Indie developer PostMod Softworks is working on their first game, titled The Old City and are going to need some help getting their maiden project to the finish line via their Kickstarter page, which is shooting to raise $40,000 by the end of May.
The Old City is not an ordinary videogame. Although the game’s bleak yet strangely entrancing urban environments bring action games like Half Life 2 and Dishonored to mind, Postmod is making it clear that the game will have “no UI other than a main menu, [and] no objectives, death screens, or enemies to combat. ”
Indeed, instead of having the player shoot Russian soldiers to bits or bashing zombies in the head, The Old City seeks to have the player explore and interact with “the shattered remnants of a civilization long past and the echoes of the few who remain,” and in doing so, allow his or her view of the world to shape the game’s extremely dense story.
Not much about the narrative is being revealed by Postmod, as doing so will apparently spoil the story, which, lacking much in the way of actual gameplay, the game is hinging very heavily on. However, you can be certain that The Old City, at its core, will be a philosophical exploration; specifically, the area of epistemology, the theory of knowledge.
A gameplay trailer depicting the first 15 minutes of the game shows the player exploring a familiar videogame setting, a sewer, as the player character speaks to the environment as if it were a person. Take a look:
Design Lead and writer Blaine Bowen wants you to know that “This is a game for people who are interested in the subject matter – philosophy – and interested in the way we are presenting it – in an interactive world. If you are not interested in either of those things, then, frankly, you shouldn’t play our game.”
If you’re tired of the same old drill in videogames and are seeking a game that uses the unique interactivity of the medium to present subject matter normally found in boring philosophy books, then maybe you should head over to The Old City‘s Kickstarter page and back the project. Two days into its 30 day run, the game has accumulated $3836.
Based out of Denver, Colorado, PostMod Softworks was started a year ago by Blaine “Bob” Bowen and John “Red” Wells, and consists of about a dozen people.
The Old City is set to release in the next year or two, depending on how successful its Kickstarter funding goes. It will be a PC only title, and will also have full support for the Oculus Rift.