Greenlit by the Steam community and due for release next year, Kôna is a game that throws lots of mechanics at the player, while it tells a murder mystery tale.
Developed by French-Canadian outfit Parabole, the game recently hit a $40,000 Kickstarter target. It takes place in a wintry rural environment back in 1970, as the player seeks to find missing persons.
Although atmospherically similar to exploration games like Dear Esther and Gone Home, Kôna throws in a variety of mechanics including driving and shooting.
"We didn't choose a single existing genre, for example survival sims, and focused on it for the entire game," explained developer Alexandre Fiset. "Instead, we tried to find parts from different genres that we thought could fit seamlessly together, like exploring and surviving hostile environments, rummaging through empty buildings, solving mysteries, shooting a rifle, and driving vehicles. We then integrated all of them to create an interactive tale."
Although plenty of games are developed in Quebec, few seek to explore Quebecois culture. "There is a global culture of some sort in the industry we believe it's time to get rid of," said Fiset. "In films, it is pretty common to feel the filmmaker culture through their work. In games, we can barely tell the difference between a game made in France and a game made in the United States. We wish we could see more local games from all around the world."
