Last December we reported on Herald, a point and click adventure game from brand new indie studio Wispfire, who are based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. A charming narrative-driven game with appealing visuals and a unique story, Herald is looking to bring back the glory days of point and click adventure, which used to be dominated by the likes of Monkey Island and The Dig.
With several months of further development since then, Wispfire are ready to show their game off to the public and appeal for funding via Kickstarter for a modest goal of €15,000. This funding will go towards releasing the first half of Herald; the second half of the game will require further funding beyond this goal.
Backers of Herald‘s Kickstarter will be entitled to a number of rewards, such as the actual game, a digital soundtrack, both a digital and printed art book, art commissions, 3D printed statuettes, and at the very highest level, the chance to aid the developers in crafting one of the game’s characters for a day.
Should Wispfire surpass their €15,000 funding goal, they’ll have the ability to fund English voice acting for the game’s cinematics at €21,000 and full English voice acting for the entire game first half of Herald at €28,000.
Of course, Wispfire don’t expect you to take them at their word when they say that they want to “make story-driven video games with moral choices, that would challenge players to think about their position in society.” To that end, they have a playable demo of Herald that can be downloaded from their Kickstarter page.
This demo serves as a small nugget of insight into how the game’s exploration and dialogue come into play. As protagonist Devan Rensburg, you are tasked with scouring the ship for a missing pistol, and during your search, almost everything in the environment can be examined.
Curiously, all of the game’s descriptive and expository text is written in past tense, giving the impression that the narrative is being recounted rather than happening in real time.
The most striking aspect of the demo, however, is an exchange Devan has with another character, who, an Indian man who bemoans his subservience to “the white man.” There aren’t too many videogame’s in recent memory that explore historical racism, other than, say, Bioshock Infinite, so I’m hoping that this is something that will be a crucial aspect of Herald.
At any rate, Herald is looking to be a refreshing change from all the explosions, gunfire and sword and sorcery that are dominating just about every videogame out there today. It’s also clearly made with a lot of love by its developers, so if it looks to be up your alley, you should contribute to their Kickstarter drive.