The Watchlist: Rain World

Title: Rain World

Developer:: TIGForum member "JLJac"

Platforms: PC

Releasing sometime in early 2014

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Rain World is set in an abandoned industrial environment that's haunted by extremely intense - bone crushingly intense - rain. The creatures are hibernating most of the time, but in the few and brief moments when the rain isn't falling they go out to look for food. The player controlled creature needs to find enough food to survive another hibernation, while at the same time avoid being eaten by bigger creatures.

First revealed in early 2012, Rain World grown from its basic concept into a stylish structured game. The premise revolves the player's character - a sleek cat-like creature unofficially called "the Bear" - in its fight for survival in an unforgiving alien environment. Across a single player campaign and multiplayer modes, your goal is to collect food and return to the safety of your hibernation spot. Sometimes gathering food mean gathering flies that flit around the stages or sometimes it mean snatching a egg from a lizard burrow, but one fact remains the same: you're always vulnerable and only stealth and smart planning will help you survive

Rain World's gameplay revolves around acrobatic stealth and platforming. The Bear is able to move effortlessly through vents, stalk along ledges, climb and balance along poles. Armed with primitive spears and rocks, you must utilize smart planning and quick reflexes to survive in this hostile landscape. The various "crocs" that roam the levels and protect their burrows are just as versatile and varied as your own skillset, able to follow you through vents, track you through line of sight and sound, wait and ambush, climb walls and ceilings, change color to blend with the environment, work together in packs, and more in their own hunt for food and the player. Thankfully you always have the option to play with up to three other friend and plan co-operative flanking maneuvers...or fight each other in competitive modes 

Perhaps what is most striking about Rain World are its visuals and incredibly detailed animations. The world just appears alien and lived in, an industrial world long abandoned by its builders and now overgrown by the planet's natural denizens. The detailed pixel graphics, inspired by such diverse sources as graffiti art and old black-and-white cartoons, give Rain World a distinctive otherworldly atmosphere and its wonderfully animated creatures only add to the sense. You can see the paws feel and grasp for leverage along vent interiors and both the player and his lizard adversaries interact with their environment and each other in a fluid tactile manner. 

Rain World's developer "JLJac" hopes to have the game released in early 2014. It will be free, with the option to donate. You can follow Rain World's progress through developer's JLJac's TIGForum Devlog.