First details leak out for A Trail of Ooze
Smart devices are everywhere these days, from fridges to lightbulbs; you name it, someone has tried to add AI to it. But you've probably never even considered the potential benefits of smart fertilizer, or the possible side effects. The upcoming A Trail of Ooze, by indie developer Insanto Studios, will be all about those unintended consequences in a classic-styled comedic point-and-click adventure with a social conscience.
Majros the cow was sleeping peacefully in her barn on a small farm in the Swedish woods when an earth-shattering crash heralded the arrival of an unremarkable white van. Unfortunately, the van was carrying several barrels of a remarkable new fertilizer that's now oozing all over the yard following the accident. This curious substance is an experimental new product designed to create the world's first bio-AI crops: plants with the intelligence to adapt to environmental changes and fend off pests. (And it absolutely, positively does not have any transformative effects like enabling humanlike consciousness on non-plants such as Majros. That anyone knows of. Probably.) Cue mysterious agents in hazmat suits trying (and failing) to clean up the mess, then just kidnapping the farmer to hush it all up.
Based on what we've seen so far, A Trail of Ooze will offer charming hand-crafted cartoon graphics, jaunty music and voice acting with a distinct Swedish flavour. Animal Farm this ain't, but the developers are clearly keen to mix in some more serious environmental questions with traditional puzzling. The story will see our newly sentient, unusually stubborn and sarcastic cow set off on an amusing adventure to take down the "evil agrochemical corporation" behind these events, rescue her "human" and be back before milking.
Designed as a three-part series, A Trail of Ooze is due to debut on Windows and Mac sometime in 2023. In the meantime, a demo and Kickstarter campaign are expected in September. To learn more while you wait, you can head on over to the developer's website to follow the game's progress.
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