At the start of May, Winking Entertainment began a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for a new virtual reality (VR) sci-fi adventure called Mars Alive. With a relatively small funding goal of HK$39,300 (around £3,800 GBP), the campaign was successful with the developer now confirming a launch will take place in a couple of weeks for PlayStation VR.
Exclusive to Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) headset, Mars Alive is an open-world survival experience along similar lines to the movie The Martian. In the near future, you’re part of a plan to colonise Mars. A member of an 18 strong team, disaster strikes the colony and all but two survive. It’s then up to players to salvage what’s left of what’s remaining and try to uncover what happened.
Supplies such as oxygen tanks and food ingredients are scattered around but players will have to monitor the status of their Oxygen, Food, Water and Temperature if any of these drops to zero then their health will begin to decrease. Winking Entertainment has built a complete planting simulation system, allowing players to grow a variety of crops, controlling the temperature, humidity, and water alternately in the cabin. Players can choose to simply be a farmer on Mars, watering and fertilizing plants every day, turning their crops into meals and leaving the other tasks alone.
However, Mars Alive has multiple endings depending on how the videogame is played. These can only be uncovered by taking dangerous risks and going out to explore. As such the story will unfold and they’ll learn more about what’s going on on the planet.
The studio does note on the Kickstarter page that while Mars Alive is currently supporting the PlayStation VR only, the team may consider platforms such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive in the future, once the initial release has taken place.
Winking Entertainment has released quite a few VR titles in the past, such as Unearthing Mars, Reborn: A Samurai Awakens, Unearthing Mars 2: The Ancient War, Paper Dolls, 18 Floors and The Walker, all with varying degrees of success. When the final launch details are available, VRFocus will let you know.
via Mint VR