Seemingly desperate for support, Dutch developer KeokeN, of Deliver Us Mars fame, has made the unusual step of appealing to its social media followers for help.
The indie developer behind the ambitious, beautiful-looking sci-fi games Deliver Us The Moon and Deliver Us Mars has just gone and done something rather unusual. Seemingly exhausted by the process of repeatedly pitching game ideas to investors, Dutch studio KeokeN has turned to its social media community to find help for its potential next game.
“Hey everyone, we need your help,” said studio co-founder Koen Deetman, standing next to his brother (and fellow co-founder) Paul. “We’ve been pitching 180 times in the past two years with a set of five games, and it hasn’t been able to find a home yet. If it’s either with a publisher or an investor, and you can help us find one.”
Not long after the pair took to social media, an email plopped in our inbox with a handy summary of those five games, so we’ll include these here for brevity’s sake:
- We Are Human, a philosophical thriller that emphasizes mind-bending combat and traversal. PC & Console.
- Deliver Us Home, a solitary astronaut experience about finding home. PC & Console.
- Deliver Us The Moon™: Huygens, an unsettling survival experience taking place during the Blackout. PC & Console.
- Deliver Us VR, an immersive astronaut experience that brings you back to the moon. VR headsets.
- Expeditions, a coop Soulslike top-down shooter featuring a rich narrative on Pangaea Proxima. PC & Console.
You can also see the proof-of-concepts for these games in the video embed below. The sequel to Deliver Us Mars – Deliver Us Home – is likely to be the one that gets the most attention, but frankly, they all look promising.
It says a lot about the current state of the games industry, really, that such a respected studio with some well-received games behind it would struggle to find investment. But then, it’s been increasingly clear that something’s broken in game development, with job losses only accelerating and studios closing all over the place.
In the face of such bad news, it’d be a relief to see KoekeN get the support it needs, and continues to make games for another decade.
