BOOT | Oniri Islands

Oniri Islands, is a two-player adventure title for tablet users, controlled with physical toys that you play with on the tablet. It’s being developed by Tourmaline Studios and was shown off at EGX Rezzed last week. Our EiC attended the event and gave the title a go, you can read up his thoughts right here!

Oniri Island is seeking a CHF 30,000 goal, and with 14 days left of campaigning until the 18th April, the target sits at, CHF 21,006. So really, it’s looking quite likely that they’ll reach their target, and with the coverage by showing the game off at EGX Rezzed, I’d expect it to hit the target.

Oniri Islands is an adventure game with the two protagonists being physical toys that the player holds and dances across the surface of the tablet. When they toys touch the screen the adventure begins, following the two children on an adventure where they are led to the world of Oniri by a mysterious song. They soon learn that their shadows have vanished and cannot leave until they find them. They meet a character that lends them some masks which will generate them a new shadow, as well as magical powers based on their masks. Soon they find more masks that are guarded by tribes, but then the realise that all the children’s shadows have gone.

It’s a wonderful concept for a story, and it looks like you can either play it with a friend controlling the other character, or play it solo and controlling both characters. Tourmaline Studios are calling it a hybrid game because of it’s board game style nature and the twist of the story being told as a video game.

It’s also designed for six-year-old’s and up, with the story being inspired by the Lost Boys characters from Peter Pan, The Lord of the Flies, and Ronia, the Robbers Daughter. Regarding gameplay, the title features a narrator who has been inspired by the Monkey Island’s Guybrush character, bringing a lovely mix of humour into the game. Sword and Sorcery and Botanicula are other inspirations in relation to storytelling, art style, and more.

The game will be available to download for free onto a tablet for iOS and Android, and while a brand, spanking-new, shiny tablet isn’t included in the purchase sadly, you do get the two characters along with five masks that you can place onto the characters heads.

Those thinking they can just download the app and put some form of touch screen material on and play that way won’t be able too as the figures gather static electricity from your body as you play. A system patented by French design studio, Volumique.

The title has been in development since 2015 and looks to be submitted to the iOS app store in October 2017, with November seeing backers getting their deliveries. and then December will see the title sent off to Android’s Google Play for submitting.

The supported devices are, iPad Air 1, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab S, and the Google Nexus 7 2013 but the screen is apparently too small.

There are no stretch goals for the title yet, but if they reach funding before the 18th April, I’d imagine that they’d begin releasing some stretch goals.

You can check out their Kickstarter page by going here.