A Vancouver Island-based gaming studio may be producing the most Canadian video game ever made.
Hinterland Games' "The Long Dark" is a post apocalyptic survival story, featuring Will Mackenzie, a Canadian bush pilot, forced to rely on his wits as the brutal force of nature attacks.
Hinterland Games pitch is certainly atmospheric:
Imagine the lights go out, never to return. Bright aurora flare across the sky, and all humanity’s technological might is laid to waste, neutralized in a kind of quiet apocalypse. Everything that has shielded humanity from the disinterested power of Mother Nature is suddenly wrenched from us, dropping us a few links down the food chain. Food and water are scarce. The roads are no longer safe. And winter approaches…
The remoteness of the area of Vancouver Island, where Hinterland founder Raphael van Lierop moved his family after years of travelling for jobs in the gaming industry, inspired the game's milieu, The Financial Post reported.
"For me it’s about exploring a bit more of a thoughtful, pensive take on the post-disaster genre, with no B-movie cliches like zombies," he said told the newspaper.
The $1.2-million project, which is targeted for a 2014 release on PC, Mac and Linux, is being financed in two ways: through a Kickstarter campaign that aims to raise $200,000, and by a variety of Canadian and international supporters, with the biggest slice coming from the Canadian Media Fund, The Globe and Mail reported.
That funding allows the game to keep its Canadian feel, van Lierop told the newspaper.
"We have great representation in film and novels and music and all these other pieces of art from Canada where you have a really distinctive Canadian flavour, but we don’t often see that in games," he said.
"The Long Dark" is the first project by the Cumberland-based studio, which has recruited artists behind some of the world's most popular video games.
Writer Marianne Krawczyk has worked on L.A. Noire and the God of War franchise, while technical director Alan Lawrance was lead designer on the Saints Row and Red Faction series, Canada.com reported.
Together they're producing a game that shows the "nitty gritty details of what you have to do to survive," van Lierop said in the Kickstarter video.
"At the heart of the game, it's really about that survival simulation, so having to be concerned about your day to day survival."
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