Today, developer Black Hive took to Kickstarter seeking $28,000 USD for the development of its side-scrolling action RPG Kova.
In Kova, you appropriately take on the role of Kova, a mercenary-explorer surviving through tough times as she crosses the galaxy and tries to answer one of the universe's greatest mysteries: why has humanity never encountered intelligent alien life?
Here's a rundown of the game courtesy of its Kickstarter:
You take control of Kova, a space mercenary that has found herself between paydays as she flies to a local Hub in hopes of a job lead. She's soon given a warm welcome by a nearby opponent's ship that takes out her main thruster. With no choice but to land, she sets coordinates to a close by (but extremely cold and uninhabited) planet where she must pick up the pieces to progress. After mining for some resources on the icy planet, she is able to get her ship back online only to stumble upon an ancient beacon. When she actives this beacon, some sort of encrypted chip ejects from it, and the radar on the ship goes ballistic with several more beacon signals. What purpose do these beacons serve? Who put them here? Who else might be after them?
Characters
Throughout your journey of collecting beacons, you will interact with a wide gamut of personalities and characters that may just change how you want to proceed. From droids, fellow mercenaries, faction leaders or just the town folk, their personalities and stories can tap into your conscience.
Controls
Similar to an FPS, there will be full directional aiming and shooting for both primary and secondary weapons. You'll be able to take cover during intense battles between enemies and quickly change weapons. Using the digital pad, you’ll have access to some quick crafting items that will allow you to recharge your battery, refill your health or reload your weapons. Completing missions and talking with different engineers will help you unlock more advanced maneuvers with ‘suit chips’.
Factions
Three distinct factions control the colonized planets. During the game, you’ll receive side missions from each faction, for which you’ll get reputation points for the respective group (as well as new weapons or other items that will help you in the primary mission.) The more reputation points you earn with a faction, the more access points you will gain in certain areas of the planet maps and the dialogue with NPCs may also play out differently.
- Intergalactic Alliance Authority (IAA) - The governing body seeking control and domination
- OM1NOUS - The rebellious group, fighting for droid rights
- TRIADYNE - The corporation, creating advanced robotics and weaponry
The Planets
Kova has atmospheric planets, each with their own sprawling "wild" levels accompanied by a town hub, custom to each inhabited planet. You’ll be able to interact with the local colonists of each hub that will offer you jobs. Each job will take you into the alluring, yet harsh conditions of each planet, to earn credits for upgrades (which will help you in your main investigation around the mysterious beacons.) As well as developing a functioning vertical slice, we have also been hard at work fleshing out the worlds and feel of the game. Our artist, Blake has been very meticulous in designing beautiful set pieces until they perfectly represent the intended target imagery, so that we (and you) can visualize our universe.
Uncovering A Mystery As Old As Time
Traveling to different planets, collecting beacons and piecing together the map fragments hidden within each one, you'll also find obelisks that have gone undetected until you activated that first beacon. As you visit each one you will uncover more of the mysteries of the Universe, as told before humans inhabited it, and gain access to new items or abilities.
Crafting
As you move from planet to planet you'll be required to refuel and maintain your ship - either by buying materials or mining the resources and crafting it. As you find more minerals across new planets you will be able to craft new weapon ammo, save points to deploy, battery and health packs.
Leveling Up, RPG-style
Depending on your play style, you can earn new primary and secondary weapons, but Kova also has a large upgrade tree to increase her abilities. You can upgrade from the smallest details like battery power all the way to cybernetics if you wish. But it’s not all weapons and skills! To reach the more distant destinations, you’ll need to also upgrade your ship’s abilities by visiting different engineers that will craft the parts needed to increase your ship’s range.
Kova is currently only in development for PC, however, the developer has said it "really wants to release the game on consoles." So what's stopping it? Resources. According to the developer, with the current Kickstarter goal it would only be able to release the game on PC, but with more resources it could bring the game to other platforms.
Below, you can check out the game's announcement teaser trailer and some of its first screenshots: