Video Games
Kickstarter Campaign Launched for Stop Motion Horror Game ‘ABIDE’ [Trailer]
After The Midnight Walk, you’re probably hungry for more stop-motion horror in your gaming. Indie development duo Talha & Jack Co are looking to satisfy with the announcement of ABIDE, which is described as an “extreme” first-person horror title, featuring prosthetic gore effects, meticulously handcrafted and traditionally animated dolls, all wrapped up in a stomach-churning narrative “bursting” with gruesome mysteries.
Coming to Steam, the project is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds in order to “have more freedom to experiment” with their ideas. Currently, the campaign has raise just over £6,000 of its initial £25,000 goal, with several pledge goals for backers.
For inspiration, the team is drawing from Giallo mystery novels and the accompanying 70s horror films they influenced, SplatterPunk books, the paintings of Ken Currie, East Asian extreme horror films and low-fi horror. The devs believe horror should be dangerous and experimental, grossly fun but also “stomach-churningly appalling” at times. With KickStarter support, Talha & Jack Co look to have the freedom to make the uncompromised version of ABIDE.
Set in the picturesque and idyllic St Boniface Retreat, ABIDE sees players pushing their luck, and venturing out past curfew to discover the disturbing horrors within the house and its residents. Gameplay is divided by a day/night cycle. During the day, players will investigate by gathering clues, building relationships and earning the trust of the game’s eccentric cast.
By night, players will sneak, spy and survive as they explore the dimly lit house to access places locked in the daytime. However, they will also come face-to-face with terrors (real or imagined) that lurk within the shadows.
According to the devs, the idea behind the day/night mechanic is to create contrast and tensions. The day is for mystery and intrigue where threats are more psychological, the night is for physical danger and getting answers. This structure allows for player agency where choices in the day shape the risks and rewards at night and the avenues open to them. It also increases the game’s replay potential, with different players trusting/suspecting different NPCs and uncovering secrets and multiple endings in varying orders.
Video Games
Bloody Body Horror Revealed in ‘Stellar Blade: Blood Rain’, Currently in Development [Trailer]
Shift Up has shifted things dramatically from 2024’s action-adventure game Stellar Blade, offering up a body horror bonanza in the newly announced sequel, Stellar Blade: Blood Rain. The sequel is currently early in development, but if the trailer is any indication, players will be in for plenty of body horror.
Continuing the story from the original Stellar Blade, Blood Rain will star a new protagonist named Eve. Earth has been abandoned, and what is left of humanity has fled to a Colony in outer space.
Shift Up had mentioned during a Q&A following its latest earnings presentation last month that development on Blood Rain (which was still unannounced at the time) was progressing smoothly, and was on track to meet their targeted quality standards.
Shift Up stated that with this new title it would be transitioning to a first-party service model, effectively moving away from the restrictions the game experienced with original publisher Sony, which had the game under an exclusivity agreement for the PlayStation 5. “This will allow us to lead marketing strategies that fully reflect the distinctive identity of the Stellar Blade IP, and we expect to communicate the unique appeal of its universe to players more directly and effectively.”
Whether this means that Xbox Players will finally be able to play the original game (or its sequel) is still not clear. Meanwhile, Stellar Blade is reportedly being ported to the Nintendo Switch 2, but no official confirmation has been made.