The month of April, this year it was when we first took notice of Encased as the Fallout 1-2, Roadside Picnic inspired single player tactical RPG it imagined itself to be. There was at the time some very basic concept art, an even more conceptual description of its game-play features and some well-written lore on display.

The game’s now 5 days old on Kickstarter, already 25% funded and contrary to what I’d expected, the campaign trailer’s decided to adopt a wacky, 90’s TV commercial as its tone of voice. More importantly here’s more concrete game-play info.

This Fallout of your dreams hopes to amass $100K in funds for over 30 hours of a single protagonist campaign featuring 150 handcrafted locations, 75-odd random encounters and at least 300 NPCs spread across a sandbox.

As an initiate into an international research organization assembled to explore a mysterious sci-fi structure, you may opt to align yourself to either of five ‘wings’ – classes, that span the typical military forces, medical personnel, engineers, managers and even ex-convict laborers.

Encased however doesn’t confine you to your opted class for the test of its tenure, rather you’re free to develop your character via acquired skills/abilities as progress. Then comes exploration, the goal of which lies in getting to the center of the structure to uncover its secret.

https://www.facebook.com/darkcrystalhq/videos/2159401667655864/

Influencing this is a malicious telepathic entity that grows stronger the closer you draw to the center, although a symbiotic relationship may be developed through development of Psyche based stats/abilities.

Meanwhile you’ll come across warring factions, each with its own backstory and branching narrative of multiple endings, a reputation system that can be swayed by a corrupt justice system, and a day/night cycle that affects NPC behavior, personalities and movements.

Staying true to its classic CRPG inspirations, Encased’s combat features all your basic turn-based tropes – customizable weapons, action points, cover systems, character abilities, grid overlays and such. Except, players will have control only over their assigned characters – being at most able to govern the tactics of their gangs while letting the AI handle the rest.

https://www.facebook.com/darkcrystalhq/photos/a.677908205930762/862142450840669/?type=3&theater

The nuances of said combat, enemy encounters for that matter or even the soundscape, however, are yet to be fully divulged. Or probably pending enough funding. Even so the pre-alpha footage seems to show a decent quality of design and depth in its interfaces, animations and environments.

Watch the Kickstarter pitch below for that and a complete recap of the game’s synopsis/prologue.

http://kck.st/2p2EIVo