Retro-styled City Quest farming for funds on Kickstarter

Written by Jack Allin — May 4, 2013 at 13:02

If King's Quest (with maybe a little Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry mixed in) had been set in a modern day metropolis, it might look a little something like City Quest, an indie comic adventure now seeking crowdfunding through Kickstarter.

This game tells the simple story of a "small town farmer that comes to the big city to make his dreams come true." What could go wrong? Well, just about everything, it seems, as "on his way to great success, he'll solve puzzles, meet and converse with shady individuals, and make many poor decisions, often resulting in violent low resolution death." Players will get to pursue one of four different lifestyles under the big city lights, including:

• Hobo: Live the exciting life of a street urchin! Eat Garbage! Panhandle! Sleep in the trash!
• Lady/Lad of the Night: Make new "friends"! Sell your body! Fight the oppressive pimp overlords!
• Mafioso: Bust some kneecaps! Rise up in the family! Or maybe even become an informant!
• Politician: Join the Rat Party! Make shady deals! Slime your way to the top!

The debut commercial adventure from two-man indie developer Stone Monkey Studios, City Quest features a blatantly retro style, complete with pixelized graphics, midi-type music, and icon-based action commands reminiscent of early Sierra. In keeping with the Sierra spirit, there will also be plenty of often gruesomely hilarious deaths in an extremely low-res comic style. However, the developers have promised to make these mishaps "reasonably painless for you as a player", encouraging experimentation without fear of losing progress.

Stone Monkey has been working on City Quest for some time now, and could be finished as early as September if they receive $8,000 by June 2 through Kickstarter. A mere $5 will earn the early bird "bumpkins" a DRM-free download of the game on PC, Mac, or Linux, while upper tiers include perks like your name in the credits and even an appearance in the game itself, plus plenty of physical rewards as well. The developers intend to complete the game regardless of the crowdfunding outcome, but failure to meet the goal would necessarily involve fewer features and less polish in the finished product.

Fortunately, you can experience first-hand exactly what kind of adventure you're in for, as there's already a playable browser-based demo to check out for yourselves. If you like what you see and wish to learn more or contribute to the campaign, visit the Kickstarter campaign for full details. You can also vote for the game on Steam Greenlight while you wait for its release.