Publisher Top Hat Studios and development studio Suzaku recently announced Sense – 不祥的预感: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story – an adventure planned for Windows, Mac and Linux. To get things moving towards a 2018 release, they have just launched a Kickstarter campaign. A demo can be downloaded at the Project Sense website.

Sense is the debut project of Suzaku, a small team recently formed by Benjamin Widdowson. After several years as a contract concept artist and designer for titles released by Big Fish Games, Benjamin has decided to strike out on his own and build an adventure game that features psychological horror, a neon dystopian future and “sex-appeal tinged eroticism” (developer-speak for scantily clad female characters who make Barbie look flat chested).

Sense is inspired by survival horror games like Hifumi Kōno’s Clock Tower series and the Fatal Frame titles designed by Keisuke Kikuchi and Goichi Suda. Set in the year 2083 in Neo Hong-Kong, the story will follow Mei-Lin Mak, a young woman who finds herself in the middle of an ancient and unsolved supernatural mystery.

To solve the mystery, our heroine must explore the ruins of the Chung Sing Building and piece together the stories of lost souls. In doing so, she will tap into the traditions of Chinese folklore and industrial innovation to discover truths about herself and her family.

With Sense, Suzaku is aiming for a game that represents a return to the roots of the horror genre. Instead of relying on action and jump scares, they will focus on atmosphere and storytelling to build a sense of dread and fear as the game unfolds. The mood of the game will be set by hand-painted 2.5D artwork and an original “synthesizer meets eastern” sound track by composer Andy Andi Han. Suzaku promises a re-playable game featuring exploration, character interaction, and puzzles. And, like most horror games, part of your challenge will be to survive the experience.