will also be able to get different perks in this game which basically give you a boost of some type, whether that be more chance for crates and treasure, replenishing your health, added defense, and so on. Each stage in the Challenge Saga mode will also have a Three Gem rating system, with each gem being earned by reaching a certain objective in each stage: Kill All Enemies, Escape The Room, Beat The Time Limit. Do all three and you get three extra gems added to your current total.
Right now Swipey Rogue is slated for release sometime in late August/ early September 2015 onto iOS and the Android version will follow right after it, the developer just needs to swap some of the Game Center features over to Google Play services and finish up some testing. When this game does get released, it will be available for free. There will be optional IAPs to remove ads only, but there will be different pricing ($0.99-$4.99) for this so you can support the developer with the amount you like.
