Mighty 1990 gets a strong introduction from Chaosmonger Studio

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Retro-styled adventure/RPG hybrid from the creator of Encodya and Three Minutes to Eight coming soon to PC and mobile devices

If the world was on the brink of destruction (hopefully this is just hypothetical) and you had one chance to go back and stop it, where would you go, what would you do, and WHEN? Answers to the first two questions will have to wait, but according to indie developer Nicola Piovesan and his Chaosmonger Studio, creators of Encodya, Three Minutes to Eight and Soul Tolerance: Prologue, the solution to the last one is right in the title of their next adventure, Mighty 1990.

The future for humanity is bleak, with signs "scattered across the horizon [that] catastrophe is just around the corner." For some reason it's up to you, a stout, pot-bellied man who appears to be a most unlikely hero, to travel back in time to 1990 in order to stop that "first domino that set humanity on a path toward disaster." How you accomplish your task is up to you, as a roleplaying element lets you "choose your class, develop skills, and influence outcomes by rolling dice." Whether you decide to build up your charisma to win people over or focus on your ability to "solve puzzles creatively," among other options, the path you take will "dynamically shape the narrative, leading to a variety of satisfying—or hilariously tragic—conclusions."

Just as Mighty 1990 represents a blend of RPG and traditional adventuring, so too is its gameplay a hybrid mix of complementary mechanics. Or rather, it offers a choice to play two different ways: An all-keyboard option maps every action to its own hotkey, ensuring "fast, focused gameplay without the distractions of pixel hunting," while a more traditional point-and-click option lets you use the mouse to navigate a command-based interface. Either way, it's presented in a side-scrolling pixel art style with a "16-color monochromatic blueish palette ... inspired by MS-DOS games and the hardware limitations of the 386/486 era" but displaying a "unique artistic twist" of its own. Saving the world won't be easy, of course, with plenty of puzzles to solve and obstacles to overcome, but while the subject matter might sound grim, the story promises lots of "quirky dialogue" and "biting humor" to keep you laughing along the way.

There is no target release date just yet for Mighty 1990, but it's "coming soon" and already available for wishlisting on Steam. The game is currently in development for PC (Windows, macOS, Linux) and mobile platforms (Android, iOS), but Chaosmonger will consider "expanding to console platforms in the future."

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