Early playable demo launched for surreal sci-fi adventure Ira

Written by K R Parkinson — March 14, 2015 at 15:10

Gamers interested in surreal sci-fi point-and-click adventures will be pleased to hear about Ira, an upcoming game from Michigan-based developer Ore Creative that already has a playable demo available.

The game is set in an alternate history-version of the 20th century, where the people of Earth have focused their collective efforts on reaching beyond our solar system. Ira has always dreamed of being an astronaut, growing up in the shadow of a mission that sent a team of researchers to a newly-discovered solar system. Over a decade after the first launch, Ira’s dreams are fulfilled when he joins the second team of researchers sent to explore the new system. But when he emerges from stasis, he finds that his fellow crewmen are gone. Players will be tasked with helping Ira, along with an AI companion found early in the adventure, discover the fate of the crew and uncover various mysteries along the way, such as why he has been so drawn to this journey in the first place.

A 3D game played from a mouse-driven, third-person perspective and featuring colorful stylized graphics, Ira promises to have a variety of both inventory and environment-based puzzles to keep players busy. Dialogue sequences will be an important part of gameplay as well, with players guiding the "tone" of conversations. These interactions will serve a number of purposes, including shedding light on the story and overcoming puzzles.

Ira’s story is shared across three different timelines. The first, of course, is Ira's current adventures in new alien environments, but two other timelines – moments from Ira's own past and “memories” from the first expedition held like “specters of the system” – will reveal themselves as playable sequences along the way. The game’s surreal element comes from the interplay of these three storylines, with "past and present bleeding together" and running in parallel to form an overarching whole. This melding of timelines is on clear display in the browser-based demo now available.

Ore Creative is planning to launch a Kickstarter on April 2nd to secure the necessary funding to achieve blast-off. Assuming a successful campaign, Ira is scheduled to release in early 2016 on a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, and SteamOS; Wii U, Xbox One, and Playstation 4.