Crossing Souls is an action game with some RPG thrown in starring five schoolkids who can travel between worlds using a pink crystal. It's set in a pixelated California, but its retro aesthetic hides cutscenes styled after the cartoons of the '80s, especially Saint Seiya, He-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Teen Wolf cartoon.
Spanish developer Fourattic ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for Crossing Souls in 2014, but has been somewhat silent since. In a recent Kickstarter update, the studio confirmed development is still on-track and nearly complete.
"Do you feel that? Do you smell that? Yeah, it's the '80s," Fourattic says. "A story set in 1986 full of references such as The Goonies, Gremlins, Back to the Future and many more."
Several areas are directly based on '80s arcade games, and Crossing Souls' soundtrack consists of "radical synth-pop" inspired by the works of John Williams (E.T., Star Wars) and Jerry Goldsmith (Alien, Planet of the Apes).
While an adventure game at heart, Crossing Souls is broken up by combat and puzzles leveraging the unique abilities of its five main characters: Chris, Matt, Charlie, Big Joe and Kevin. Big Joe is strong enough to move obstacles out of the way, for example, where Charlie, a pitcher, can accurately throw objects.
The pivotal pink crystal, the Duat Stone, frames the other central system: bouncing between the worlds of the living and the dead. Whoever's holding the stone can see and interact with ghosts, either to fight them off or ask them for help and information.
Crossing Souls is due out early 2018. In the meantime, have a look at it in action:
