The cat-slug in Rain World is a little character in its own right. It struggles, slithering through narrow tunnels with a movement that is both cute and slightly disgusting. When it gets eaten by a disco lizard or a ravenous skull-headed vulture, it’s because it’s actually a delicious Squirmle living in a horrifying cryptozoological ecosystem. It never gets trampled by a mech with a missile launcher, though. It’s never given a shotgun, nor is it asked to shoot other animals. Yet that seems to be the pitch for Uruc, a sci-fi metroidvania set in the distant future where strange life fights mechanical monstrosities.
Watch on YouTube
Solo developer Stefan Haasbroek has been working on the game for over a year, and recently launched a crowdfunding campaign (as spotted by enthusiastic RPS fanzine PC Gamer). The game seems much more focused on action and conflict, unlike the exploratory survivalism of Rain World. At one point, your creature climbs into a minigun. At another, the player appears to pilot a mech with powerful weapons. Later, the player appears to control a small ship with turrets.
Other elements feel very familiar. Your character rolls and tumbles in the same way the slugcat does, climbs and descends poles placed in the levels, falls into water and swims with the same sense of weight. The few examples of dialogue in the trailer also lend a similarly cryptic atmosphere to Videocult's strange setting, and even the symbol painted on a sign in the background of one shot recalls the meaningful glyphs scattered throughout Rain World, such as those used on its “karma gates.”
That said, it’s hardly surprising that a developer would draw so much inspiration from the catlug. Rain World, for all its quirks and idiosyncrasies, demonstrates a courage unlike any other game. It simulates an unforgiving and beautiful world, in which the player often feels like a mere visitor. If someone wants to inject more of this intoxicating toxin into the game-o-sphere, who can blame them? I have a feeling that Rain World’s influence will be felt in other games to come, though perhaps more quietly than this one. You can sense the shadow of its design philosophy in the upcoming Forever Winter, for example, another mech-fueled megawar in which you’re just a passing cockroach.