Demo offers early invite to (You're Not) Welcome to Rennville

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Narrative-driven side-scroller with light platforming elements coming to Steam for Windows PC in October

A while back, Distant Dimensions pulled back the curtain on What Was Found at Ravenhill, a first-person, photorealistic slideshow-style mystery intended to be the studio's debut release. Since then, however, solo developer Cameron Prigge has teamed up with his brother at Lit Lore Studios to create a very different kind of adventure for a game jam, and has decided to expand and polish that project into a full commercial title called (You're Not) Welcome to Rennville.

Rennville used to be a friendly, inviting place, but as the game title suggests, it's not like that anymore. Now everyone seems grouchy and especially "nasty" to strangers. Which is a problem, because following your grandmother's recent death there, you must fulfill her request to visit the town in order to view the next rare hatching of "the mythical creature known as the Renn." Sounds easy enough, but as it turns out, Rennville is obsessed with cheese (sounds like my kind of place!), particularly a certain KIND of cheese that can only be found in the mines. If you're to get your hands on enough cheese to pay for your ticket, you'll need to explore the "wonderfully unique little town," jump over and around obstacles, complete minigames, and "maybe help the grumpy residents along the way by spreading kindness." 

Unlike its announced predecessor, (You're Not) Welcome to Rennville is a colourful, cozy pixel art adventure accompanied by a whimsical synth soundtrack, promising a "sentimental journey filled with humor and heart." Using the keyboard, you'll guide the nameless young protagonist through a variety of lush, side-scrolling autumn environments both in and below the titular town. Along the way you'll interact with "quirky" characters, ranging from Mayor Avo to a cat named Mr. Darcy. There will be obstacles to overcome and "minor puzzles" to solve, from dispersing swarming rats to correctly solving the answers of a quiz machine. In between will be some light platforming elements, but Super Mario you are not. The goal of the action elements is simply to provide some low-stakes variety and excitement, as you can't drown in water and even long falls simply allow you to try again completely unscathed. You'll soon learn that the "cheese" isn't really cheese at all, but rather a type of fuel that is used to power everything in town, and is therefore extremely valuable. (Making it, of course, much harder to acquire than you might first expect.)

The full version of (You're Not) Welcome to Rennville is getting close, with an expected launch date sometime in October, but you can hop on over to Steam right away, where a playable demo is available now to download for Windows PC.