Rustclad Is A Handsome Handmade Point-And-Clicker

I do so love it when the Internet bequeaths unto me bounties of gorgeous promise that weren't even on my radar mere seconds ago. Such is the case with Rustclad, an alluringly mysterious point-and-click adventure that's made entirely out of hands. No wait, that's not right. Oh, oh, haha, I get it now. It is handmade, which is to say that most of its graphics are scanned from sculpted and found real-world objects. It's a crazy cool modeling technique that's been used to great effect in games like The Swapper, so I'm excited to see what sorts of results it produces here. For now, though, there's a rather attractive trailer below.

Apparently that's just "one of the many exotic locations" in the game. It looks like a slightly laid back, highly atmospheric affair with point-and-click puzzles like mom used to make 'em. But what is it actually about? These things, mostly:

"You are the surveyor in a frontier colony at the edge of a strange wilderness, and it’s your first day on the job. You travel the seas to exotic islands and identify landmarks left behind by a lost civilization. You also find something too interesting to ignore. Letters from the lost civilization; a couple young friends who got separated, and started sending each other messages, and having secret meetings all over the place. These kids really got around!"

"You soon realize that their people got into serious trouble, and there are signs that your own people are headed in the same direction. So now, you don’t just have a job, you have a personal mission… find out more about these kids, and figure out how to avoid whatever left their civilization in ruins."

Sounds like a nice mix of exploration and urgency, but we'll see how it pans out. Encouragingly, Rustclad's team has ample previous professional experience, with founder Jeff Isselee having worked on the likes of Lord of the Rings Online and Infinite Crisis while jack of all trades David Silverman used to be director of development at WB Games. The team is only five people strong, but there's obviously plenty of experience and passion to go around.

So that's good, and here's hoping Rustclad is too. Designing a good point-and-click adventure isn't easy, but they still happen occasionally. Rustclad doesn't have a concrete release date yet, but it's been in full production for a year and looks decently far along. What's your feeling on this one?