Anyone who needs further convincing that Double Fine is a company that is interested in the weird and the wonderful need only look at Gnog, a puzzle game from Canadian developer Ko-op Mode.
It's a series of huge monster faces wrought in distinctively bold art styles, like big toys. These are complex machines, of sorts, which are connected in mysterious ways. The player prods, pulls and fiddles until the puzzle is resolved. But the nature of the puzzle itself is usually a bit of a mystery. This is a game about play.
"Playing the game is like discovering a weird toy you've never experienced," explains Ko-op's Saleem Dabbous. "You mess around with it at first and figure out what it's about, then you try to solve that puzzle."
"Games are often looked upon as toys, but rarely is the consideration for how children approach their toys regarded in the design of a game," he adds. "With a toy a kid brings to it a whole world of imagination, built around the key signifiers of the toy's design."
Gnog is coming in 2016 on PlayStation 4 with Morpheus support. It'll release later that year on Windows PC, Mac and Linux as well as on iOS. Dabbous says Ko-op is working with Double Fine's indie label on development support, marketing and general advice.
"In Gnog we take elements from our everyday surroundings, like a telescope or a model boat to design each head, and fill them with fully realized micro-worlds and sounds. We treat each head like its own little toybox, with undirected play, dynamic and reactive soundscapes, and hidden secrets to explore," he adds.
"People are immediately captivated by the bold art. It's really hard to look away from a strange face staring at you. Then a sense of perplexed joy, since even the initial puzzle isn't clear at first, and players have to experiment with the environment to figure out where they're going with each head. We really want people to feel lost inside an interconnected world of these bizarre heads."