By Craig Pearson on August 15th, 2012 at 5:00 pm.
Kubrick knew all about the Moon (capitalised out of fearful respect). 2001 was a huge warning to keep away or we’d be eaten by space babies and tossed down a psychedelic garbage chute. But we didn’t keep away. We meddled and then, 30 years later, he died. Think about it. Icy tendrils of fear are no doubt wrapping around your spinal column, like a snake with bad circulation that’s just drank a smoothie, so now’s the perfect time to DRAMATICALLY reveal Routine, a scarifying indie survival horror set upon Kubrick’s greatest nemesis.
There’s not a lot, other than a teaser with floaty space gibs and glitchy, scratchy images, but the trailer hits the right tone of squelchy thumps, and showing what appears to be a Robotic Slender Man in space. If you’ve not got your hands up in front of your face, you can have a look. If you do have your hands up in front of your face, don’t worry: no-one here is judging you.
More info points to a non-linear story on a fully-explorable Moon base, but with randomised puzzles and AI. There’s no HUD, no points, no health bars. When shit hits the space fan, you run and you hide, and if you die then that’s it for your progress. Perma-death, just like on the real moon. No idea when it’s out… look that’s all I know. What do you want? The moon on a stick?
15/08/2012 at 17:04 Mr. Mister says:
Please tell me there’s no artificial gravity generator in the indoor levels.
15/08/2012 at 17:47 Hotseflots says:
This may come as a surprise to you but there is, in fact, gravity on the moon.
15/08/2012 at 17:48 PitfireX says:
Darn, beat me to it. lol
15/08/2012 at 17:59 Bloodoflamb says:
Well, I mean… There is gravity everywhere.
15/08/2012 at 18:03 Satanic Beaver says:
Wow.
15/08/2012 at 19:12 Mr. Mister says:
Duh, of course, that will be the natural gravity. I obviously meant that it will not be artificcially amplified to earth’s magnitude.
15/08/2012 at 19:24 SuperNashwanPower says:
Of course there’s no gravity. Everyone knows that gravity comes from the force of the air pressing down on your head (which is why people with large heads weigh more due to their larger hat’s surface area). Obviously there is no AIR on the moon, so to ask for gravity on the moon is just silly. Tsk.
Not to mention that due to its being made of cheese, its quite bouncy up there. The best you can hope for in terms of staying put is getting your foot stuck in one of the little holes. Or a soft bit.
16/08/2012 at 06:23 Maltose says:
I hear moon cheese makes great pizza, though.
15/08/2012 at 17:51 mrmalodor says:
Ahahahahahahah, idiot!
15/08/2012 at 18:35 Dragon Master says:
You’re on the wrong website, I guess you you got here instead of IGN or Gamespy by accident….
16/08/2012 at 01:35 MrTambourineMan says:
^^Mothafuckin THIS!
15/08/2012 at 18:04 Turquoise Days says:
Dear smartypants responders. It’s entirely possible that Mr Mister is requesting lunar gravity on the moon.
15/08/2012 at 19:13 Mr. Mister says:
Thank you, good sir.
15/08/2012 at 19:27 SuperNashwanPower says:
I too wish to do that leaping walk thing like Buzz Aldrin, which as I already said is due to the bouncy nature of moon cheese
18/08/2012 at 11:55 innociv says:
It’s odd to think the gravity would be higher inside the bases than outside on the lunar surface.
15/08/2012 at 20:34 Unaco says:
Then that wouldn’t be artificial then, would it.
Edit: nevermind, I got confused.
15/08/2012 at 17:11 TheManfromAntarctica says:
It’s since I finished playing the first Dead Space that I’ve been dreaming of a survival horror set in space with less shooting. However, when I watch this trailer, the only thing I can think about is: floppy disks?
15/08/2012 at 17:12 Sfitz says:
I laughed at that. :D
15/08/2012 at 17:22 aurens says:
the aesthetics seem to point toward this taking place in the 80s (which would be great). there’s the floppies, the vhs ‘lunar software’ logo, the slow re-draw digital camera viewer thingy, the hot pink ‘routine’ logo, and i’d argue the look of the space suits is fairly fitting as well.
15/08/2012 at 18:04 Trithne says:
That 80′s tech aesthetic is amazing and it alone makes me want to play this.
15/08/2012 at 18:13 felisc says:
that vhs sound logo was perfect.
16/08/2012 at 01:37 MrTambourineMan says:
Oh yeah man, that late 80′s early 90′s aesthetics is so much win.
16/08/2012 at 03:01 Skabooga says:
Such a huge draw for me as well.
15/08/2012 at 17:23 hello_mr.Trout says:
on their website, it mentions that it has an ’80s vision of the future’ – also, that the floppy discs can be inserted into that gun/scanner looking thing as upgrades. i think it’s pretty neat – floppy disks were heaps cool!
15/08/2012 at 17:34 Hoaxfish says:
Space: 1999
15/08/2012 at 17:11 BooRanger says:
phh talk about being a few decades to slow, mars is now where its at.
15/08/2012 at 18:52 TechnicalBen says:
The moon seems way scarier. No atmosphere means looking anywhere above the horizon looks near pitch black. Well, unless your looking towards the sun, in which case it’s blindness. So all in all, a difficult place to actually see anything… the anything creeping up behind you!
15/08/2012 at 19:15 Mr. Mister says:
Because obviously the game will look like that. I mean, it’s entirely impossible that the developers don’t make use of such an opportunity just because playing it on a console may mean that (RL) ambience light might make darkness obnoxious, right?
15/08/2012 at 17:11 Sfitz says:
I simply must have this now.
15/08/2012 at 17:12 Iskariot says:
I am definitely interested.
And with realistic physics this could be very cool.
15/08/2012 at 17:15 Jams O'Donnell says:
Obligatory moon on a stick link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERDUbAv8Qz0
This sounds excellent. Find more news and post it, RPS. Then steal the source code and send it to me.
15/08/2012 at 17:17 AmateurScience says:
This is now firmly on my radar, very promising indeed.
Slightly off-topic, but a lot of/most of the first person adventure/explore ‘em ups out there seem to be scary ones (e.g. Amnesia, Prenumbra, this). Has anyone ever tried to make a game more in the ilk of Time Gentlemen Please! in first person? Because the idea appeals to me greatly now that I think about it :)
15/08/2012 at 17:39 Jason Moyer says:
Being hunted through the british countryside by robots seems pretty scary.
15/08/2012 at 17:45 AmateurScience says:
It does, and entertaining. Someone should totally make a game about that!
16/08/2012 at 12:38 Untitled says:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/07/sir-you-are-being-hunted-trailer/
and that they have
15/08/2012 at 18:33 Ross Angus says:
First-person adventure-em-up. Yes please. Dear Esther, but with clicking.
(I know, I know, there’s that thing set in a house – you know the one)
15/08/2012 at 23:35 Zelius says:
Have you played the Sherlock Holmes games? They might be exactly what you’re looking for.
I would like to see more of these as well. I love first-person adventures, but they seem to be rare. And I’m not a fan of heart attacks.
16/08/2012 at 00:16 Kaira- says:
You recommend Sherlock Holmes and say you’re not a fan of heart attacks? Have you forgotten about the good old creepy Watson?
15/08/2012 at 17:22 ResonanceCascade says:
I’m so glad we’re finally getting all these great first person non-shooters. It’s a childhood dream come true!
15/08/2012 at 17:34 SelfEsteemFund says:
Impressed with everything up until I noticed it was UE3.
15/08/2012 at 18:54 dee says:
Why does that matter? It’s a solid engine, especially for this type of game.
If Amnesia, System Shock, Thief or Half Life ran on UE3, would they be worse?
16/08/2012 at 07:45 PopeJamal says:
Yes. To paraphrase Henry Ford: “You can have any color car you want as long as it makes everything look like plastic and it runs on the Unreal engine.” Henry Ford was a Nazi lover. Therefore, people who play Unreal engine games are Nazis?
MOONFACE
18/08/2012 at 14:12 innociv says:
Comments like this make me sick.
UE3 are the tools, not the artists.
15/08/2012 at 17:35 wodin says:
Anyone remember that other space game but Isometric being made by a lone developer? I think it was set on a research station or ship or something..looked really good. I can’t remember the name though.
15/08/2012 at 18:01 Bloodoflamb says:
It’s called STASIS.
http://www.stasisgame.com/
15/08/2012 at 17:36 wodin says:
Thinking of space and stuff..Moon is a great film..well worth watching, also has an old school sci fi vibe aswell.
Also got this link of this games website..about a game called..Moonhelm
“First-Person RTS/RPG Roguelike. Created by IMakeGame & Cerberus Software”
Description
Moonhelm is a roguelike, realtime, First-Person RTS/RPG with perma-death and procedurally generated environments, objectives and campaigns. The whole game can be summarised as “that one scene inside the vents in Alien… meets The Thing”.
Players guide a single main unit through the campaign: if he dies it’s game over. In addition to this they can recruit fellow shipmates – the twist is that some of these npc’s are in fact aliens masquerading as allies; They’ll follow your orders like any other squadmate until they’re discovered by stumbling across the corpse of the person of whom they’ve assumed the identity.
