Misgiven (Working title PROSPECTOR)

By Symmetry Break Studio

Funded with 70,000 €

Games Lift 2021

Prototype Funding 2022

Misgiven is a 2D sci-fi narrative adventure game about that lump in your throat, and how some things are harder to say than others. As an explorer, you are stranded in a city veiled in toxic fog, whose inhabitants wear masks to survive. Find people you can trust in this alien place, and experience the awkwardness, anxiety and rewards of communication.

The Game

Misgiven's standout feature is its dialogue system. Dialogue options have different emotional weights: depending on your openness to the other person (which can change during conversation), some options can only be said with effort, and some not at all. Choosing to be vulnerable poses a risk, as some characters will appreciate it, but others might use your honesty against you.

In a world of masks, your appearance affects how others react to you: Customize your mask by collecting badges from other characters, and unlock holographic mask emotes to alter the tone of your statements.

You try to answer a question, but the selected option is too big to be dragged into the openness ring - it reflects your inner thoughts, but you don’t trust your conversation partner enough to say it out loud.

The Team

Symmetry Break Studio pursues a shared passion for creating artful narrative games which push the boundaries of the genre.

Founders Anca Tutescu (Project Manager, Sound Lead), Jan Barow (Creative Director, Writer, Game Designer) and Julian Heinken (Programmer, Tech Artist) have known each other and worked on common and individual game projects for years. Symmetry Break’s first title Misgiven originated in 2018, when Jan and Anca met and began working on the concept in the HAW Hamburg GamesMaster.

You pick a risky answer and squeeze it through your openness ring. You gamble on how your emotions will affect your delivery and how the other character will react. Will you two become closer because of your display of emotional vulnerability, or will it backfire?

The other character reacts with an angry emote to something you said - and in turn your trust diminishes.

View over the foggy Koriol city as it sprawls into the crater.

All projects from this funding round

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Alchymia

by Pseudoscience InteractiveFunded with 70,000 €

Alchymia is a building and management rogue-like about the art of alchemy. Build complex apparatuses, study the effects of strange ingredients, create powerful potions and save your city from an approaching horde of undead!