The slugcat of Rain World is a distinct little character. He flops around, squeezing through narrow tunnels with a movement that's both cute and mildly gross. When he is eaten by a passing disco lizard or ravenous skull-faced vulture, it is because he is basically a delicious Squirmle existing in a horrifying cryptozoological ecosystem.
He is, however, never stepped upon by a mech with a missile launcher. He is never given a shotgun and tasked with shooting the other animals. Yet that basically seems to be the elevator pitch for Uruc , a sci-fi metroidvania set in a distant future where strange life battles mechanical monstrosities.
Solo developer Stefan Haasbroek has been working on the game for over a year so far, recently launching a crowdfunding campaign (as spotted by enthusiastic RPS fanzine PC Gamer ). It seems a lot more focused on action and conflict, in contrast to Rain World's exploratory survivalism. At one point, your creature clambers into a minigun.
Another moment seems to have the player piloting a mech with powerful weapons. Later, the player appears to be controlling a little ship with turrets. Other features look very familiar.
Your character rolls and tumbles in a similar way to the slugcat, it clambers up and down poles placed in the levels, it plops into water and swims with the same sense of weight. The few examples of dialogue in the trailer also lend a similarly cryptic atmosphere when set against Videocult's strange land, and even the symbol painted on a panel in the background of one shot brings to mind the meaningful glyphs scattered around Rain World, such as those used on its "karma gates". All that said, it shouldn't be surprising that a developer has taken such thorough inspiration from the catslug.
Rain World, for all its quirks and idiosyncrasies, displays a courage unlike many other games. It simulates a world that is unforgiving and beautiful, in which the player often merely feels like a visitor. If someone wants to pump more of that heady toxin into the game-o-sphere, who can blame them? I get the feeling Rain World's influence is going to be felt in more games to come, albeit perhaps more quietly than this.
You can sense the shadow of its design philosophy in the upcoming Forever Winter , for example, another mech-fuelled megawar in which you are merely a passing roach..