The flip side is that Moonhelm is almost impossible to complete alone – squad members have unique abilities which allow access to restricted areas, damage boosts and other skills which alter the overall dynamic and feel of the game.
The player will have to choose who to trust based on past experience. It isn’t ‘game over’ if a squadmate turns, though your chances of survival will be notably slimmer!
https://www.facebook.com/Moonhelm
15/08/2012 at 17:54 LennyLeonardo says:
“Thinking of space and stuff..Moon is a great film..well worth watching, also has an old school sci fi vibe aswell.”
This is objectively true. The soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal. Plus it has a tiny cameo by that guy who plays Douglas Renholm in the IT crowd. And that’s good.
15/08/2012 at 18:39 Ross Angus says:
And another cameo by Dr. Fu, creator of Medibot, in Look Around You.
Medibot.
15/08/2012 at 18:58 Furius says:
Matt Berry released a surprisingly brilliant album last year called Witchhazel. It’s not comedy, but not altogether serious (even the Paul McCartney cameo’s not awful)
15/08/2012 at 18:09 Satanic Beaver says:
I loved moon. I was expecting it to just be a copy of space odyssey, especially when
SPOILER ALERT
the AI was trying to keep him from going outside, but i was actually amazed at how different and original it ended up being. Sam Rockwell is a good actor too.
15/08/2012 at 18:49 ResonanceCascade says:
Not only that, but it’s directed by David Bowie’s offspring. And he’s a cool guy! And he likes Ultima Underworld, according to a tweet I saw from him a while back!
/manswoon
15/08/2012 at 17:41 Brise Bonbons says:
This is very exciting; we definitely need as many non-shooty survival horror games in space as we can get.
I really dig the presentation so far, too. This one goes on my watch list at the top!
15/08/2012 at 17:54 SRTie4k says:
Wasn’t 2001 actually a warning to stay away from Jupiter?
16/08/2012 at 01:36 whydidyoumakemeregister says:
I think the movie is vague and just calls it the Jupiter mission, but I definitely remember the book has them slingshot around Jupiter to get to the signal that was coming from one of Saturn’s moons. So, still a moon.
15/08/2012 at 17:59 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
I shall begin growing a goatee so I can stroke it while considering this news.
15/08/2012 at 18:00 zeroskill says:
Wow, this looks pretty sweet and got me excited. But 2013…
15/08/2012 at 18:06 Satanic Beaver says:
This looks very cool, we need more space games that aren’t ship games, and a horror game on the moon sounds great, could be the perfect creepy atmosphere. Space Odyssey is one of my favorite movies, and moon was great too.
15/08/2012 at 18:20 tomeoftom says:
I want this SO badly.
15/08/2012 at 18:39 Shazbut says:
What the bloody hell? YES! Give this to me!
It’s almost like the cosmos responded to what I was saying in the comments of the new Aliens game.
The only thing that could make me unhappy is if it somehow becomes a game about shifting tiles and reading scraps of paper.
15/08/2012 at 19:54 Geen says:
I’m getting nice Alien vibes from this. You, alone, in space, helpless, and one, only one deadly sonovabitch hunting you, able to rip you a new one with their pinky.
15/08/2012 at 20:00 nimzy says:
This is like a high-fidelity SS13. In fact, if they have mod tools and multiplayer code, it could very well be the next SS13. This is definitely giving me good vibes.
And in the words of a Syndicate agent, “GET DAT FUKKEN DISK.”
15/08/2012 at 20:33 Unaco says:
I dunno… It all feels a little regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, procedural.
16/08/2012 at 00:05 TyrOvC says:
I’m mooning over this game’s atmosphere.
15/08/2012 at 21:04 Big Murray says:
After this and Remember Me, 2012 seems to be the Year of the Flashy Trailer For Games Being Released Next Year. Or something.
15/08/2012 at 21:24 Torgen says:
“YOU LEFT ME ON THE F**KING MOON!”
(flails arms)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svAQ6BCIgxg
15/08/2012 at 21:42 noom says:
Between this and Primordia, you have made this sci-fi nerd very very happy today RPS.
15/08/2012 at 22:28 Wonderboy2402 says:
Damn, this game sounds really immersive. I will definitely be checking it out.
But what I really want from an immersive, exploration game of survival and horror? I want a REMAKE of Jurassic Park Trespasser from 1998. It would kick ass now, and they could achieve what they were trying to do.
16/08/2012 at 02:08 amishmonster says:
If the movie Moon taught me anything, it’s that the Moon actually DOESN’T have perma-death. I’d say “spoilers”, but it’s nothing that the main character doesn’t figure out a third of the way through the movie.
16/08/2012 at 03:14 Skabooga says:
Well if the title didn’t get me super-excited, that description sure did. It’s like game developers are making what I’m thinking!