Developers [bracket]games are making a new abduction mystery adventure game, To Azimuth, and they hope you’ll help them do it, so they’ve set up a kickstarter.
Set in 1978 in Alabama, just a few years after the Vietnam War, To Azimuth follows two siblings, Susannah and Nate, as they search for their missing brother, Eli. Eli’s history of erratic behavior, drugs, and alcohol means that the police aren’t interested in investigating his absence but his sister, Susannah, worries that “something is really, really wrong”, and manages to convince their brother, Nate, to help her search for him. Their search takes the siblings into a world of “space agencies, truth control, conspiracy theories, familial ties, and mental illness.”
It turns out that Eli may have been abducted by aliens.
The developers say the primary source of inspiration for the game’s narrative is an abiding love for science fiction. Yes, they do name-drop The X-Files “and stories of its ilk”, but they hope that To Azimuth will “sit alongside its influences without attempting to imitate them.”
To Azimuth will require the player to explore environments and confront environmental puzzles as they look for clues and information about Eli’s disappearance. The environmental puzzles will be “rooted in real-world logic”, and not all of the information players discover will necessarily be true. Those two concepts could make for a neat experience if well executed.
The dialogue choices that players make and what they choose to investigate will also apparently affect the journey and outcome of the game, sometimes conspicuously and sometimes more subtly.
https://soundcloud.com/bracketgames/sets/to-azimuth/
The game’s visually striking—I especially like the way environments cascade into place—and the sound design and voice acting are really impressive for an indie endeavor. An original soundtrack, which you can sample above, is being composed for the game by Neutrino Effect, the developers’ long-time music partner. It’s evocative, moody stuff.
If you’re interested in To Azimuth, you can fund it through Kickstarter here, and vote for it on Steam’s Greenlight here.
