Thralled, the colonial-era Brazilian slave story, comes to Ouya this fall

Thralled, a side-scrolling "interactive experience" about a runaway slave, will launch exclusively on Ouya this fall, developers announced today.

Thralled is set in 18th century Brazil and tells the story of Isaura, a slave who escapes from a sugarcane plantation in search of her missing child. On her journey through the colonial New World, Isaura must cope with the trauma of losing her child and the pain of her past. Isaura must move in secret and deal with with obstacles that are both real and figments of her mind.

It was Ouya that approached the developer about launching exclusively for the console. The team currently has no plans to launch on other consoles and could share no details on whether or not it is a timed exclusive.

"The plan is to release only on Ouya for the time being," creative director Miguel Oliveira told Polygon. "Ouya actually approached us first — Kellee Santiago, the head of developer relations at the company, saw Thralled last year and decided to give us a chance to complete development by offering an exclusivity deal in exchange for financial support."

The title was first developed as a student project led by Oliveira and a group of students from the University of South California. A demo of Thralled will be available for attendees to play at the 2014 Game Developers Conference next week in the Ouya booth.

"We couldn't be more thankful to [Ouya] for taking the courage to invest in a tough project such as ours," Oliveira said.

Polygon spoke with Oliveira about the title last fall, which at the time was planned for launch on iOS. Oliveira also detailed the origins of the title and how the team aims to bring awareness of slavery with Thralled.