Ambient Studios are made up of bright sparks scattered from the forges at Lionhead, Bizarre and Media Molecule – a who’s who of inventive British development. They’re making a game called Death Inc, which puts you in the shoes of an ex-civil servant from the Ministry of Mortality, now specialising in “outsourced soul aggregation and bespoke mortality solutions”. None of this is news, though – the news is that, as Ambient attempt to increase the spread of their Kickstarter pledge radius in appropriately bubonic fashion, you can play its first level today.
Death Inc sends you to 17th century England, and tasks you with infecting villagers via real-time tactical chin-stroking, as demonstrated above. Incredibly the game has only been in development for ten weeks, but already looks like a compellingly nasty take on Pikmin. And is reportedly somehow in a playable, if soundless, state.
“We’re into the business end of the campaign now,” said Jonny Hopper, director at Ambient Studios. “We’ve made a good start, and had some tremendous endorsements – we’re hoping that the demo will convince anyone who’s currently undecided that Death Inc. is a game worth supporting.”
Death Inc’s Kickstarter campaign currently sits stagnant at a little over a fifth of its £300,000 goal, but a good demo and a touch of Spring-inspired charity might just see to that. So, are you going to download the thing and don the pressed black work robes of professional depopulator Grim T. Livingstone? Or are you going to do something else? Maybe get lunch?