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Home dev announces eerie sci-fi romance adventure Alone With You

The loneliest planet.

Back in 2012 indie developer Benjamin Rivers made a minimalist horror game for PC and iOS entitled Home and now he's following it up with a "psychological romance adventure" called Alone With You.

This lonely sci-fi tale will put players in the role of a stranded astronaut stuck on an uninhabited planet following a failed terraforming expedition. Your only companion will be your somewhat creepy AI, as detailed in Alone With You's evocative teaser trailer below.

Watch on YouTube

Based on the premise it sounds a bit like Her meets Castaway in space, but Rivers explained to Eurogamer in an e-mail that that's not the case at all - though he remained cagey about details for fear of spoilers. Here's what he could say, however:

"The goal of the game (from my point of view) is to take the idea of a dating sim and turn it on its head a bit," Rivers stated. For example, he noted that "most dating games are about an objectified quest to 'win' a character's heart. AWY doesn't take that approach."

Rivers also clarified that this won't be a puzzle or action game, but will be a narrative-focused experience with a heavy emphasis on player choice. "If Home was a horror game without monsters or fail states, Alone With You will be like a dating sim without the usual trappings," he said. "Their similarities are that both games are very much player-driven; the game isn't really puzzle-reliant, but very much more about making choices. The challenge I gave myself was to do this without creating a visual novel style game - I wanted to make something more familiar to core game players in terms of exploring environments, controlling a character, and so forth."

The developer also noted that the suited-up protagonist will be gender neutral with all sorts of romantic options to pursue. "Whether you're male, female, transgendered, straight, gay, etc - I want you to feel like you can play this game."

Alone With You is still early in development, so platforms and a release window have yet to be announced.

Can love bloom on an uninhabited alien world?

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