Webcomic 'Cyanide and Happiness' is releasing its first video game
Long-serving dark humour webcomic Cyanide and Happiness is releasing its very first video game, successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter.
Straightforwardly dubbed The Cyanide and Happiness Adventure Game, the project is set for release in December 2018 -- the first chapter, at least.
The crew, better known online as Explosm, was started online by Kris Wilson, Dave McElfatrick, Rob DenBleyker and Matt Melvin. It's been publishing its particular brand of dark, stick figure-led humour for over ten years now, with their bread-and-butter webcomics generating 12 million Facebook followers and video series accumulating 7.5 million YouTube subscribers -- and even an NBC deal.
At the time of writing, the team have raised $377,287 of their $300,000 game goal with the help of 10,158 backers, with 20 days to go. Each copy of the game will cost $29.99.
In the traditional point-and-click adventure game you'll play as a group of high school students that live in the Cyanide and Happiness universe. And y'know, the apocalypse happens.
Here's a sneak peek:
The team have created new characters for the game, and you'll be able to collect customisable costume elements for your own character. There'll also be side quests aplenty, they say.
The game has been created by Roger Barr of Skeleton Crew Studios and I-Mockery, along with his game development partner Jacob West. Barr has irreverent, parody games like Abobo's Big Adventure under his belt, and his game Grave Chase will be out on Steam at Halloween.
"[Kris Wilson and I] grew up on a lot of adventure games like the old Sierra classics such as King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, plus LucasArts classics like The Secret of Monkey Island or any of the Indiana Jones classic adventure games," says Barr in the Kickstarter pitch video.
Wilson adds that the game takes cues from games like 2014's South Park: The Stick of Truth.
Cyanide and Happiness has already successfully run multiple Kickstarter campaigns. Their first crowdfunded venture was 2016 card game Joking Hazard, in which players have compete to finish an awful, awful comic strip. (Seriously, do not play this with people you've just met.)
The game raised a casual $3,246,588 of a $10,000 goal.
With those numbers in mind, Wilson makes a strong point in the pitch video. "[A] big inspiration we had for making the video game is to show our parents that making a bunch of stick figure cartoons for the internet isn't a bad career choice, Dad."
Topics Gaming
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
