Weekend Confirmed is back, and this week, Garnett Lee, Jeff Cannata, "Indie" Jeff Mattas and Nikole Zivalich convene to talk about some new releases. Garnett kicks things off with some talk about his experience with Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, which is followed by some discussion about the recently-released indies, Skulls of the Shogun and Proteus. Naturally, the crew brings it all home with a batch of Finishing Moves, and the final post-show NFL TailGate of the season.

Listen: Weekend Confirmed Episode 150 »

Back in 2009, in a small cafe in Culver City--peripheral to that year's IndieCade festival--a friendly, deep-voiced indie developer named Borut Pfeifer gave me my first taste of Skulls of the Shogun, a vibrant and colorful turn-based strategy in which rival teams of undead samurai would beat the tar out of each other. It was a very early build running on a laptop, but was more than enough to get the neglected turn-based strategy gamer in me to sit up and take notice.

As I sat down last week to begin playing through the game for this review, I really hoped that developer 17-Bit Studios--formerly Haunted Temple Studios--could live up to the growing expectations they'd built up over several years of development.

Read more: Satiating strategy »

The long-coming Skulls of the Shogun finally has a release date, so mark your calendars for January 30. It will hit the PC and Xbox 360 that day for $14.99 (1200 MSP) or Windows Phone for $6.99. All of the versions will be able to play against each other cross-platform.

Read more: 15-hour campaign, plus multiplayer »

For November's final Weekend Confirmed, Garnett Lee, Jeff Cannata, and "Indie" Jeff Mattas are joined by Jake Kazdal of 17-BIT Games, the indie studio behind the upcoming strategy game, Skulls of the Shogun. Far Cry 3 gets much love from Mattas, Cannata talks about his joyous return to Darksiders 2, and Garnett gives an update on his slog through the final hours of Lost Odyssey. The lively discussion includes a whole lot more, before the crew's Finishing Moves and post-show TailGate cap things off.

Listen: Weekend Confirmed Episode 141 »

Indie developer Haunted Temple Studios is aiming to breathe some new life and accessibility to the turn-based strategy genre with its upcoming game, Skulls of the Shogun. At IndieCade 2011 last weekend, I had the opportunity to get my hands on the near-final build of the game and talk to Ben Vance of Buffalo Vision, who partnered with developers Borut Pfeifer (Plush Apocalypse Productions) and veteran of Sega of Japan and EA Los Angeles, Jake Kazdal, to form Haunted Temple Studios.

More: the trailer, impressions, and the Ben Vance video interview »