Kickstart This: Darkly Beautiful 2 Player Survival Game ‘Refuge’

There is a curious island — almost entirely vertical in structure — sitting way out in the water; by all accounts this place should be utterly deserted, and yet the island is littered with abandoned buildings and scant supplies. Why were people ever trying to be here in the first place — and why did they all suddenly leave in such a hurry — are just a few of the questions weighing on your mind, but the heaviest one surely is: how did you get here? The most troubling part is that in the midst of your explorations — as you try to figure out what exactly is going on — it begins to become clear that you’re not the only one stuck here, and the scattered supplies remaining don’t look as though they’ll support you both.

Refuge is a heavily atmospheric game for two players, where the only winning condition — with no set rules on how this must be accomplished — is to be the last person remaining alive. Perhaps you’ll deliberately track down the other player — following the traces they’ve unwillingly left behind — in a gambit to finish them off quickly, but there’s no way to be sure you’ll have the upper hand. The winner in Fox Rogers’ Refuge will almost always be the person with the better weapon, although rare fortune — as well as the individual skills of your selected character — may just skew this outcome entirely.

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If you wish instead to out wait your opponent — rather than taking them head on — you’ll need to do everything possible to snatch up the limited supplies available before they can, and you’ll also have to do your best to stay as far away from them as the weather permits. Being on a small spire of an island — situated out in the middle of nowhere — means you’re constantly being bombarded by seemingly random, and quite often inclement, weather patterns. Thus any attempt to distance yourself — especially when also striving to diminish your odds of being traced afterwards — must be weighed against the odds of killing yourself in the process, since — after all — you wouldn’t want to help them win… right?

Further confounding this is that — although you may choose which of the twelve characters you begin as — your starting supplies will be utterly randomized every single time, with no guarantees whatsoever. If you begin with a lot of food — but little more than a pointy stick for defense — it would be wise that you begin running immediately, and pray that your revolver holding opponent starves before he can luck upon anything to eat. Of course — above all else — remember that subterfuge may well be at play here, and that seemingly unarmed player — whom hasn’t been hiding their trail very well — might just reveal a rather nasty weapon the exact moment you have them cornered.

However — despite having an interesting concept brewing in his mind — Fox Rogers has finally hit a point in development where he believes outside help will be vital to take Refuge the full nine yards, and thus began a Kickstarter aiming to hire additional help. Although having nearly £4k of his £25,000 goal so far secured might not initially seem terribly impressive, things begin to look far more favorable for Fox Rogers’ project when you realize that there’s still thirty days remaining on his fundraiser’s countdown clock. Although Fox Rogers first aims to release Refuge on the PC, his next big goal after that — leveraging the fact he’s been developing everything with Unity — is to distribute his unique project on iOS-based devices as well!

Currently — should you now be intrigued — a pledge of just £10 is all that’s needed to secure your very own launch day copy of Refuge when it releases, alongside a complete copy of the game’s moody soundtrack. Meanwhile — for those extra dedicated to surviving this rather odd place — additional rewards include: extra copies of the game, digital production art-books, a special backer-only physical poster, plus much more! However — should you now find yourself positively determined to help Fox Rogers out — then you’d best be sure that your donations are properly chipped in before January 30th finally rolls around, or else the eerie sea-bound Refuge might forever remain a mystery.