The Kickstarter campaign for Organ Quarter isn’t one you should turn your nose up at; this promising VR horror game only needs a bit of help to get finished.
Organ Quarter is in development at Outer Brain Studios, and it’s been in the works since at least last year. The team is looking to raise $6,500 to help push the game along to its estimated July 2017 release window. In the grand scheme of things this is one of the smaller amounts we’ve seen asked of a Kickstarter campaign, and Organ Quarter’s memorably sickening trailer suggests the Outer Brain is building something worthwhile.
Designed for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive along with non-VR options, the game is a first-person survival horror set in a bleak, deserted city, not too dissimilar to the iconic town of Silent Hill from Konami’s celebrated series. The player is cast as an isolated man that leaves his home for the first time in months to find his world completely transformed. You’ll be looking for a means of escape, and will solve puzzles and battle twisted enemies with limited ammo to do so.
In the developer’s words, it’s “Resident Evil by way of David Cronenberg and David Lynch.” If that sounds like something you’d be interested in then you can check out a free demo, released last year. It definitely wears its inspirations on its sleeves; touring the grimy corridors to the lucid music feels like being transported right back to classic 90’s survival horror.
What really caught our attention in the trailer was the sublimely grotesque imagery; many of the enemies appear haunting, but it’s the scenes set seemingly on top of a pile of brains that really creeped us out. Coming off the back of Resident Evil 7 [Review: 9/10] we thought we were ready for anything in VR, but maybe not.
Reassuringly, the campaign page talks with a sense of awareness of how overwhelming VR horror can be for both better and worse. Outer Brain promises to “use VR’s sense of physical space and presence to push players past their comfort zone,” but also notes that players need a breather from time to time inside VR. “The game won’t be end-to-end claustrophobia and you can expect plenty of open areas, too (indoor and outdoor),” the page reads.
The team suggests the game will last between five to seven hours in length, aiming to make it “a proper VR adventure”. It will launch on Vive first with an Oculus port a little later down the line. Discounted early bird copies are available for $15 on Kickstarter right now.
