Don't Cheer The Reaper: Death Inc.

Death Inc. is a marvellous, horrible, brilliant, horrible idea. It's this: "Guide Grim T. Livingstone, freelance reaper, through 1660's England spreading fear, pestilence and most importantly, the bubonic plague." You play a reaper in a cartoon 17th century, and your job is to harvest... people. Horrible, eh? But it looks so cute! Death Inc. is currently being developed by a team of former Lionhead, Media Molecule and Criterion devs - called Ambient Studios - and their mission is to create a "streamlined strategy, with no micromanagement or complex menus." Their first game boasts a bunch of intriguing ideas, including the idea of "painting" your commands: "Paint with pestilence: Create routes to travel, areas to defend and flanking manoeuvres with simple mouse strokes."

We've contact ambient for more information, because we suspect we're going to want to keep a close eye on this one.