Whatever your opinion of the film adaptation of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentleman one of its major strengths was the art department’s realisation of Captain Nemo’s Victorian-era submarine, The Nautilus. Ironsun Studio’s Fathom manages to capture something of that mechanical charm and wraps it around a 2.5D action/puzzle game that doesn’t look too distant from Recoil Games’ Rochard.
Videos, excellent artwork, and details are below the break.
According to the Kickstarter pitch from Ironsun, Fathom has you step into the shoes of Nathaniel Lockhart,Victorian gentleman adventurer, in his search to discover the secrets of Atlantis. Rather than control Nathaniel directly you take the controls of his 1870s submarine, the Bathysphere:
You guide the submersible about the narrow caverns solving environmental puzzles and defending yourself against mechanical enemies with your beefy-looking minigun. These vary from things looking much like the flying blades in Half-life 2 to a full-on mechanical sea serpent boss creature:
Appearancescertainly aren’t everything but Ironsun have so far made a fine-looking game, making full use of undersea lighting to create a rich blue seascape, dotted with rusted metal, ancient stonework, and evil red light. The seabed hasn’t looked quite so good since Bioshock.
The puzzles that are on show don’t seem quite as fleshed out but it’s impossible to say how they would be in the final game, we may just be being shown a tiny sliver of a larger challenge.
Check out the pitch video for further details:
Ironsun are hoping to raise £120,000 to complete development of Fathom, having already put nine months of work in using their own funds, and have till the 29 March to raise the money. There are the standard rewards of t-shirts and soundtracks, with the base pledge of £10 netting you a digital copy of the game. The £5,000 pledge is mightily tempting, mind, “Receive a limited edition replica of Nathaniel Lockhart’s jacket made by renowned tailor Hilary Wili who has made costumed and clothing for shows such as “The mighty Boosh” and the movie “Stardust””.
You can read more about the project over on the Kickstarter page.