I spent a not-insignificant portion of my childhood terrified I would go blind. I was in the sixth grade when a doctor first told me I would need to start wearing glasses and that my vision would only get worse as I got older. That happened, but never to the extent I feared it would. The idea of waking up one day to permanent blackness is still frightening, but only because I know it won’t lead to my becoming a crime-fighting vigilante.
Our tendency to fear the things we can’t see or understand serves as the core of Perception, a horror game that follows a blind woman named Cassie and her mission to free herself from the nightmares she’s been having of a mysterious mansion.
After a bit of digging, Cassie discovers the mansion is real, so she checks it out. This leads her to a place called Echo Bluff, where the real nightmare begins.
One of the things that makes Perception so unique is how we interact with it using Cassie’s nifty ability to see her surroundings through echolocation. This makes otherwise normal environments look ridiculously cool, like you’re seeing them through some sort of ghost filter.
If you aren’t sold already, it’s worth noting that while The Deep End Games is a new indie studio, its team is anything but. The developer was formed by industry veterans whose previous works include Dead Space, BioShock and BioShock Infinite. I’m confident they’ll be able to pull this off, assuming they reach their $150,000 funding goal on Kickstarter. Over $63k has been raised with 25 days left in the campaign, so I can’t say I’m too worried.
