SOREN HUGHES

Gorgeous environments by Soren Huges a.k.a. @tallsoren. Pixel art is a bit of a departure from their usual illustration and animation style, but as you can see, we’re in for a real treat. Even more so, since the backgrounds come from an upcoming game by Meredith Gran, the creator of the much loved webcomic Octopus Pie. After a 10-year run of the comic, Meredith’s next project is a point-and-click adventure game Perfect Tides.

The story will be character driven, following a teenager growing up around year 2000 in those sweet early internet days of IRC, MSN messenger, Geocities, and AOL emails. Don’t expect to live a life in the browser though—instead you will see your surroundings (and the protagonist) change through four seasons, exploring a fictional island placed in North-East USA. As it usually goes with teens, I expect a story about growing up and discovering yourself.

I really like how Meredith is producing the project. A Patreon campaign from the days of Octopus Pie has been transformed to support Perfect Tides and allows Meredith to work full-time on the game, no matter what else happens. The else part refers to the recent launch of a Kickstarter campaign that will cover additional production such as Soren’s backgrounds and an original soundtrack. It’s not like the funding won’t succeed (it’s well on its way already), but it’s nice to see someone that has a sound plan to finish the game without needing side gigs or publishers, even in face of delays (which, let’s face it, no game escapes from).