Cosmic adventure game Genesis Noir is on Kickstarter
Godly quarrels
It takes something special to coax me into playing a point and click adventure game. I've butted my head against puzzles with arbitrary solutions so many times that I've come close to writing the genre off as just not for me, but Genesis Noir has two hooks that draw me in. First, the devs say the puzzles will revolve around simple experimentation, and there's as much emphasis on them as there is exploring and shaping an abstract universe. Second, that universe is the product of a deific shooting with the Earth a "fragment of shrapnel hurtling towards the fragile heart of a god".
Devs Feral Cat Den have just launched a Kickstarter campaign, bringing with it more details about the game and a little teaser that's playable in your browser.
The devs are hoping to raise $40,000, which is just a fraction of the $300,000 they say they need to finish the game. Their plan is to work with publishers Surprise Attack to gather a group of investors that will supplement funds raised by the campaign.
There might be more layers to this preview demo thingamy than I can tease out, though that hardly matters because I'm already sold based on its 3 second intro. The cosmic panorama loses something when it's shrunk down to the gif below, but I think you can see what I'm getting at.
In the game itself you'll play as No Man, "a watch peddler stuck in a deterministic hell". As per the Kickstaer: "The Big Bang is more than creation, it is a gunshot in slow motion. You must enter the expanding universe and search for a way to stop it from striking your love."
It's an awesome premise paired with fantastic presentation, and while we're yet to see much of how the game plays the devs are making all the right noises. They point to Samorost and Windosill as inspirations, and specifically mention the 'tactile interaction' of Windosil. The first Samorost might be the only adventure game I've found intriguing enough to actually finish, and I just had a five minute poke at the free version of Windosill that's left me eagerly anticipating my lunch break so I can dig into it some more.
To be honest, even if the puzzling parts do somehow turn out naff I'm impressed enough by the style and scope of the game that I'll give this a go when it comes out anyway. Part of the Kickstarter pitch is a promise that I'll "become acquainted with the massive, the microscopic, and everything in between": I'm a sucker for anything that plays with scale, and if the transitions between those perspectives are as slick as the one above then I'm 100% in for the ride.