The… lets call them curious.  Yeah, curious works.

dyscourse2The curious minds at Owlchemy are back with another project, and it looks just as bizzaringly* strange as their other projects.  Dyscourse is a Choose Your Own Adventure style game in the sense that your decisions at various story branches impact the narrative.  However, leaving it at that would be an insult to what Owlchemy are trying to accomplish; a social experiment on how people react to their fellow man in stressful situations.

You play Rita, a young woman that was unfortunate enough to have the plane she was on crash on a deserted island.  Now Rita must rely on her instincts, fellow survivors, a little quick thinking, and her coffee making skills to help her survive long enough to get home and back to making those college loan payments.

The experiment portions happens as you control Rita’s interactions with her fellow survivors.  Do you play the Jack type hero and look out for everyone, or do you do the Sawyer thing and fend for yourself?  Hopefully there isn’t a plane full of decorative Jesus figures hanging from a cliff for you to pull a Boone from!  With so much of the story hanging on your every decision it must feel like there’s an psychologist behind the screen noting what disorders you suffer from.  Maybe there’s a Civilization type ranking to tell you that you’re in the Albert Fish range of empathy because schemed to get everyone killed.

dyscourse3Owlchemy is pushing the customized narrative angle pretty heavily; and it makes sense.  After all, If there’s only a couple endings then the game will be about as dull as counting sand. However, there’s more to the game than chatting it up; you’ll need to actually survive.  Hunting, combat, and navigation should add to the survival experience so that Dyscourse feels less like a glorified Otome game in an exotic setting, and more like a survival game that focuses on actions as much as it does interactions.

Take a look at the gameplay filled Kickstarter video to get a better idea for how the game works, and decide whether Dyscourse is worth your backing budget.  Owlchemy is only asking for $40,000, and will need to get it before December 6th to hit their goal.

 

*Yes, I know that bizzaringly isn’t a word.

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About the Author

Greg Micek

Greg Micek has been writing on and off about games since the late nineties, always with a focus on indie games. He started DIYGames.com in 2000, which was one of the earliest gaming sites to focus exclusively on indie games.

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