Curate of Curiosities

The Indie RPG Trench

(Dragoon Entertainment)

If at first you don't succeed, try again, even if you get laughed at the next four or five times!

So far, I have showcased no less than three different full-length indie RPGs on this site. What all three of them have in common is the amount of effort that has been put into them: All of them, despite varying presentation quality, have surprisingly polished gameplay, helped by the fact that two of them are made with an engine specifically made for turn-based RPGs, and narratives that at the very least can remain engaging and coherent.

But of course, not all indie RPGs can boast this level of polish. For every game that manages to make it big, there are at least ten that are doomed to be buried in the depths of Steam, itch.io, or your game hosting platform of choice. When you allow such a low barrier of entry, you run the risk of being flooded with at best the products of developers with more enthusiasm than talent, often those with no proper instruction, and at worst, those who turn out cheap, poorly made products in a misguided effort to make a quick buck. Fortunately, our subject is firmly in the former camp.

Dragoon Entertainment, otherwise known as The D, is a solo developer based in Canada. According to his website, he started developing games in 2008, with an RPG called The Demon Rush. And somehow he believed that this was the best possible representation of the game. Should tell you everything you need to know about its quality.

Despite this, not only did he persist in developing games in the following decade, but he somehow managed to get his games published on none other than the PS4, at a time when even Steam, which had become infamous for hosting a deluge of low-effort asset flips, rejected them.

This trailer, as well as the particular game that it advertised, was swiftly excoriated by both commenters and reviewers, and it shouldn't be hard to tell why. When the thumbnail features a character model that would embarass the PS1, or even the 3DO, it does not inspire hope for the game it's advertising. It didn't help that it was released, and promoted, on the PS4 at around the same time as the similarly unpolished-looking Life Of Black Tiger.

But it's not like this critical beatdown pushed him away from game dev altogether. On the contrary, he may have been emboldened by the fact that he managed to get a game published on a contemporary console. Even to this day, he is still releasing updates for his most recent game.

While his website does feature pages for all of his games, and some of them were, at some point, available to be downloaded for free there, all of the download links have since been taken down. Whether this was in response to the criticism that the games received over the years has yet to be seen.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet Archive, all of this developer's games are freely available! (Well, almost all of them. Two of his games did see release on PC, though only their demos were able to be archived, while one of them was never made available on PC in any form.)

So here we are. This'll be my first time showcasing absolute garbage like this since Escape from Detroit.

Sections:

  1. Delusions of Epic Grandeur (The Demon Rush)
    Some devs put their best foot forward. Others publish a collection of MS Paint sprites and charge $20 for it.
  2. A Fiendish Slog
    Getting this far in the game says more about me than it does about the creator.
  3. Out Of The Spotlight (Skylight)
    One step forward...yeah, that's it. This is an actual improvement. Still far from good though.
  4. Vortex Of Tedium
    Sometimes, even I'm amazed by how much I can handle.
  5. The Great White Dullness (Skylight 2)
    I'll give The D this: he's dedicated. The question is whether or not I can match him in that area.
  6. The Brick Wall Conga Line
    This game makes me doubt whether The D expected anyone besides him to finish it.
  7. The Big Break
    Every console has its share of shovelware, but most have the good sense to not advertise them like it's a must-buy title.
  8. The Revival No One Asked For
    You'd think it would be in his best interest to keep that first project of his buried. But what do I know?
  9. The Tedium Event Horizon
    Congratulations! Here's two more hours of repetitive boredom!
  10. Final Words
  11. What Was Once Lost, Part 1
    ...is still lost, but at least there's another version available.
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