STONE follows the story of a slacker private investigator and his hazy quest to find his lost love Alex
Helsinki, and Melbourne, AU – World, it’s time to meet STONE. He’s a koala. He’s hungover. And he’s coming to Steam for PC and MacOS later this fall.
STONE is a Hip-hop Stoner Noir adventure game that follows a gruff, loveable, fat koala private investigator as he pieces together his fragmented memory of the debaucherous night before. As if his morning couldn’t get any more stressful, Stone receives an ominous call threatening to upheave his entire life, just as he realizes his “chookie” Alex, a lorikeet raver and artist, is nowhere to be found.
STONE unfolds as an interactive adventure game story featuring an eccentric cast of anthropomorphic characters and absolutely no frustratingly flow-killing esoteric puzzles. As Stone stumbles through Oldtown, a place teeming with bars, clubs, theaters and more, players can take a “Hard-Ass” or “Soft Touch” approach while interrogating a menagerie of talking animals with bad attitudes and a deep repertoire of Australian slang as he tries to understand what the fuck happened last night.
“Leaving a stable AAA job in pursuit of my dream project STONE certainly wasn’t easy, nor has it become any easier, but knowing our small team at Convict Games faces almost no artistic restrictions is worth it – we have no obligations, no stakeholders, just the freedom to create whatever we want,” said writer, director and Chief Convict Greg Louden of Convict Games. “STONE is the interactive story I’ve always wanted to tell and play. I wrote, direct, programmed and produced the entire project, and it feels incredibly liberating to break free from publisher restraints and to release STONE completely independently.”
Players can give Stone a much-needed break during his journey by engaging with side activities including dancing to brick-in-a-washing machine techno, drinking beer or cocktails, making beats, taking a smoke break and even watching real and full-length public domain classic films such as Night of the Living Dead and Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages.
“STONE may not be for everyone, but we hope it’s wild, artistic nature, and Australian influences resonate with those craving a narrative unafraid to ‘go there,’” said Louden. “We’ve been working on STONE for nearly two years, tapping into the influential works of counterculture icons including Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson and Thomas Pynchon, classic stoner noir films such as The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice, and other narrative-driven games including Firewatch and Grim Fandango.”
Music is also a huge inspiration for the Convict Games team, and STONE’s heavily-curated soundtrack features licensed tracks from several upcoming indie artists around the world. Each song was chosen to reflect the myriad moods in STONE’s story and explores diverse genres such as hip-hop, stoner metal, house and more.
Convict Games is a new Australia-based remote video game studio operated by a team of highly experienced developers who previously worked on major entertainment projects including Remedy’s Quantum Break and Control, as well as feature films such as Gravity, World War Z, Prometheus and more. The studio is led by Gregory Louden, an Australian writer and director living in Finland who is so committed to STONE that he created and funded his own company after no other publishers would take a risk on his project.
Check Out the STONE Announce Trailer:
STONE is heading to PC and Mac via Steam in the Fall. You can wishlist the game right now.
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