Strategy Informer  

Jonny Hopper of developer Ambient Studios describes the freshly released demo of their real-time strategy Death Inc. as "not even really a demo." He'd be right because it's "a prototype." A very very rough prototype.

In it there's a "short 10 minute slice" of what Ambient are trying to do with Death Inc., which needs around £240k more in pledges with 15 days left on its Kickstarter campaign. The fun is "easy to extrapolate".

There's no sound in the prototype either and that they apologise for, says studio director Hopper. They feel this will help stand out in the "tough world" of Kickstarter.

The aim of the game is to play as a freelancing Grim Reaper who wants to build up his own little corporate empire. To do this the player will 'paint' instructions on the land itself for your little armies to infect poor villagers and country bumpkins. Those peasants won't go quietly though and fight back.

"It's not even really a demo," said Jonny Hopper. "It's a prototype. We don't think anyone's done this before: release a game that is so early upon the world. There's no audio, for which we apologise, but like I said it is so early. But we do have the basic mechanics in there. It's easy to extrapolate and see how much fun the fully developed game could be."

The hope is that this prototype will better explain what they intend with Death Inc.'s unique brand of real-time strategy, which will lead to an increased awareness to the Kickstarter campaign. So far they've raised £60k from almost 2,400 backers. They have half a month left to swell that by £240k to reach their goal.

"It's a tough world on Kickstarter at the moment, tough to stand out," he continued. "And there's this general malaise around when projects might be perceived as vapourware. When we're not making a sequel or using nostalgia quite as heavily as other projects, this seems to be the best way to help people understand what they're backing."

Ambient aim for an October release for Death Inc. on PC, Mac and Linux - if funded.

Source: Eurogamer

Related games: Death Inc (PC)