Backbone

Unfold the mysteries of a dystopian animal society inhabiting retrofuturistic Vancouver in a noir stealth adventure Backbone.

Features

• Cinematic story-driven adventure with stealth and action elements
• Hi-res pixel art combined with dynamic 3D lighting and modern engine effects
• Inspired by film noir, dystopia and Vancouver
• Storyline featuring themes of power, corruption, social decay and systemic discrimination
• Smell-based stealth mechanics - sniff out the evidence and hide your trail
• Interrogate witnesses, find contradictions, and connect the dots
• Original doom jazz OST
• There is a technology that will make you grow out a huge bear claw out of your small raccoon body

Quick facts

Developer: EggNut, based in Vancouver, Canada
Website: eggnut.net
Release: 2019
Expected price point: 20 USD
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Technologies: Unreal Engine 4
Game size: 3-4 hours
Languages: English, Russian. Other TBA
Gameplay: cinematic detective adventure with stealth and action elements
Inspiration: Vancouver, film noir, retrofuturism, dystopian fiction
Plot themes: corruption, discrimination, prejudice, society and personality

The Game
Backbone is a pixel art cinematic adventure with stealth and action elements. As a private investigator Howard Lotor you are set to solve detective cases, interrogate witnesses, explore the intriguing retrofuturistic Vancouver, and sneak your way to safety using smell-based stealth mechanics.

Backbone collides the visual and social contrasts of film noir with anthropomorphic animals and dystopian fiction. Crawl through the dark alleys of pixelated Vancouver, and experience the impactful storyline focused on themes of power and prejudice.

Gameplay
The heart of Backbone is world exploration, investigation and stealth. Become a detective: collect crucial pieces of evidence on the crime scene, interrogate witnesses, solve puzzles using in-game objects, and sneak around hostile enviornments using your sense of smell.

The Story
The planet is sprawling with anthropomorphic animal species. Streets of Vancouver are overgrown with ivy and humongous trees, branches and vines piercing through the concrete, and huge flowers nesting on top of the roofs.

The Great Apes call themselves the founding fathers of this world, and they are the moral, ethical and political compass of the society.

Vancouver is surrounded by huge walls from every side to make sure that no one from across it intrudes in the utopic society constructed so carefully by the Great Apes.

Howard Lotor is a raccoon private investigator. His mundane life is interrupted with the appearance of a powerful technology that can blur the lines of conventional order and change the society forever.

About EggNut
EggNut is a game development studio in Vancouver, Canada. We got together in 2016 and decided to start making video games. We love games because they are the best medium for conveying the complexity of a human condition.

We might come from different backgrounds and live in distant countries, but we are united by a strong determination to create meaningful experiences. Every EggNut member has a right to influence the creative process and a liberty to contribute their best efforts. Our most cherished values are happiness, people and meaning.
Nikita Danshin
Game Designer, Composer, Developer

Aleksandra Korabelnikova
Project Manager, Marketing, Communications

Toma Klepinina
Environment Artist
Maria Danshin
Art Director

Kristina Dashevskaya
Senior Artist

Kirill Simonenko
Animation Artist