The former creative strategist at Call Of Duty developer Infinity Ward has announced a new Kickstarter project, with Rob Bowling looking for $400,000 (£264,000) to make a 2D platformer called The Adventures Of Dash.
Dash is an ordinary nine-year-old, except he has the tendency to fall asleep at the drop of a hat and you get to control him in his dream world. The game’s big idea is that not only is each dream world completely different but it also has its own completely unique art style.
According to the Kickstarter page the dreams will be influenced by wherever Dash is in the real world and the mechanics of the gameplay will also alter depending on the dream. Although the game will maintain an emphasis on puzzle-solving, platforming, and combat in all of them.
‘What always frustrated me working on Call of Duty or even our own Human Element, was that hiring any of these artists I loved meant one thing, forcing them into an art style to fit with the game universe we were working on,’ says Bowling.
‘It resulted in stripping away everything I loved about them in the first place, their personality, and personal style was lost in the universe of the game. Why should we adapt an artist to the game, when the game can adapt to the artist?’
Bowling left Infinity Ward last year for still unexplained reasons, but unrelated to the great exodus inspired by the sacking of Vince Zampella and Jason West. (Indecently, Respawn has now confirmed that yesterday’s story about West leaving the company is true.)
As a result Bowling left to start his own company called Robotoki, and has already announced zombie apocalypse game Human Element. The game still hasn’t been seen in public though and is not expected to be released until 2015, although a prequel has been promised for indie console OUYA.
The Adventures Of Dash sounds pretty interesting to us and apparently there’s an ex-Modern Warfare 3 developer working on the tech, a Batman: Arkham City artist on the team, and the composer from Super Meat Boy.
The goal of $400,000 is pretty hefty, but as the Kickstarter only started last night it’s impossible to tell how likely it is it’ll make it. The project will involve a documentary of the game’s creation, although you’ll have to donate at least $25 to get that as well as the game. Larger donations involve all the usual Kickstarter extras, including access to the Human Element beta.
If it is funded The Adventures of Dash will be out this November on PC, OUYA, iOS, Android, and unspecified consoles.
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