Bloom is an upcoming isometric RPG (similar to Bastion) that has a lot of promise when it comes to art, plot, and presentation. The preview for it is beautiful and the development asides show that Studio Fawn has put a lot of thought into their creative process. Although the game has a huge goal on Kickstarter (a whopping $150,000), the level of depth Studio Fawn intends to put in the game makes the goal both reasonable and necessary. It has some interesting parts that differentiate it from both modern and classic games and seeing how the Kickstarter campaign unfolds over the next month will be very suspenseful.
To start with, the development studio has decided to program the game as isometric, but use 3D sprites to show the characters. Because the models are in sprite form, there is very little load on the computer to load and render them, and the artist can go crazy with the amount of polygons they put into the model. They have also decided to make a depth map by combining three different images to convey the illusion of a 3D game, and the proof of concepts that they have show, for all intents and purposes, that Bloom will appear as a high-quality 3D video game.
One of the few Kickstarter campaigns to actually mention a plot, Bloom intends to take elements from older RPGs and renew them. Themes which rarely show up in modern games will be prominent. They don’t go into detail about what these themes are, but the plot does have several people of many races pushed out of their homes and into the forest, where they fear for their lives because of invaders. War, racism, and politics are major themes which tend to be brushed off in many games or implied through symbolism or research documents, so if any of these themes do end up as a major theme, Bloom will certainly set itself apart.
Although the asking price is high, Fawn Studio has already showed that they have heavily invested in the game. The art pieces used in the campaign would easily take twenty hours or more to paint (even for an expert), and if the pieces were commissioned from an artist they could easily fetch $70 from an unqualified amateur (read: someone without an art degree). And there’s a lot of those images, which means lots of time and money has already been funneled into the project. Coupled with the complex 3D models, the graphics and design direction will make this game incredibly beautiful. Imagine a next-gen Bastion, and you’ll be thinking on their level.
Unfortunately, the game has absolutely no gameplay. Everything is a proof of concept, and while that’s impressive, there’s much more to making a game than making its graphics. Although Fawn Studio has drafted up a good amount of planning for their game’s engine, hopefully they can get the funding and deliver on that promise. If you are interested in a fantasy RPG presented in a style similar to Bastion, except with much better graphics, be sure to visit the Kickstarter campaign and donate to the cause. They’ll need everything they can get.
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