So hopefully most of you remember Sixth Circle Gaming, who were behind the intriguing board game adaptation of Ultima 7 (before ultimately cancelling the project earlier this year).

Well, they don’t exist anymore…at least not under that name; they’re now known as IronOak Games. From their About page:

IronOak Games is an independent video game developer based in Vancouver, BC. Founded by industry veterans with multiple shipped titles under our belt, our goal is to revive classic gameplay mechanics with modern designs and features. We’re currently hard at work on our first title, a rogue-like multi-player RPG with some unique persistent elements. Keep coming back for more information and details!

Their main page offers a bit more information:

Some of you may already know us from Sixth Circle and others may be first time visitors. Just to fill you in, we’ve been super busy working on our new game based off the Black Gate boardgame created and designed by Colby Young. Over a year ago Colby decided to turn his boardgame into a video game so we could easily share it with all those interested. We brought on Sean Hoyle (our lore master) and Gordon Moran (our polygon herder) to make this dream a reality.

We’ve been hard at work for a while now, and have already made a ton of progress. Since going digital, the former boardgame has taken on a life of it’s own, using complex systems of interaction only possible in a digital world. What can only be described as a rogue-like online multi-player fantasy game with unique persistent elements, we can’t wait to share more in the upcoming weeks and months.

We want to bring everyone into the design and development process in order to make the best game possible. This means sharing our process, progress, triumphs and failures with you.

You can, per the above, find IronOak on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

For the King looks rather interesting, by the way. The image above tells much of the tale; that’s a screenshot rather than a photograph of a game board (despite what it looks like). It’s a very unique art style, to be sure. The game itself is evidently divided into at least eight realms, each of which are procedurally generated from pre-made hexagonal tiles:

Realms will have inhabitants, points of interest, shops, dynamic weather, and other features. And each will evidently have a unique look and feel. There’s no word on what platforms IronOak will be releasing For the King on, although their use of the Unity engine suggests that it will probably be coming to (at minimum) Windows, Linux, and OS X. They’ve also released a couple pieces of lore; those might be worth checking out as well.