In these heady days of computer-generated images, effects, and animation, it can be something of a comfort to see some old school techniques still being put to use. Watching the footage from upcoming co-op adventure platformer Vokabulantis feels like being transported back to the days (OK, it really wasn't that long ago) when stop-motion animation was regularly used for films and TV shows.
And Vokabulantis looks fantastic, like a real animated film. That's because the environments are all hand-crafted and the characters, even the ones you control, are all stop-motion animated by hand. It's being developed by Kong Orange, developer of Felix the Reaper, and Danish animation studio Wired Fly Animations.
The game stars Karla and Kurt, who are about to tell each other their feelings for one another when suddenly they find themselves trapped in the world of Vokabulantis, unable to speak (which explains why the character don't have mouths). They'll have to work together to fix whatever has gone wrong in this strange and mysterious world.
"Basically it's a giant adventure set in that one split second where you decide to tell another person that you kind of like them," says game chief Esben Kjær Ravn of Kong Orange. "That you're into them. And maybe hope that they will hold your hand in return."
That's an incredibly sweet sentiment, and I can't overstate how good Vokabulantis looks. We'll have to wait a while to see how it plays. In the meantime, you can see more videos of it being painstakingly crafted at the official website.
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