Many science fiction stories have been created in which communities are not as we know them, from The Stepford Wives to Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. In We Happy Few, a new game currently in development by Compulsion Games, the source of this inhuman calm and harmony would appear to be treated water; at least, so the above screenshot would indicate.

According to the developer, “We Happy Few is the tale of a plucky bunch of moderately terrible people trying to escape from a lifetime of cheerful denial. Set in a drug-fuelled, retrofuturistic city in an alternative 1960s England, you’ll have to blend in with its other inhabitants, who don’t take kindly to people who don’t abide by their not-so-normal rules.” Guillaume Provost, the founder of Compulsion, has described the game as a “Don’t Starve meets Bioshock experience”, and says that WHF‘s city is procedurally generated. The game will include combat, stealth, and gameplay systems.

Compulsion Games have released new pre-alpha screenshots, more of which you can see below, and you can watch the debut trailer for We Happy Few here.

Provost expects that the studio will still be working on the game for another eight to twelve months, and will be crowdfunding for it in a month or two.