Now this is interesting. The Chinese Room, developers of narratively driven games like Everybody's Gone to Rapture, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Dear Esther are tackling one of the more game mechanic-heavy genres, isometric RPG's, for their next big project.
After an announcement was teased about a month ago, we finally know what the indie studio is working on. Titled Total Dark, this new RPG draws its inpiration from classic tabletop and Pen and Paper games.
In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, The Chinese Room’s studio director, Dan Pinchbeck had this to say about Total Dark:
"It’s a much more traditional game, an isometric adventure with a free-floating camera and lots of mechanics. That will make some people happy while other people are going to wonder if we have the right experience to make that sort of game. But we absolutely do. Because most people know us because of Dear Esther and now Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, it’s easy to assume that’s the kind of game we will always make and have always made. What they may not realise is that we were developing other mods alongside Dear Esther. One of them was Antlion Soccer."
Total Dark started out as a board game, that the developers decided to turn into a full fledged video game. The Chinese Room still may move forward with the board game adaptation, but right now the focus in on the isometric RPG.
Just hours ago, it was confirmed that The Chinese Room's most recent game, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, is (unsurprisingly) headed to PC.
Source: [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
