We don’t cover a whole lot of crowd-funded VR games here because of how volatile, uncertain, and frankly underwhelming a lot of those projects end up being, but Chiaro from Martov Co. just looked too promising to ignore. The quaint, picturesque environments, charming story about bringing machines to life, and clever puzzle-focused mechanics were enough to gain our interest. In fact, the game won an award from the NVIDIA Edge Program too.
In Chiaro and the Elixir of Life you play in the first-person view as the titular character, Chiaro, with mechanics that are loosely inspired by the non-combat sections of Zelda, which means lots of environmental puzzle solving. Visually, it evokes a style reminiscent of Studio Ghibli films with a modern twist.
The game takes place in a world called Neverain as you bring machines to life to solve increasingly complex puzzles. From what I’ve seen it’s giving off an Obuction meets Xing meets The Gallery vibe, which is all very good company to be in for this genre.
As of the time of this writing there’s about a week left for funding and they’ve raise just over half of their target funds. They’re asking for $7,523 and have amassed about $4,000. It’s not a massive goal so it’s still very much within reach.
If you’d like, you can donate to the Kickstarter campaign right here. Let us know what you think of the game based on the video and screenshots down in the comments below!
