Here’s an interesting concept for a game, and one that I’m betting you’ve never heard before; in Elegy for a Dead World your task is to visit a series of abandoned planets marked by the ruins of civilisation, and create stories about the people who once lived there.
So rather than shooting a gun or flying a starfighter, your main challenge here is coming up with a memorable piece of creative writing.
That won’t be for everyone of course, but for anyone who loves science fiction literature, or indeed writing in general, this might be one to keep an eye on. The game’s beautiful, stylised landscapes should provide sufficient inspiration. ”There are many stories to write and many places to visit,” explains developer Dejobaan Games, ”from the crumbling museum, stone faces, and sweltering plains of Shelley’s World to the central planning station on Keats’ World to the desiccated shores and frigid tundra of Byron’s World.”
Traveling across these vistas, you’ll occasionally be prompted for an eloquent response - maybe a brief poem, a lyric for a song, or a sentence eulogising the final days of a dying innocent. Elegy doesn’t just point you to the keyboard and let you get on with it, it gives you a few words or a set subject to start you off.
”In the more advanced levels,” say Dejobaan, ”you’ll sometimes get new information halfway through your story which casts a new light on things and forces you to take your story in a different direction. We like to think of those as puzzles – writing yourself out of a corner, so to speak.”
Very interesting, and an incredibly lovely game to look at. The team are looking to raise $48,000 through their crowd-funding campaign, and they’ve currently earned $13,000 with 19 days to go. The campaign runs until October 21.