About

What is "BLEAK"?

BLEAK is a Massive Fantasy Platformer for PC, Mac and Linux, that we've been developing for the past year. In it we have revived the lost art of storytelling to connect the gamer to a dangerous and vicious new world.

In short we're totally committed to creating the single player, lore-loaded, character-driven, challenging platformer that we've been aching to play and we hope you've all been waiting for!

So How "BLEAK" are we Talking?

Great question! To answer it we'll need to take a look at the game's setting and lore.

Imagine a world where immediately upon birth your dominant arm is amputated and replaced with a pickax. As soon as you can walk, you're sent into the darkest, coldest mines to extract a precious golden metal known as "Core". You have no choice. The omnipresent "Cultivators of Good" will punish acts of defiance with denial of food. Your family gets their rations by working in factories and building new augmentations for future workers. Unlike you, their limbs have been swapped with wrenches and hammers.

To the north flows an ocean of acid and past that lies the distant island you know only as "Suffer". This is where you're told the disobedient are forever punished. To the east looms a river of green and orange sludge and imposing cliffs just beyond. And even farther menaces the seemingly endless wall called "Never". Its name developed in response to the fate of any who attempted to scale it. They were "never" seen or heard from again. Or at least... that's what you've been told.

You are a Sourcer of The Pinnacle and if you're not dead, or your mouth isn't sewn shut for questioning your life... you are without doubt one of the lucky ones. Oh and if you ever see what looks like a moving tree or two small, round, glowing circles off in the distance, we regret to inform you that escape is impossible. You are as good as dead.

Bleak enough for you? This world is mean, dark, and cruel. Its massive scope and landscape require your brave exploration despite the necessity for constant vigilance as new monsters and mysteries lurk around every corner.

Pictured above are some of the races found only in this game. These aren't elves or dwarves. We've spent over a year crafting original concepts with wild characteristics. You can meet and interact with these exotic and sometimes brutally dangerous beings on your journey!

Each race in the world of Pinnacle has been fleshed out to such an extent that even their languages are based on unique alphabet glyphs. These will appear throughout the game on signage and in tomes (if you're lucky enough to find one). The depth and authenticity created by this detail is mesmerizing.

The journeying portion of our game will take place as a richly detailed action platformer. You'll play as Sky, Bug and Bleak and face off against a myriad of lethal and unusual enemies. It's important to note that the above footage is an Alpha build of the game, and is only meant to illustrate some platforming mechanics and the overall aesthetic.

Whenever you enter a town or city, the camera will reposition, transforming your perspective from an action platformer into that of a top-down adventure game. This will allow you to truly get up close and personal with the many inhabitants of Pinnacle. Talk to them, explore their shops and homes! Have fun!

You may have noticed the circular border around our gameplay screenshot. That's because you're seeing the world through the lens of an old Sourcer scavenger robot called "Glitch" (pictured above). By justifying the existence of the camera we can add a new level of immersion and connect the player that much more to this dangerous world.

What do you believe? Pictured above is a diagram detailing the various belief systems that occur throughout Pinnacle. They apply to different races and play a large part in determining how certain NPC's will interact with the player on their adventure. Just like the languages, these are far from random, but rather are based upon faithfulness to lore and legends of the characters and races.

• 3 Playable Characters Each With Their Own Special Abilities

• 7 Original Races

• 15 Explorable Territories

• 70+ Levels (Including Secret Levels)

• Levels with Branching Endings

• A Huge Story Spanning Thousands of Years

• 8 Fully Incorporated 26 Character Alphabets

• 9 Integrated Belief Systems

• 50+ Interactive NPC's

• Mount and Airship Travel

• Pet Companions

• Top-Down City Exploration

We are a Boston-based independent game studio. We have assembled a team of seven artists who have been working tirelessly for over a year now on our first project in development, BLEAK. We are all diehard gamers dedicated to the revitalization of the tradition of incorporating creativity, originality, and story-telling into video games. We're thrilled to watch as BLEAK becomes everything we knew it could and would be, but we have reached the point where we truly need your help, and that is where this kickstarter campaign comes in. Let's make this thing together and bring back all the depth and imagination that this valued art form, the video game, has to offer!

In order to make a platformer this massive and this conceptually experimental, we have to bring it straight to our fellow gamers. Publishers typically want nothing to do with innovation because they are set on the proven sell. But we truly believe that other gamers like ourselves would relish the opportunity to play a game that's edgy, creative, and utterly original and yet at the same time a bit of a throwback to the the late 90s Glory Age Of Gaming when stories, lore, and characters mattered. Kickstarter seems like the perfect vehicle through which to accomplish our goal.

The money we receive will go directly to funding the marketing, expenses, and talent challenges that we now face in order to see this project through to its completion. It's a huge commitment, and we're totally up to it! If you show us through your support that this game means as much to you as it does to us, we are prepared to create for you a game of epic proportions!

In other words, we have the team, we have the talent, and with your help we will have the resources to bring to you and to all BLEAK, the massive fantasy platformer that we've all been yearning for.

We will make this game as large as you show us you want it to be. Anything we make over our goal will fund additional content, be it additional levels, animations or even whole chapter expansions!

1.5 GB RAM

2.2 GHz Processor

512 Mb Video RAM

Adobe Flash Player

4 GB Hard Drive Memory