Strangeland

You awake in a nightmarish carnival and watch a golden-haired woman hurl herself down a bottomless well for your sake You seek clues and help from jeering ravens an eyeless scribe a living furnace a mismade mermaid and many more who dwell within the park All the while a shadow shrieks from atop a towering roller-coaster and you know that until you destroy this Dark Thing the woman will keep jumping falling and dying over and over again
Strangeland is a classic point-and-click adventure that integrates a compelling narrative with engaging puzzles For almost a decade we ve been working on a worthy successor to the fan-acclaimed Primordia and we are proud at long last to share our second game
Strangeland is a place like no other Even in the real world carnivals occupy a twilight territory between the fantastic and the mundane the alien and the familiar In their funhouse mirrors their freaks and their frauds we see hideous and haunting reflections of ourselves and we witness the wonder and horror of humanity in just a few frayed tents peeling circus wagons dingy booths and run-down rides Strangeland of course is most definitely not the real world Indeed unraveling the connections between this nightmare and the real world is the game s central mystery and finding a way out is its central challenge
As you explore Strangeland you will need to gather otherworldly tools and win strange allies to overcome a daunting array of obstacles Forge a blade from iron stolen from the jaws of a ravenous hound and hone it with wrath and grief charm the eye out of a ten-legged teratoma and ride a giant cicada to the edge of oblivion Amidst such madness death itself has no grip on you and you will wield that slippery immortality to gain an edge over your foes
Navigating this domain of monsters and metaphors will require understanding its denizens and its enigmas Unlike many adventure games that offer a linear experience and single-solution puzzles Strangeland lets you pick your own way your own approach and your own meaning one player might win a carnival game with sharpshooting another by electrical engineering one player might unravel a strange prophet s wordplay while another gathers visual clues scattered throughout the environment Ultimately Strangeland s story will be your story You are not the audience you are the player
Approximately five hours of gameplay replayable thanks to different choices different puzzle solutions and different endings
Breathtaking pixel art in twice Primordia s resolution640 x360 party like it s1999
Dozens of rooms to explore with variant versions as the carnival grows ever more twisted
An eccentric cast including a sideshow freak a telepathic starfish an animatronic fortune-teller and a trio of masqueraders
Full professional voice over and hours of original music
A rich thematic story about identity loss self-doubt and redemption
Integrated in-character hint system optional of course
Hours of developer commentary and an annotation mode providing on-screen explanations for the references woven throughout the game
At Wormwood Studios we make games out of love love for the games we ve spent our lifetimes playing love for the games we ourselves create and love for the players who have made all of those games possible We know that players invest not just their money and time in the games they play but also their hope and enthusiasm And we want to make sure that players receive a rich return on that investment by creating games that provide not only a fun challenging diversion for a few hours but also lasting memories to keep for years
We think the best way to achieve that with Strangeland is to adhere to the genius of the adventure genre the marriage of challenging puzzles and thrilling exploration on the one hand with an engaging narrative on the other At the same time we ve tried to remove the punitive aspects of adventure games deaths dead ends illogical puzzles pixel hunting backtracking etc Within this framework we add uncanny visuals memorable characters and thought-provoking themes The result for Primordia was a game that has received thousands of positive player reviews and we have refined our approach further with Strangeland We hope it will not disappoint the players who have given us such great support and encouragement over the years And we hope that it will find a place in the hearts of new players as well