Episodic Survival Adventure Game: Kôna Is Kickstarting
Wolves and wendigoes in '70s Quebec
Left to survive under my own motivation, well, I end up with a life like this. A survival game with a little direction, that I'd fancy. I keep meaning to make time for Miasmata, which I hear great things about, and now I'm keeping an eye on Kôna too. Set in the white wilds of '70s Northern Quebec, it's a "survival adventure game" about investigating where the heck everyone in a rural community has got to, while trying to avoid being eaten by wolves or a wendigo. That wendigo's involved, I bet.
It's on Kickstarter, natch, and y'can play an early demo.
The demo is over here, a chunk developers Parabole warn is "an early development version." I still had a splendid time driving through the blizzard in a naff old car, poking around buildings and opening drawers, whipping out my chunky camera to snap photos, and generally being engulfed in a thick storm. Pleasant, and slightly makes me wish I could make use of the Oculus Rift support.
Puzzles are simple and logical, more things one would naturally do than convoluted roadblocks. The demo's light on survival, but this is only the very start of the game. Kôna will be released episodically in chunks of an hour or two, so it's certainly not a full-on survival sandbox anyway.
It's got a cracking narrator too, speaking in lovely French over subtitles. They're planning an English voice track, though I imagine I'd stick with this. I also played the Assassin's Creed 2 subseries in Italian with subtitles--for the tone it sets, and because the Italian cast sound better.
The Kickstarter is looking for $40,000 Canadian (£22k) only to fund the first episode. To make the rest they'll need to sell enough copies, though they plan to apply for arts funding too and are willing to find a publisher if needs be. Be quite aware of what you'd be getting if you backed it. Pledging £4 would get you the finished first episode, while season passes including the potential future episode start at £11. With four days left to go, Kôna is about £6k short.