Lurking on the fringes of society after terrifying monsters have consumed the city, a monster waits. It listens to every conversation, digs up long-forgotten secrets, uncovers lies from the past, it consumes human emotion. It is you. This is the experience that awaits players of Manimal Sanctuary.
Postopian Games have released a free demo of its virtual reality (VR) horror title for Google Cardboard. Available for both iOS and Android, the demo puts the player in role of a Lovecraftian monster who is lurking in the suburban islands of Toronto after the rest of the city was consumed by some dark monstrosity. The player can eavesdrop on conversations between the survivors as they try to scrap together a living and survive. Players need to search for strong emotions to survive, and if they can’t find any, there are dark secrets hidden in the pasts of some of the survivors, just waiting to be uncovered.
Controls are handled using gaze-based interaction, so will not require extra peripherals or controllers to function. The developers also made a deliberate choice to make the performance of the title not be too demanding on older or lower-spec smartphones, to allow more people to enjoy Manimal Sanctuary.
A blog by writer and designer Jim Munroe speaks further to the goals they developers had in mind with Manimal Sanctuary: “This question of what kind of society do we want to have — how safe, and how just — is of obvious relevance to our current political discussion about immigration, refugees, and terrorism,” he said, “We’re also interested in seeing what the player comfort is in relation to the creature they embody. Is manipulation of humans OK if it’s allowing them to survive? Is the farmer/livestock relationship — wherein humans are providing emotions, as cows provide milk — one we’re entirely comfortable with?”
A video trailer is available to view below.
VRFocus will bring you further information on Manimal Sanctuary as it becomes available.
via Mint VR