I’m a simple man. Show me a game with the words “hand painted art style” in its Kickstarter pitch and that’s me pretty much sold. Tell me it’s a sci-fi and that said graphics are the work of a concept artist who’s worked on Interstellar and Inception, and then I start bouncing off walls while shouting “hallelujah!”.
The game I’m talking about is called Transmission, and it’s all about surviving in space. The exact place is some mysterious planet, with players having little to no recollection of anything that’s happened prior to them ending up in such a conundrum. All that’s left is to figure out the odd story of this place, mainly through the means of slashing away at foes, crafting at remote workstations and having conversations with a sentient artificial mainframe (i.e. a robot with a weird sense of humour).
I expect lots of classic sci-fi suspense out of Transmission, not only because the trailer oozes that through its ambient and goosebumps-inducing music, but also because the visuals scream a certain clean visual expression you’d normally see in movies such as Ex Machina. Of course, that is unsurprising considering the game is being headed by Nathaniel West, who’s already used to drawing pretty things for marvelous cinematic works such as Interstellar and Inception.
If I had to draw parallels to other games of this nature (except for the ones included as inspirations in the Kickstarter), I’d immediately point to The Swapper, not necessarily due to gameplay-related similarities but because it shows the wonders that hand-made, overly stylized graphics can bring to a sci-fi interactive experience. Really, I’d play the Transmission just for the eye candy, and that’s a lot coming from someone that takes every possible opportunity to slam games for offering little to no mechanics.
The Kickstarter‘s goal is $84,000 and the team consists of four talented individuals with plenty of experience. To top it off, here’s a magnificent track from the game that perfectly sums up the feeling Transmission is trying to convey.
