Cthulhu Saves the World and Breath of Death VII Released on PC

Zeboyd Games’ Breath of Death VII: The Beginning and Cthulhu Saves the World have technically been available on Xbox Live Arcade since last year, but it wasn’t until this morning that they made their debut on PC via GamersGate and, later today, Steam. Both games are turn-based RPGs that were clearly inspired by console RPGs from the late 80’s and early 90’s (with “modern design sensibilities”), but I’ll leave you with their new PC release trailers so you can get a better idea of what to expect:

Both games can be picked up from GamersGate via in a single bundle for $2.99 or in a four-pack for $8.99. And if you find yourself interested in hearing more about their development and sales results on XBLIG, Ars Technica recently did an interview with the Zeboyd team:

Zeboyd Games is one of the most visible developers on the platform, developing charming retro-style RPGs like Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World. The former managed to sell around 50,000 copies for $1 each, while the latter moved a little more than 16,000 copies at $3 apiece. Those are impressive numbers by XBLIG standards, but that doesn’t necessarily make them satisfying for the development team.

“I think our games could sell a lot better than they did with a better platform and more visibility,” Zeboyd’s Robert Boyd told Ars. “The sales for Cthulhu Saves the World were particularly disappointing we put a lot of heart and soul into the game over a significantly longer period of development time and yet that extra effort didn’t result in a similar increase in revenue.”

In order to test this theory, Boyd will take both games, bundled together, to the PC. The enhanced versions will be available on both Steam and Gamersgate later this month, and one of the main motivating factors appears to be money. Zeboyd managed to raise nearly $7,000 to support development of the PC versions of the games, and is hoping that the much larger PC user base will be a more financially viable platform for the studio’s games. While Zeboyd’s next game will also be released on both XBLIG and PC, it’s likely that the studio will leave Microsoft’s indie platform for good after this.

“We’d like to make games for a living and make even more impressive games than we’ve already made this isn’t possible without more money than we’ve been making so far,” Boyd explained.