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The Shroud Preview

We finally get our grubby mitts on what might be the most ambitious mobile game in development...

Modojo is no stranger to The Shroud. We ran an exclusive interview outlining specifically how the game's GPS functions would operate a couple months ago, and since then began hosting the official forums for the game. We just received our first opportunity to go hands-on with the title however, and I'm happy to report that even in this early stage The Shroud does a lot to differenciate itself from other mobile titles currently available.

The game tells the story of Taro, a young farmer who gets wrapped up in an adventure to close "breaches" that have opened all across the land. These breaches act as gateways, allowing evil to pour out of their dark world into our own. Or at least, that's the story the game will tell. The build we had our hands on was so early that only the most basic outline of that quest was present.

The Shroud looks, and for the most part, plays, like a mixture between Harvest Moon and The Legend of Zelda. When we first loaded up the game our farm field was all-but overrun with fallen logs, rocks, and weeds. Each piece of debris requires a specific tool to clear it - a sickle for the weeds, a hammer for the rocks, and an axe for the wood.

The pound button brings up Taro's inventory, at which point left and right cycles through your available items, and the center button equips. Once you have the proper item equipped, one button press in front of the offending debris clears it away. Within minutes I was happily working in my field, clearing a plot of land for planting.

The planting process plays out much the same way. Equip a shovel to dig some holes, water them with your watering can, then equip and use seeds of the fruit or vegetable you want to grow. In this preview build, the melons I planted were full-grown and ready to be harvested in just a few days, which is one Harvest Moon departure. I also didn't notice a growing calendar - I was planting and harvesting crops in the middle of January.

Other farm features include a barn to raise chickens and cows, for their eggs and milk, respectively. To keep your animals happy you'll need to periodically refill the feed troughs with the grain that is automatically created when unwanted grass is cleared, and talk to them, at least once a day. Your farmhouse itself contains a TV for dispensing important in-game news, a bookshelf housing a variety of game tips, and a storage area to dump items you don't want clogging up your inventory.

Just a few screens north of Taro's farm is "town," containing town hall, a blacksmith's shop, and a general store. For a little gold and the necessary materials the blacksmith will upgrade your tools, allowing you to use your axe to clear large stumps or your hammer to break large boulders, opening up the game world.

Meeting the gold requirement was easy enough - I simply sold off the fruits of my farming labor. Finding the copper the smith needed to create a copper axe and copper hammer proved a little more difficult. I managed to find some in the only other environment available in this preview build - an abandoned mine located outside of town.

"Mining" is another simple but enjoyable task, not unlike farming. The first floor of the mine was covered in stones just begging to be hammered. Unlike the stones in my farm field, these stones would sometimes leave copper or silver (or I'm told gems, although I never saw any) behind.

The preview build I checked out was still very early - it wasn't yet a "game," or an adventure. It was essentially proof of concept that one could be created out of the all the various elements developer Hardcore 3D Wireless has been crunching away on.

None of that is what's important, however. NPC's can be created later, and given dialogue. Storyline events can be triggered by player actions in future builds. What's important is that even in its current state the inventory management, farming, and town system I experienced was compelling and contained much more depth than is usually found in mobile titles. The Shroud's potential is enormous.