Demo charts a course towards upcoming Starway to Urf

• Announcements by Sam Amiotte-Beaulieu
• Published:

Full version of pulp sci-fi point-and-click comedy adventure coming in 2028 to Steam on Windows PC

The universe is a big place ripe for sci-fi shenanigans, and we’ll get to explore a particularly zany part of it in indie developer Spun Games’s upcoming space-faring comedy adventure, Starway to Urf.

Susie Anyango is sick of her job as an “intergalactic au-pair” for a Galactic Overlord and his Giant Space Babies, so when she hears rumors of a place called the Starway to Urf, a “supposedly green and verdant planet where happy-go-lucky innocents are cared for by machines of loving grace,” she decides it’s time to escape and seek out this mysterious – but possibly fictional – planet. Along the way she’ll “befriend other lost creatures,” perhaps “fall in love with the wrong people,” and have to overcome both ludicrous and life-threatening obstacles, from deadly fast food joints attempting to make Susie the next item on the menu, to bladder-busting “Pee Waves” being sent out into the aether to make even the heartiest explorer wish that spacecraft were built with toilets as a standard feature. Memories of her life before being abducted by aliens pop up in her dreams, and the regrets she carries from being so mean to her father (a genius inventor) weigh her down. But together with her new companions, the “plucky” protagonist is determined to discover what awaits her in the vastness of the cosmos.

Described as a “poppy, pulpy sci-fi comedy,” Starway to Urf draws inspiration from the likes of “Vonnegut, M Banks and Tchaikovsky” but combines an Adult Swim cartoon-style aesthetic à la Rick and Morty with point-and-click gameplay elements recalling the genre’s Golden Era classics, such as Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. Everything is controlled through a simple one-click interface that automatically chooses the available option (look/use/talk, etc.) depending on what hotspot your cursor is currently hovering over. In addition to standard inventory item collection for solving puzzles, the game will utilize a “graphical progress system” through which you gain a separate inventory of ideas that you can select from to contemplate or ask about in conversation with the many unique characters you encounter, a feature solo developer Sam Bunn describes as “The Drifter meets Unavowed.” There will be plenty of laughs along the way, but Susie’s journey will have a “soft inner core” that is as much about “living with heart and finding friends in a broken universe” as it is weird space jokes. 

The launch of Starway to Urf isn’t expected until sometime in 2028, and it’s possible there will be a crowdfunding campaign at some point to help support full voice acting. In the meantime, however, there is already a playable demo on Steam for Windows PC, offering a first look at Susie’s galactic misadventures that takes place after she has already escaped her repulsive captor.