Slugcat from Rain World is a unique little character. He thrashes around, squeezing through narrow tunnels in a motion that is both cute and slightly disgusting. When he is eaten by a passing disco lizard or a voracious skull vulture, it is because he is essentially delicious Squirmle living in a terrifying cryptozoological ecosystem. But he’s never been stepped on by a mech with a rocket launcher. He’s never been given a shotgun and tasked with shooting other animals. But this basically feels like a prelude to Uruc, a sci-fi metroidvania set in the distant future where strange life battles mechanical monsters.
Independent developer Stefan Haasbroek has been working on the game for over a year now, recently releasing crowdfunding campaign (as noted by the enthusiastic RPS fanzine Computer gamer). It seems to be more focused on action and conflict, as opposed to the exploratory survivalism of Rain World. At one point, your creature climbs onto a minigun. At another point, the player appears to be piloting a mech with a powerful weapon. Later, the player appears to be controlling a compact ship with turrets.
Other features look very familiar. Your character rolls and tumbles in a similar manner to a slugcat, climbs and descends pillars placed in levels, falls into water and swims with the same sense of heaviness. Several examples of dialogue in the trailer also give off a similarly mysterious atmosphere when juxtaposed with the strange land of Videocult, and even a symbol painted on a panel in the background of one shot brings to mind significant glyphs scattered throughout Rain World, such as those used on its “karma gates.”
Still, it’s no surprise that a game designer drew such profound inspiration from Catslug. Rain World, for all its oddities and oddities, shows a boldness that few other games have. It simulates a world that’s unforgiving and handsome, one in which the player often feels like a mere guest. If someone wants to pump more of that intoxicating toxin into the game-o-sphere, who can blame them? I have a feeling that Rain World’s influence will be felt in future games, albeit perhaps in a more subdued way than this one. You can sense a hint of its design philosophy in the upcoming Forever Winter , for example, another mech-powered mega-war where you’re just a passing cockroach.
