Home dev announces eerie sci-fi romance adventure Alone With You
The loneliest planet.
Back in 2012 indie developer Benjamin Rivers made a minimalist horror game for PC and iOS entitled Home and now he's following it up with a "psychological romance adventure" called Alone With You.
This lonely sci-fi tale will put players in the role of a stranded astronaut stuck on an uninhabited planet following a failed terraforming expedition. Your only companion will be your somewhat creepy AI, as detailed in Alone With You's evocative teaser trailer below.
Based on the premise it sounds a bit like Her meets Castaway in space, but Rivers explained to Eurogamer in an e-mail that that's not the case at all - though he remained cagey about details for fear of spoilers. Here's what he could say, however:
"The goal of the game (from my point of view) is to take the idea of a dating sim and turn it on its head a bit," Rivers stated. For example, he noted that "most dating games are about an objectified quest to 'win' a character's heart. AWY doesn't take that approach."
Rivers also clarified that this won't be a puzzle or action game, but will be a narrative-focused experience with a heavy emphasis on player choice. "If Home was a horror game without monsters or fail states, Alone With You will be like a dating sim without the usual trappings," he said. "Their similarities are that both games are very much player-driven; the game isn't really puzzle-reliant, but very much more about making choices. The challenge I gave myself was to do this without creating a visual novel style game - I wanted to make something more familiar to core game players in terms of exploring environments, controlling a character, and so forth."
The developer also noted that the suited-up protagonist will be gender neutral with all sorts of romantic options to pursue. "Whether you're male, female, transgendered, straight, gay, etc - I want you to feel like you can play this game."
Alone With You is still early in development, so platforms and a release window have yet to be announced.
