Tom the Postgirl demo dropped off on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Full version of surreal, creepy-cute stalker adventure coming soon to Windows and Mac

Most adventure games are a little voyeuristic in nature, as players are required to snoop on people and observe their surroundings in order to progress. Usually, though, there's SOME respect for privacy – a line that mustn't be crossed. (Well, unless it's really, really important.) Swiss studio Oopsie Daisies has no such pretensions for Tom the postgirl, their upcoming surrealist adventure that invites players to embrace their inner peeper. 

It's 1906, and the protagonist is a mischievous young woman whose namesake sent her to the post office when she was just a baby, never to return. Dreaming of a reunion but now all grown up with her wish unfilled, Tom begins a trial assignment delivering mail to her small-town neighbours. Sounds like an easy enough task, but Tom feels an overwhelming need to spy on these "deranged villagers" instead, and possibly even open their packages instead of dropping them off. She's even earned a reputation as the town stalker, if as yet unidentified by the authorities, as this job provides the "perfect alibi" to shamelessly ogle people's most intimate moments. There's other trouble Tom can get into as well, or she can be a good girl and perform her task responsibly. The choice is up to you to guide Tom through her rounds, during which you will "witness a wide variety of scenes, each more surprising and shocking than the last." With your sense of morality put to the test, will you resist the urge to spy and wreak havoc in order to carry out your duties? Ha! Yah, right. 

The wordless Tom the postgirl looks as unusual as its premise sounds. Presented largely in black and white with vivid accents of colour (including the red coat of Tom herself), the darkly humorous game is entirely hand-sketched and animated frame by frame in a raw "spooky noir" art style that resembles a children's storybook – a rather twisted storybook if said child was abandoned at birth, that is. The equally demented townsfolk get up to all manner of, uh, tomfoolery behind closed doors, unseen by all but the nosiest of spies. Controlling Tom via keyboard, you're free to walk around a series of self-contained environments, such as the school, a farm, and the local church, peering through cracks and windows and interacting with available hotspots that appear when you draw near. There isn't much in the way of puzzles to be solved, but you will acquire items and are encouraged to experiment to see what gloriously unhinged "dramatic consequences" might occur. Your choices will have a noticeable impact on the environment, giving the game a degree of replayability to try different things the next time around. 

Having begun life as a Bachelor project by Léa Coquoz at the Zurich University of the Arts, Tom the postgirl is currently being expanded by a three-person development team for commercial release on Steam. No target release date has yet been announced, but you can grab a sneak peek – in more ways than one – at what the game has to offer through the playable demo available to download for Windows and Mac.