In an unprecedented twist on the Kickstarter scheme, Ambient Studios unveiled the world’s first ‘try before you pledge’ dynamic by releasing a free Demo for their upcoming title, Death Inc. After spending an afternoon with the demo, I found Death Inc. to be fun, innovative, and very very colorful.
In Death Inc. you play as Grim T. Livingstone, a freelance Reaper who unleashes the plague onto 17th century England. As you ransack farms, ports and cities, you’ll topple knights and noblemen alike, all the while growing your pestilential horde.
Despite the grim nature of the title and description, Death Inc. is actually quite vibrant and colorful. It’s hard to compare Death Inc. to existing titles, but I’d say it plays as a cross between Pikmin, Katamuri, and StarCraft. What’s most impressive is the fact that Death Inc. has only been in development for 10 weeks, and it already looks gorgeous.
Although not fully functional in the Demo, you’ll be harvesting souls to use as currency for expanding Death Inc.’s base of operations and unlocking new units, upgrades and special abilities.Take these back to the surface and continue your fight against the healthy as you spread fear, loathing and most importantly, the bubonic plague.
My recommendation is that you give the demo for Death Inc. a try. It’s free, it’s fun, and hopefully it will get you excited for this innovative title. Ambient Studios has set a Kickstarter goal of £300,000 and will need your help to reach it.
It requires a huge leap of faith to decide to back a game based on its concept art or launch video, particularly when that project is from a smaller, independent developer,” says Jonny Hopper, Director, Co-Founder, Ambient Studios Ltd.
“But we believe Death Inc. is a title that Kickstarter was built for. Ambient Studios is a small independent developer based in Guildford, UK, founded in 2011 by Media Molecule alumni. We’ve worked across games such as LittleBigPlanet, the Fable franchise, Burnout and Need For Speed – but we really need support to create and publish our first original game.
“We’re so confident in our idea that we’ve taken the unusual step of issuing a fully playable demo before the campaign has finished.”
“We’re into the business end of the campaign now,” adds Jonny. “We’ve made a good start, and had some tremendous endorsements – we’re hoping that the demo will convince anyone who’s currently undecided that Death Inc. is a game worth supporting.
“The game has only been in development for 10 weeks, but we’re already thrilled with how it’s all coming together. We’re incredibly grateful to those who have pledged to back our vision already – but hope that this playable demo will encourage more to join our Kickstarter campaign.”
Overall I enjoyed the short time I played with Death Inc. demo and would definitely like to see the game reach new heights. The Death Inc. demo is available to download for both PC and Mac from the game’s Kickstarter page here.
