It’s been a bit of a wait for those of us that first heard of Reset when it was announced by Theory Interactive, a two man Finnish indie games development team, back in February 2012. We were shown some great looking screenshots of a robot in a futuristic city that was slowly being reclaimed by nature but little else. Since then we’ve had a trailer and some more screenshots that have shown off the great graphics and a moody, lonely environment but still nothing more on what the game was actually about. Now as Theory Interactive bring their game to Indiegogo to start their crowdfunding campaign we can finally learn more about this fascinating title.
Speculation that the game might be some sort of Mechwarrior clone have proved to be way off. The description of the game provided on the Indiegogo funding page calls Reset “A sci-fi noir, a mystery, a first person puzzle game. Reset is infused with mind boggling puzzles, a grippingly haunting but beautiful story and an unparalleled immersive atmosphere.”
The trailer appears to show two robots at times working cooperatively to push heavy objects or move one another to reach otherwise inaccessible paths. However the game is actually single player and utilizes time travel mechanics to allow you to help yourself to solve puzzles within the game world. Alpo Oksaharju and Mikko Kallinen, the two man team that make up Theory Interactive and work from Espoo, Finland, reference the gameplay of Portal and the mechanics of The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time and Prometheus UDK to give potential contributors an idea of how the game will play.
They aren’t revealing much about the story, just that it takes place on a fictional volcanic island in the Galápagos. The 16 square km game world is free to roam about in and the individual puzzles can be tackled in any order. Of interest is also the fact that the time travel mechanic doesn’t just limit the player to two instances of him or herself. It is hinted that more will be required for some of the elaborate puzzles.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a good first person puzzle game in the vein of Portal so we’ll be interested to see how the crowdfunding goes. Theory Interactive are asking for €65,000 and they’ll need to hit that funding goal to receive any money to continue development, so if you’re interested and want to play the final game when they hope to release it by the end of 2014 then head over to their Indiegogo page and contribute.
