2020-08-01_PC_Gamer_(US_Edition

T

he creative director of Sea

of Stars, Thierry

Boulanger, is making the

kind of game he dreamed

of as a kid: a turn-based, NES-esque

RPG, but with the crispness,

seamlessness, and graphical magic

tricks available today. It’s still two

years away from release, but its pixely

world looks fantastic already.

One modern twist is the dynamic lighting

system. In a remote demo, I watched

Boulanger cycle the time of day, rotating

the shadows and swapping the sun and

moon with a smooth transition from warm

to cool light. I’m still enchanted by the

NEED TO KNOW

RELEASE

2022

DEVELOPER

Sabotage Studio

PUBLISHER

In-house

LINK

seaofstarsgame.co

A retro RPG in a strange,

watery world

SEA OF

STARS

PLAYED

IT

novelty of pixel art that behaves like a 3D

world, and this isn’t just something we’ll

see in tech demos: Manipulating the time

of day will be a key skill.

The main characters represent sun

and moon magic, and they’ll combine

powers to solve puzzles and defeat

monsters. It sounds a little quaint, but it’s

not unimaginative, and even a little bleak

in places. In one scene I saw, the heroes

stumble into a room that seems to be full

of baby gorilla butts. It turns out the

gorillas are all sticking their heads through

the floor, watching their mother, who’s

been trapped by a gruesome necromantic

monster below. Poor gorillas!

Tyler Wilde

4

Sea of Stars

PREVIEW