Infinitap Games creative director Matt Gilgenbach delved into his own head for psychological horror Neverending Nightmares, but for the follow-up he's (partly) heading somewhere new. To the Philippines, to be precise: a probably lovely place that I am now convinced is full of foetus-eating monsters. Like its predecessor, Devastated Dreams (Infinitap love them some alliteration) is a dreams/nightmare-set horror boasting a lovely sketchy art style, and less lovely spooky goings-on. It's on Kickstarter for the next 30 days, where the team hope to raise a very specific $115,896.
Gilgenbach says that Devastated Dreams is a "psychological horror game combining the two things that have scared me the most—being an expectant parent and feeling totally vulnerable in a rural area of the Philippines without any electricity or running water. It is a narrative focused game telling the story of Angel, a young woman who may or may not be expecting a child as she has to journey through twisted nightmares plagued by horrible monsters from Filipino folklore".
Those monsters are the aswang, "Filipino legendary monsters that are like vampires and werewolves only more twisted". There will be several different types of aswang in the game, and the manananggal variety's "favorite food is unborn children". Helpfully, "they have a long tongue that enables them to suck out the hearts of fetuses".
Gilgenbach says that while Neverending Nightmares was designed to make the player feel "disempowered", with Devastated Dreams they "want to create something more interactive and where the player has agency like more traditional games. There will be puzzles to solve and letters and other elements to find that advance the story".
Or there will be if it's funded, anyway. At the time of writing, Infinitap have raised just over $17,000—there's a playable demo available here if you're thinking of pitching in.
