At first, Posthuman: Sanctuary seems like just another narrative-driven game about life after the apocalypse. Foreseeable deaths, quickly tiring sacrifices, pesky travelers secretly stealing rations and moral dilemmas that require your sole approval to be resolved – you know the drill. Well, most of those might still be true for the Kickstarter at question, but what if I told you we are also looking at a turn-based, “part rogue-lite” game where the story is told in gorgeous comic strips a-la interactive fiction? How intriguing…
Set in near-future Europe (which is, for a change, not your typical North America), Posthuman: Sanctuary is somewhat of a continuation to last year’s highly successful Kickstarter-funded Posthuman board game. By the looks of it, the digital game we are looking at right now is being developed by the same people and uses mechanics familiar to its physical counterpart, those being all about travelling across different regions and meeting various personas – some nice, others not so much. It kind of reminds me of another wonderfully desolate upcoming game called Overland.
Perhaps my favourite part of Homeworld: Sanctuary’s overall world and design is the aspect of infection being used as an interaction in battles, while also affecting decision-making later on. As in, one bite or scratch doesn’t necessarily mean you’re done for, but it could instead lead to some interesting mutations that open up perilous paths involving equal amounts of personal gains and distrust from your followers. Sadly, I’m not really familiar with the lore behind Posthuman’s universe, but from what I can tell it can get pretty graphical. Which is good, because beasts and stuff.
The only thing that kind of threw me off was seeing the Kickstarter campaign mention this being an episodic game consisting of three parts. As such, I’m not entirely sure how a narrative-driven rogue-lite might work when it’s locked down into separate segments – perhaps it’s a case of areas of the world being restricted, with those containing advancements in the main story-line? Who knows.
What’s certain is that Posthuman: Sanctuary requires $40,000, which is a pretty reasonable sum to ask for considering the amount of stuff that’s shown. Plus, I’ve heard that most backers will receive exclusive Posthuman Miniatures, and those look pretty rad.
Track the progress of the Posthuman: Sanctuary Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
