Radio the Universe - a sombre, spooky top-down RPG - hits Kickstarter in style

I was pretty tired of Kickstarter until I saw the following pitch, which doesn't feature any of the following: a rich old games developer asking for ridiculous sums of money, a bunch of vague promises, or any more god-damned spaceships. Radio the Universe is, instead, a stylish 2D action-RPG - it's Yume Nikki meets Dark Souls, Zelda mingling with Shin Megami Tensei, in a spooky, possibly end-of-the-world setting even the (otherwise faultless) Mayans couldn't have predicted. It's already reached its fairly low target of $12,000, and there are 31 days left to go.

You're an unnamed protagonist "alone in a skyless and desolate labyrinth-city," and in a startling coincidence you're also that in the game. What better way to while away your life than by engaging in "challenging gameplay" that has "environmental hazards, platforming, [and with] lethal enemies [that] reward players who assess, strategize, and stay attentive"? Yes, it's a little bit Dark Souls (which itself was a large bit Zelda) - it even has a "sombre and expansive open world".

Other influences include Symphony of the Night, Yume Nikki and Hotline Miami - all excellent games, and I can't wait to see what sort of experience their collision will result in. Promisingly, developer 6e6e6e states the desire for the game to feel a little "off", to have its own, slightly surreal personality, which tends to be the thing that separates great games from the good.

You'll find much, much more info on the game's Kickstarter page , including 6e6e6e's aim to make "players who die in-game die in real life". Even Dark Souls isn't that mean.

[Cheers, IndieGames !]

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.