Story
Humanity's folly in recklessly destroying the environment has finally brought the earth to its breaking point. Deep below the surface, poison seeped down to cause mutant creatures. One, known as the Augur for his frightening entrance onto the world stage, grew to massive proportions and burst through the planet's crust. The beast brought with it a horde of smaller monsters, warped from the toxic fumes exuded constantly from its blistered body. These fumes seeped out of the wound the Augur tore in the earth, spreading across vast tracts of land and entirely obscuring the nearby city of Redvale. The fog, or the Corruption, settled around the skyscrapers so the acid ate at their bases. The Corruption had a profound effect on every human unlucky enough to be within its reach, transforming them immediately into demonic, mutated semblances of their past selves and tearing their souls from their bodies. These demons became mindless parts of the Augur's pack, as he claimed the city by thrusting tentacles into the infrastructure and earning his other name: the Tendril Terror.
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Departed souls collected by static electricity to the rail system used for transportation across the city's heights. It was this phenomenon and the resultant sparks that first caught Randy's eye as he worked to repair a faulty line at the very outskirts of Redvale. The mechanic then saw the mass destruction of a thousand tentacles striking buildings and cracking their supports to send them crumbling down in flames and thunderous booms, and lastly, the rapid bloom of a sickly green fog. Tendrils of the smoke lapped at his arm, and as he pulled out of reach it morphed before his eyes into a grotesque, sinewy limb pulsing with dark blood and with thick black claws at its end. It turns out that this was a stroke of luck--or destiny--as Randy was now in possession of a powerful tool. His arm was now strong enough to attach to, slide along, and swing between rail paths without burning his flesh from friction or losing his grip and plummeting miles to his death. Paired with his workman's knowledge of the rails, Randy was fast becoming Redvale's only hope.
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Attracted to the only other human partially-mutated, a stunted demon who had chosen the name Bartholomew flew to Randy and settled on his shoulder to provide direction in his mission to save the world. There was only one chance for humanity's survival beyond the destruction of Redvale: the Tendril Terror had to be defeated, and emergency systems put in place. The latter half of the duo's plan was not too difficult a task; they simply had to reach a maintenance facility and power the backup generators, which would then release drones to rebuild structurally and implement emergency protocols for containment and communication. The souls of Redvale gathering on the rails would be a suitable power source if collected by someone able to reach them. The real problem was the Tendril Terror, and his horde of animalistic demons in Randy's way. With his tentacles similar enough to rails, Randy decided to quickly traverse the deadly obstacles on them--from spikes to Corruption-filled tumors--to reach the beast and slay it before it could cause any further damage. Thus began his epic, and our game.
Characters
A long-time Redvale citizen, Randy was trained in electrical engineering and puts his expertise to work every day as a Rail Transportation System mechanic. With keys to the city's emergency maintenance facilities and unlimited access to the entire system of rails, he has a backstage power that puts him in a unique place at the end of the world. With his understanding of the city grid, familiarity with riding the rails, strong new demon arm, and access to the aforementioned facilities, he is in position to bring power to Redvale's backup generators. Doing so will put the city on lock-down, release maintenance and security drones, and send emergency communications to neighboring authorities. In other words, quick action of this sort would do nothing short of save the world, and it's all in the hands of Railin' Randy.
The Tendril Terror began life as a lowly subterranean creature struggling to survive the toxins seeping into his habitat at the hands of humanity. A genetic mutation allowed him to last longer than the rest of his generation; indeed, he began to perversely thrive and soon grew beyond the confines of the earth's caverns. Oozing radiated pus, the beast clawed its way to freedom only to find the sun searing its eyes and driving it to a blind animal rage to destroy the nearby city of Redvale, which with its bustling network of humans had to be the source of its pain. The Corruption leaking from the Tendril Terror's boils and tumors infected surrounding wildlife, transforming them into howling, hellish monsters with no emotions beyond pain and anger. His roar rallies them, and they follow the paths he carved into Redvale with his flailing tentacles to sow destruction and despair--and the Corruption.
Bartholomew was once just the bookish, allergy-laden Francis. When the Corruption spilled through his window and transformed him like the rest of his city, it didn't have quite the biologically-expected effect and only took his body rather than his mind and soul as well. Able to blend in with the rest of the Tendril Terror's horde as well as suddenly gifted the power of flight, Francis was simply not amused. A stunted and relatively weak demon, he retained his bitterly sarcastic human tendencies. He also decided to take the name Bartholomew in reference to a cherished childhood novel and his new hellish features. Bartholomew took to the sky and wandered for awhile, assuming the world had fully ended. Then, he saw Randy; of course he had to help where he was able, but that didn't mean he couldn't do so reluctantly.
Items
Jet pack: allowing him to strafe through the air and get close enough to rails to latch on, this tool is nearly as important as Randy's demon arm (but without the epic backstory). It's simply a safety standard among rail engineers, albeit a highly useful one.
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Souls: these balls of energy are the life forces of Redvale, attracted to the tentacles of the Tendril Terror through a bond between soul and its extinguisher. They provide electrical power to speed Randy up. A few of the souls come from special deceased--shown by their different colors--and can restore or protect Randy's own life force. A few just give more points.
Portal: the Corruption released by the Tendril Terror is so toxic that it ripped holes in the fabric of the world, allowing travelers to leap in at one location and come out at an entirely different one. This also explains the sickly green color.
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Fog: the Corruption is heavy and cloying, and sinks fast. This allows Randy to travel fearlessly above it, but also means a fall even one inch into it will cause a horrible death. While generally an acidic green, it may appear purple to red under flickering neon city lights or a blood-misted atmosphere.
Fire: this should be self-explanatory. Redvale has seen better days, and the fire throughout makes that painfully obvious.
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Buildings: Redvale has a wide variety of buildings, from double-spired peaks to neon and electric web designs. None are immune to the Corruption's spiky additions. Many have been punctured by tentacles, and some were even torn apart by the Tendril Terror so thoroughly as to allow us a glimpse inside. Walkways also connect many of them.
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Trees: these undead horrors feed vampirically from globules of Corrupted sediment. They are of no immediate danger to Randy, but left unchecked the globules will explode and infect all nearby plant life until nothing remains but these burnt husks.
Cinematics
This is a complete play-through from our Alpha iteration, to not spoil the final game.
This is our official trailer. If you like what you see, download the game here.