DestinyLeah
Welcome back to the Crowdfunding Roundup, a weekly spotlight on three outstanding horror video game projects from Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. Take an in-depth look at fresh games we think our readers will enjoy. If the games are successful in their campaign, we will cover them as news after the campaign wraps. Without further ado, here is the latest batch of projects that caught our eye.
Organ Quarter
Goal: $7,500 stretch goal
Days Remaining: 25 hours
We’ve covered Organ Quarter already in a separate article, but to make sure potential backers know this is an active campaign, we’ll also cover it here. Organ Quarter is a throwback to 90’s survival horror, but made for VR. It is a disgusting, decaying world that probably needs a warehouse full of Lysol and an H-bomb, which is the perfect setting for a flashback to the glory days of early survival horror. The buildings are made of drywall and flesh, the people are all grotesque monsters, and the feeling is a skin-crawling endorphin rush.
Organ Quarter shoves players into a claustrophobic, filthy apartment where they’ve been hiding away from the world for months. At the behest of one Doctor Alset, the player must leave the apartment and begin to roam a world which has become infected and changed into a living hell. Players will face a combination of puzzles, gun-based combat, and resource management as they explore the large world of Organ Quarter. Combat will require players to look for weak spots or special items on enemies, while the puzzles are meant to be engaging but not quite as difficult as Silent Hill 3.
Outer Brain, the indie team behind Organ Quarter, are obviously huge fans of early survival horror. It’s easy enough to name-check a few games in the genre as inspiration, but it is harder to follow through with bringing that inspiration to life. Organ Quarter manages to feel at home with early Resident Evil and Silent Hill entries, and the team is excited to bring the feel of those games to VR. They’re building intricate, labyrinth levels that connect back to a main area, sprinkling puzzles throughout, and using combat intelligently to build on the narrative. They’re doing all of this with the HTC Vive and Oculus Touch both in mind, preventing players from having to toy with closed markets or third-party software to play their game. With the amount of thought going into it, Organ Quarter is looking like a great bet on a game.
Innocence
Goal: $7,500
Days Remaining: 33
Like Organ Quarter, Innocence wants to bring back early survival horror. The solo indie developer on the game has created other games before, but is seeking funding to make a full-scale survival horror game this time around. This game will have slow but deadly enemies, resource gathering, and very limited inventory slots to force players to prioritize items. There will be briefcases scattered throughout the world that will allow players to access a cache of items, but only about eight slots to carry items around in the world.
Innocence tells the story of two detectives called to help with an investigation in a neighboring town on a nearby island. The island is best known for the murder of a young girl a year prior, and when the pair arrive, nothing is as it should be. The inhabitants of the island are crazed, there are ghosts attacking from around every corner, and the officer who called for backup probably should have just called for a ride out. There are two other playable characters as well, adding the chance to play an agile but weak little boy or a confused Japanese man summoned by a strange letter, who came conveniently armed with a katana.
Staying true to its inspiration, Innocence will feature rough environmental textures, low-poly characters, and serious-but-cheesy voice acting. I know we’ve all missed the cringe-worthy voice performances done best by the likes of Silent Hill 2, so this is a welcome chance to bring a soda and popcorn along for the ride. Another throwback to 90’s videogames is the presence of cheat codes, which will be available to backers upon release of the game. Nothing says replay value like a good cheat code that changes everything about the game. Hopefully Calvin can drum up the remainder of his $7,500 goal over the next 33 days and show us his take on throwback survival horror.
Deep Forest
Goal: $4,110
Days Remaining: 4
Deep Forest is a survival horror sandbox that feels like the lovechild of Limbo and Don’t Starve. The graphics are spooky atmospheric silhouettes, and the music is eerily serene. The world will be randomly generated and feature plenty of resources and foes so that the game never feels stale. All of this adds up to a project that looks promising for the casual horror gamer who wants an immersive experience.
In Deep Forest, players will work to repair a helicopter to escape the forest they are trapped deep within. Roaming the vast tangle of woods are creatures that see you as a enemy or snack, neither of which bode well for your survival. Collect resources to repair your chopper, feed your growling stomach, and keep your fire lit, and you may get out alive.
Deep Forest has four days remaining to fill a $3,600 gap in funding, which the team plans to use to complete development and work on the soundtrack. It is being developed for Mac, PC, and Linux, with native XBox controller compatibility. The team would like to add a multiplayer mode, though it is unclear if they will be able to do so without reaching their goal. What is clear, however, is that this small indie team out of Mexico has put a lot of passion into creating a game that stands out in the list of video game projects on crowdfunding websites.
