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The Flame in the Flood

Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Genre: Action/Adventure
Developer: The Molasses Flood
Release Date: Feb. 24, 2016

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'The Flame in the Flood' Kickstarter Successful, Stretch Goals Revealed

by Rainier on Oct. 15, 2014 @ 8:35 a.m. PDT

The Flame in the Flood is a rogue-lite river journey through the backwaters of a forgotten post-societal America where you forage, craft, and evade predators.

From the Art Director of BioShock and a team of veterans of the BioShock, Halo, Guitar Hero and Rock Band series comes The Flame in the Flood.

It was clear the time to move had come when the first rain fell and the cloud mass that spoke of the coming flood rolled south. Scout lashed her few belongings to her raft and set out for higher ground as the water drowned her cook fire. Her only companion the dog whom she had raised from a pup after finding it tangled in a muddy old sack in a river eddy. Her journey would take her through unfamiliar lands of crumbling relics from long ago. It would be a hungry trek, with scarce supplies, cold winds and rain always chasing and weakening her. She would have to build her own supplies from the pieces of scrap she could scrounge, conserve her food for long tracts of barren scrubland, ration what clean water she could find for the days ahead.

“Salvation lies at the end of the river” people say. Scout and her old dog have a long and terrifying journey ahead of them.

Mere days ago The Molasses Flood launched its kickstarter campaign, looking for $150,000, to fund the development of The Flame in the Flood and has already surpassed its initial goal.

To keep the momentum going the developers have now revealed their stretch goals.

$175k - We add German, French, and Spanish localization: We’ll contract professional translators to provide native versions of the game in these languages.

$200k - Raft Customization: We’ll add the ability to customize your raft with things you find in your travels. There will be two kinds of customization: cosmetic and functional. Cosmetic upgrades are things like a flag you can plant on your raft, or a custom paint job. Once you find these things, they will be usable every time you play. Functional upgrades are things like a better bumper, so the raft can take more of a beating, or an increase in storage space, so you can haul more supplies. Functional upgrades will only last a single play through.

$225k - We add Russian, Portuguese, and Polish localization: The same as the $175k goal, we bring in some pros to provide translation.

In addition to the officially supported languages, users will still be able to load their own fan translations. While we won’t be offering an official Klingon language option, if an enterprising fan wants to take it on, they will still be able to.

$250k - Endless Mode: Normally, The Flame in the Flood has an end goal to shoot for. In endless mode, we remove that. The river will never end, and you can see how far you can make it with dwindling supplies and increasing difficulty as you go.

$300k - PlayStation 4: We’ve had a lot of questions about console support, and we’d love to be able to do it. If we hit this goal, all backers at the $15 tier and up will have the option get the game on PS4 instead of the PC or Mac. This will come after the initial PC release.

$350k & beyond: We have two more stretch goals in mind, to be revealed if we hit the PS4 level.

Travel down a long, winding and completely unique procedurally-generated river, through environments inspired by the Everglades, Mississippi Delta, Louisiana Bayou, and other quintessentially American places. Your journey has an end. Will you survive long enough to reach it?

With survival tactics and wilderness dangers based on real-life references, staying alive until the end will mean staying warm, staying dry, staying healthy, and avoiding the ravenous wildlife that wants to eat you. Post-Apocalypse or just Post-Society? Did it all end with a bang or a whimper? The world of The Flame in the Flood explores what happens on the fringes when civilization gives up the ghost. Surviving the hostile post-societal wilderness is no picnic. Scrounge for food and supplies, evade the ravenous wild-life, seek out shelter, maintain your raft, and stay healthy. And most important of all, make sure you’re gone when the rains arrive.

The land is dangerous but bountiful, and if you know what you’re looking for, you might just live. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, perhaps you can make it, if you have the pieces.

Snake bites, fatigue, hypothermia, open wounds, and infection are just some of the ways the world will try to kill you. Happily every affliction has its remedies, whether traditional herbal cures, wound-dressings, or simply a solid night’s sleep. Knowing which remedies slow or stop which afflictions is what separates a babe in the woods from a master survivalist. Address your afflictions in a timely manner, before they develop into something worse.

Everything needs to eat to survive, and to your predators, you’re just a sack of food wrapped in a buckskin parka and cute hat. Like the river itself, our AI encounters are procedurally generated, and the NPCs behave according to rules governing hunger, fear, aggression, and territory. You’ll need to use stealth, traps, distractions, timing, and your wits to avoid becoming a feast for scavengers.

When you’re done, you’re done, and if you don’t make it, you go back to the head of the river to try again. But remember: Aesop your faithful hound, will be back with whatever he was carrying at the time of your last death. A small mercy from an otherwise cruel fate.

The Flame in the Flood features an original full length soundtrack by acclaimed Alt-Country rocker Chuck Ragan featuring The Camaraderie, The Fearless Kin and other special guests.


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