Rumu spills onto Steam today
Normally the only time you'd use the words "heartwrenching" and "mess" in the same sentences is some variation of "it's heartwrenching how often I need to clean this mess." But indie Australian developer Robot House is ready to flip that script in a big way with the release of Rumu, a game with a "heartwrenching narrative to make you fall in love with mess."
Rumu is named after its playable protagonist, a "robot designed to clean, and to love." Awaking in "a fully-automated Smart Home, your only companions are Sabrina, the house A.I. and watchful guide, and the home’s dysfunctional cast of semi-intelligent devices. (And Ada, the cat.)" As a vacuum cleaner, your maintenance task is simple: to "keep the home spotless, cleaning up after your eccentric creators David and Cecily." All that changes, however, when you find yourself venturing into the "hidden passageways and long forgotten rooms of the house, [where] you’ll be faced with challenging moral dilemmas forcing you beyond your programming to uncover the truth about the love and loss of your elusive family."
The game's presentation is just as unusual as its premise, depicting "a cozy isometric dollhouse environment that changes and evolves as you uncover the secrets of Rumu's family." Helping bring this world to life is voice acting from industry veterans like Allegra Clark (Dragon Age) and Larissa Gallagher (Firewatch), along with an original score by Orwell's Matt McLean. Along the way, players will encounter a variety of "semi-intelligent devices to hack into and get to know" and a number of point-and-click puzzles to solve.
If you have any housecleaning planned for today, you can swap in your mindless own vacuum cleaner for Rumu's sentient one right now, as the game has been launched on Steam for Windows PC.
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