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Indie survival sim Dyscourse secures funding in final hours on Kickstarter
Dyscourse, the desert-island survival sim from Snuggle Truck developer Owlchemy Labs, has met its goal in the final few hours of its Kickstarter campaign, securing funding for development on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Owlchemy faced an uphill battle in the final week of its campaign, but crested its $40,000 funding goal with 36 hours to spare. Funding picked up steam following a barrage of updates from Owlchemy, during which the studio produced a mini-documentary and announced a bonus Dyscourse scenario that pits real-world indies against one another in a no-holds-barred struggle for survival. Dyscourse is due for release in September next year via Steam.
The first Dyscourse gameplay video shows how to not kill a boar
Dyscourse is a quirky survival game that developer Owlchemy Labs promises is heavy on narrative and player choice – and finally we can see what all of that means. The first gameplay video of Dyscourse follows Rita and a few crabby tourists as they attempt to survive in the wasteland where their plane crashed, narrated by Owlchemy founder Alex Schwartz. Dyscourse is looking for $40,000 on Kickstarter and has 13 days to go, with $19,000 in the bank. When Owlchemy launched the campaign, Schwartz told us that player choice in Dyscourse really, really mattered. Really.
Indie devs battle starvation, each other in Dyscourse bonus scenario
Who would be better-equipped to survive a week on a desert island: Double Fine head honcho Tim Schafer or Super Meat Boy developer Edmund McMillen? Would Vlambeer's Rami Ismail emerge as a better spear fisherman than Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman? Snuggle Truck developer Owlchemy Labs aims to answer these burning questions with "Indie Plane Crash," a recently announced bonus scenario for its Kickstarter-funded PC survival game Dyscourse. Indie Plane Crash finds out what happens when indie devs stop being polite and start getting real over the course of an extended stay on a deserted island. Starring cast members include Tim Schafer, Edmund McMillen, Octodad's Phil Tibitoski, Antichamber creator Alexander Bruce, World of Goo developer Ron Carmel, Journey producer Robin Hunicke, Dejobaan Games' Ichiro Lambe, Auditorium's Will Stallwood, Adam Saltsman, and Rami Ismail. Odds are good that some of these indies won't survive long enough to be rescued. As in Dyscourse's main story mode, players must make decisions and form alliances among fellow survivors in order to hunt, eat, and address emergent story details that unfold throughout. Dyscourse has 18 days left in its ongoing Kickstarter campaign, and has earned over $13,000 toward its funding goal of $40,000.
Snuggle Truck dev's 'Dyscourse' promises your choices truly matter
Dyscourse is Owlchemy Labs' most ambitious project to date – it's a survival title for PC, Mac and Linux that tackles groupthink, the futility of earning a degree in art, and branching narrative paths depending on each player's unique choices. Really this time, Owlchemy founder Alex Schwartz tells me. "Throughout the history of games, the claim has been made multiple times that player choice significantly affects gameplay," he says. I offer Telltale's The Walking Dead as one game that some players think promised too much control over the story. Schwartz says he loves that series but sees how voice acting and a big dev team pushed it to be a more linear story. Dyscourse doesn't feature voice acting, instead relying on text, and the game takes place in a "narrative playground," the island where main character Rita crash-lands with a ragtag group of tourists. Schwartz says Owlchemy's approach means each player will have a unique experience, tell a different story, and probably kill their companions in different ways. By accident, of course. "We're using some really interesting in-house tech to manage the writing process, but it's definitely a challenge," he says. "What it boils down to is attempting to write a large, multi-tiered narrative that can be approached from many different angles and a player simply only sees a small fraction when they play through a single time. Using variables to detect whether a player experienced or did not yet experience a certain dramatic moment – such as, 'Did the player find that hidden key yet?' or, 'Has the player uncovered the hidden backstory of one of the survivors?' – we can dynamically adjust the experience for each playthrough."
