Game Over Carrara looking for extended life on Kickstarter

Written by Jack Allin — December 22, 2019 at 10:41

What is going on in Italy? First it's Venice under water, and now the Tuscan city of Carrara is being overrun by zombies – the latter only in game form, fortunately, in indie developer Elvis Morelli's episodic horror series Game Over Carrara, which is currently seeking funding through Kickstarter.

The real-world titular Italian city has been faithfully recreated using a mix of "3D rendered pictures and highly edited photos," but here its familiar scenic beauty is transformed into an apocalyptic nightmare of walking undead. Rather than tell a single cohesive story, the game's distinct episodes share "the same background and overarching story, but they are set in different timelines, and sometimes different places." They also star a different protagonist each time, allowing players to experience the catastrophic events taking place from various perspectives.

There are at least three and as many as five full installments of Game Over Carrara planned in total, the first two of which are already available free for Windows, Mac and Android devices, along with a bonus seasonal demo. In the first episode, not only must players contend with the zombie menace, you awaken without any memory at the start and now have to begin "rebuilding the missing pieces of your memory just like in a puzzle." The next installment introduces a whole new kind of monster to deal with when you find yourself "tied to a chair with a torturer behind [your] back." The extra Christmas scenario, meanwhile, tells the story of Sam, an inmate at the female penitentiary on Rikers Island in New York, who attempts to escape on the first day of the apocalypse.

Described as a "2D horror point-and-click adventure with action elements," the game promises "many challenging puzzles and logic games to solve" as well as a unique survival element in each episode. In the series debut you're unarmed and must focus on stealth. To that end, you're equipped with a "noise bar detector" that registers any sound you make, so you're best advised to be as quiet as possible because "if the decibel bar exceeds the danger zone, you will attract some very unwanted attantion." This is replaced in the second installment with a radio whose private frequencies allow you to communicate with others, and a gun to fire through a series of Quick Time Events when zombies get too close. The remaining episode(s) will have their own special features and functions to distinguish them from the others. 
 
In order to complete the third installment by June 2020 for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices, the developer has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise €5,000 by January 17th. If only the base goal is met the series will end there, but successfully reaching higher stretch goals could fund an additional two full episodes and three character-driven DLC chapters, including the rest of Sam's story. Links to the free downloadable games can be found on the Kickstarter page.