Wadjet Eye and Primordia dev show off surreal point-and-click carnival horror Strangeland
Out next month on PC.
Acclaimed point-and-click supremo Wadjet Eye Games is teaming up with Wormwood Studios, the developer behind celebrated post-apocalyptic adventure Primordia, once more, this time to bring surreal horror Strangeland to PC on 25th May.
Strangeland, described as a game about "identity, loss, self-doubt, and redemption", unfolds within a strange carnival, whose "denizens and devices... answer with riddles, puzzles, and warnings of a Dark Thing lurking at the park's peak".
"Forge a blade from iron stolen from the jaws of a ravenous hound and hone it with wrath and grief;" teases Wormwood on Strangeland's Steam page, "charm the eye out of a ten-legged teratoma; and ride a giant cicada to the edge of oblivion.... Amidst such madness, death itself has no grip on you, and you will wield that slippery immortality to gain an edge over your foes."
Although Strangeland is described as a classic point-and-click adventure - one that blends narrative and puzzles as the genre dictates - Wormwood notes the game favours non-linearity and multi-solution puzzles, lending the approximately five-hour experience, which includes full voice acting and multiple endings, an added degree of replayability.
"One player might win a carnival game with sharpshooting, another by electrical engineering," the developer explains, "one player might unravel a strange prophet's wordplay while another gathers visual clues scattered throughout the environment."
In a touching post reflecting on Strangeland's origins, Wormwood namechecks Mervyn Peake, Ray Bradbury, Francisco Goya, The Prisoner, Eraserhead, even cult video games Sanitarium and Weird Dreams as inspirations - which, as lists go, couldn't be more relevant to my interests if it tried. And given the talent behind the project, Strangeland's now firmly on my watchlist as its GOG and Steam release on 25th May approaches.