Isometric point-and-click horror adventure Stasis awakens on Kickstarter

UPDATE: funded with four days remaining.

UPDATE: The Stasis Kickstarter has been successful.

At the time of publication $101,111 had been pledged of the $100,000 goal with four days of the crowd-funding drive remaining.

"No - no words," wrote developer Christopher Bischoff, quoting Ellie Arroway from Carl Sagan's Contact. "No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful... I had no idea."

ORIGINAL STORY: Point-and-click adventures are often associated with comedy due to their almost intrinsically goofy nature of picking up random objects and combining them with other objects, but every so often a game comes around that dares to subvert the status quo by combining an oldschool adventure template with a serious horror flavour. Sanitarium, Clocktower, and The Seventh Guest certainly come to mind. Heck, even Silent Hill and its spiritual successor retro demakes Soundless Mountain 2 and Lone Survivor follow the point-and-click formula in a lot of ways. The latest traditional horror adventure to grace our presence is a crowdfunded affair called Stasis and it appears to be a looker.

Over the last three years indie developer The Brotherhood - made up of actual brothers Christopher and Nic Bischoff - have toiled to bring this nightmare to life and now the brothers Bischoff are looking for $100K to realise their their goal.

That may seem like a lot of money, but unlike a lot of Kicktarter pitches, Stasis has already been in development for three years. There's even a playable demo available for free that you can grab at the developer's site.

Stasis follow the story of a man named John Maracheck who awakens upon a derelict mining vessel heading towards Neptune. Evidently the spacecraft is owned by a giant corporation doing secret illicit experiments, as large corporations in sci-fi stories are wont to do.

It may not be the most imaginative premise then, but it sure is pretty. Even Spelunky developer Derek Yu and Wasteland creator Brian Fargo have advocated the Bischoffs' lush isometric 2D graphics and rich atmosphere.

Backers who donate $19 can attain a digital copy of Stasis for PC upon its estimated August 2014 release, while tossing in an extra $5 will guarantee a copy of the soundtrack.

So far Stasis has raised $16,489 of its $100K Kickstarter goal with 32 days to go before its 7th December deadline. It's also on Steam Greenlight in case you'd like to support it non-commercially.


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