It’s on Kickstarter but it’s not a rogue-lite. Uh-uh, no platforming pixel-art either. Nor is it fantasizing the good ol’ days of gaming by discrediting the cloud and evangelizing the return to dusty boxed cartridges. What?

Creator Gordon McLean Arthur half-ventures to categorize it but stops just as he types up the words non-linear, point n’ click, interactive visual novel – probably conscious of the futility.

In his defense Frog Hotel does indeed look like the sort of thing you’d find at an abstract art museum and stare at for hours on end, attempting to impress the attractive curator by pretending you knew what the smudge of paint means. I digress.

A man walks into a hotel, puts on a hat, and decides to strike conversations with the inhabitants of every floor. No this isn’t a bar room joke but the most Arthur is willing to disclose of his synopsis.

And for good reason. His goal being that of addressing a plethora of emotional themes dear to him in the vein of spaces and voices without pretentiously rubbing your face in them, potential player/Kickstarter backer.

This is to be carried over a mix of game-play elements spread across multiple floors, each of some 80-odd interconnected rooms offering 2 hours’ worth of playing time. Subsequent play-throughs may vary, contingent on the paths you choose to take.

https://twitter.com/tlcarus/status/979451387783376897

Nestled at the crux of all of this is a custom editor/engine that so far runs the entire trailer you’ve seen above; Arthur intends to bundle access to the editor with the game, DRM-free, across Windows/Mac/Linux and he really isn’t offering any T-shirts/Merch to entice backers here either.

Besides much of the game has already been scripted, he claims, with all potential contributions to be used in actually constructing the interconnected rooms, game-play elements and involved assets.

Note that man is a bit of an artist/animator himself with this being his first game design endeavor.

What do you think?