Bloom: Memories, which we last talked about way back in May is into the final days of its second round of Kickstarting. The first, back in May, managed to raise $35,000 but fell short of its $50,000 goal. This time it has managed to get past its needed funding goal and developers Studio Fawn have been updating on a regular basis as to what they’ve been doing in the meanwhile.
The latest update talks about the music from Jose Mora-Jimenez, who describes the mother-child relationship within Bloom as one that has to “reinforce the narrative.”
How does that happen? For those who’ve forgotten what Bloom is about, the game is a top-down adventure game with the unique mechanic of having a mother and her child, whom you’ll have to look after. The world has long moved on from its mysteriously destroyed past, but the past has no intention of letting go – immense numbers of machine-things trudging forth from the corruption of The Eternal that comes a woman Eternal. Unlike the others who have only been whispered of before, she was different, and with child. This child had to be encased within a metal frame, so weak and broken was he when he was finally born.
But he was alive. And uncorrupted.
Back to the music really quickly. Bloom’s main theme (which you can listen to here) and other parts of the game are hoping to intertwine the music you hear with what Bloom thinks you should feel. So the mother of the child is a viola, talking to the clarinet (you, the child) through the atmospheric and haunting music.
As the child, players are taken on a world of exploration which doesn’t necessarily have to be combative in nature. You can, so the team says, finish the entire game on stealth and via finding peaceable solutions. Instead of just swinging your arms at everything that walks, try saying hello, said the devs. With inspiration from games such as Zelda and Thief, we can hope this certainly comes to pass. If you do choose to embark on mass genocide however, the game does reward you in that path, changing the storyline to match your more bloodthirsty mechanics. Bloom the world’s love and watch something bloom, perhaps. Or just watch it all burn.
Already they’ve been powering on with engine-work, which you can see in the breathtaking teaser video above – by utilizing using pixel shading to simulate the breeze or water.
The game is currently set for PC and Mac, and has been, of course, Greenlit on Steam.
