Dog’s might be called ‘man’s best friend’ but that’s generally because they’re highly dependant on their owners. Cats, on the other hand, are a law unto themselves, one-minute loving and adoring the next nonchalant and dispassionate. It’s why if the human race suddenly vanished off the face of the earth, cats would probably do a lot better than dogs. In fact, that’s kind of what happens in Peace Island, an open-world adventure where you play a furry feline.
Peace Island is the brainchild of solo developer Eric Blumrich. Set on a remote Maine island, the basic concept is a mix science fiction, alternative history, and mystery, with a storyline that involves nine cats waking up to find their human companions have strangely disappeared.
Pretty much working on the videogame by himself (with the odd helping hand), Blumrich launched a Kickstarter crowd-funding project last summer to help fund development and produce a beta demo. The campaign was successful, managing to raise $13,098 USD from 345 backers. As you can probably imagine, working on an open-world adventure by yourself isn’t the easiest of tasks so Blumrich has been working a full-time job to help support his videogame efforts.
While the beta has yet to appear, Blumrich has at least been very vocal on his Kickstarter page continually updating backers. Recently the project’s popularity has soared with the developer posting a comment saying: “We’ve gotten emails from Amazon and Xbox wanting a piece of the project.” As such more people want to back the title but the Kickstarter is long closed. Don’t worry though as Peace Island has a Patreon page so fans of videogames and cats can help. The feedback has been that responsive that Blumrich will be quitting his day job to work on Peace Island full time.
He describes Peace Island as: “A non-violent interactive story which will focus on discovery, atmosphere, and exploration, rather than combat. The player will have the opportunity to experience multiple divergent storylines, as they approach the ultimate decision: Are the humans worth bringing back?”
From the looks of things, it’ll be quite a while before Peace Island sees a full launch, with the beta demo delayed by three months. Support is planned for PC, Mac and Oculus headsets. When further details are made available VRFocus will let you know.
via Mint VR