Bloom: Memories announced

Dani Landers of Studio Fawn writes in to announce Bloom: Memories, a new Zelda-alike starring “a broken robot” and his mechanical mother.

The game’s general theme centers around the relationship between these two robots. The wider context, though, is one of disaster: the reawakening of the clockwork war drones of a civilization long past.

For many years they had encroached on our lands, slowly driving us back as their corruption spread. Their strength was overwhelming and even I and the other guardians were helpless to stop them, though many of us died trying. At the front of the assault were their skeletal machines, abominations of hollow souls and metal….of which they had a seemingly endless supply. You see, this is a battle of attrition, and it is a battle we are losing.

Though rumors abound, what is known for certain is at the heart of the corruption are the Eternal. Men? Machines? Perversions of life.

It was there amongst the Eternal that one day a mysterious woman escaped. She too was an abomination, but I could feel she was somehow different and in frantic desperation. So I reached out and called to her, offering her refuge in our forest.

It was once she arrived that I realized why she had seemed so different. Somehow inside her grew new life, and she couldn’t stand her child being twisted into the monsters which attacked us.

We worked quickly gathering pieces of the fallen machines to house her child’s life, and in the end were successful. She gave birth. Though her child was flawed and weak, he was alive … and that is where our story begins.

Unusual premise and setting aside, there are a few things that seem to distinguish this game from your typical Zelda-alike. First: a linked heart mechanic. Hearts serve as “lives,” and can be consumed proactively to provide the hero with power-ups. Half the hearts are the hero’s and half are the mother’s. I’m not 100% clear on how this differs from just giving the hero extra hearts; I think the idea is that the hero can only voluntarily give up his own hearts, whereas the mother’s reserve is purely for extra lives.

Bloom also features a spirit world (“the Bridge”) overlaying the physical plane. One can shift into the Bridge to use certain abilities unavailable in the physical world. Says Dani: “Inside the bridge one can see the true nature of friend and foe, past the physical aspects of a being and into their hearts.” That reminds me–in a good way–of the player’s first encounter with the Dark World in Zelda: A Link to the Past. I’m particularly interested to see what Studio Fawn does with this mechanic.

Bloom has some very nice art design, as you can see from this assemblage of screenshots and concept art:

Bloom: Memories is currently on Kickstarter seeking funding. If you like what you see and you want to ensure that this game gets made as intended, head on over and give it your support. (If they don’t make their goal, Studio Fawn will seek publisher / investor money to carry on, or else cut down the scope of the project to something they can complete in their free time.)

There’s no word on the eventual price just yet, though the fact that the game’s pre-order tier is $15 should give some indication. Studio Fawn estimates that Bloom will be released in or around December 2014 for Windows and Mac, with ports to Linux, Android, Ouya, XBox 360, Playstation 3, Playstation 4 and Wii to follow.