Shan’t a week pass without a new indie first person horror game launching on Kickstarter. This week, it’s Follia Dear Father, a psychological horror game by Italian developers Real Game Machine.
Follia Dear Father is about a man named Marcus who’s exploring a random old building. His father’s secrets come to life, and you’ll have to use your wits to get out of dangerous situations. “Marcus is determined to reveal the mysteries of this strange building …. ARE YOU, TOO?!”
Well, don’t say Real Game Machine isn’t enthused about their game, if nothing else.
The gameplay seems to be standard first person horror stuff; walk through a dark building with a flashlight and try to get to the end. It’s difficult to tell exactly what the gameplay mechanics are because there isn’t much info about the game on the page.
Most of what we know about the game comes from the first two paragraphs that are badly translated and a short trailer. The story section starts off with the developers talking about all the hard work they’re putting into the game, then suddenly transitions into a plot synopsis without so much as a new paragraph. Most of what’s written is vague and doesn’t make much sense anyway.
“Marcus will be involved in an adventure whereas the secrets of his life shall meet with his worst nightmares.”
The gameplay section starts with “You can examine and check all objects of the environment,” as if that’s the number one feature.
“You will have at your disposal a flashlight, matches and other stuff that will be useful to fight darkness, whereas hideous creatures indeed hide.”
Come again?
“You will have to manage the tools at your disposal, as resources won’t be unlimited, therefore your skills will be very useful to get out alive.”
What tools? The flashlight and matches? What skills? My own abilities as a player, or the skills of Marcus in game? Also, why can’t he just walk out the front door of the building?
“The exploration is crucial in this game, the stealth will be important in order not to attract the attention of anyone scary…. you will have to survive in a tough environment … CAN YOU SURVIVE ALL OF THIS ?!”
Again, don’t accuse the developers of not being excited.
Other than that, details are scarce. There are a few clips of sound and music in game, and mention of Oculus Rift support. An asymmetrical multiplayer is teased, which sounds like the most interesting thing of the game. There will be two players up against another player as the monster, but what the two players have to do to survive isn’t elaborated on.
There’s a money breakdown, which is always a good sign, unless it’s not. 30% of the $3,872 budget is going into advertising, with the rest going towards servers for the multiplayer. You’d think if the multiplayer was such a huge part of the budget, they’d talk a little more about it.
This is one of those Kickstarter campaigns that just doesn’t have enough going for it. It’s okay if English isn’t your first language, but you need to hire a decent translator or you’re going to look silly. Even still, there’s almost nothing about what the game will actually be like from a gameplay and story perspective. As far as I can tell, you’re playing a dude named Marcus who’s walking around an empty, ridiculously dark building with a flashlight and mad skills, and that’s it.
I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from the page. It’s the developers talking about why they decided to make this game, and why they decided to use Kickstarter.
“Two developers of our team take care of any technical aspects of video games: design, programming, artistic sector, trailers, game designing, level designing, in short anything related to these areas. We decided together the narrative structure of the game, such as its plot, documents, dialogues and all there must be into a good video game.”
Track the progress of the Follia Dear Father Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
Yikes