In life-sim indie game Orphan Age, you’re tasked with looking after the children left behind in a brutal cyberpunk urban wasteland. Today, Studio Black Flag released a 12-minute gameplay video with commentary from the game’s lead developer, Adrien Forestier.
Mechanically and thematically, Orphan Age and 11 Bit Studios’ This War of Mine. You’re in control of a group of orphaned children, left behind in the ravages of civil war in a cyberpunk dystopia. In this 12 minute “vertical slice of gameplay,” Forestier walks us through the game’s different features. You begin by creating your character, choosing your name, age (from 6 to 12), traits which are determined by your story, and your skills in the form of what grades you got in different studies. You also have some basic options for what your character looks like. This is all for your first orphan; the rest that you encounter throughout gameplay are all unique and procedurally-generated with different names, ages, and traits.
These orphans will gather around a fire pit in the building that you’re trapped in whenever a significant event occurs, discussing and coming up with solutions to the various issues that you’ll face in Orphan Age. These different backgrounds, traits, and behaviours will often make it difficult to come up with concrete solutions – not unsurprising when everyone is below the age of 13. In order to keep the orphans healthy (in this case, your little sister) you have to search for resources in the locations that you can access. This can be food or water, but it can also be materials that you can use to build furniture and other items that can aid in your chances of survival.
There’s something very sombre about Orphan Age‘s UI that really adds gravitas to the atmosphere of the game. With each new room that you discover having school grades for light, warmth, and so on, all scrawled in different coloured crayons, it really hammers home the fact that these are innocent children caught in the tragedy of war. Orphan Age will be coming to PC in 2018 and has a Kickstarter campaign with 72 hours to go, and 94% of the goal reached.
