This video game is about surviving the city as a stray dog

 

 

They say a big city can be a lonely place, but imagine how much lonelier it is as a lost dog. 

 

That's the idea behind Home Free, a 'stray dog simulator' by New York-based indie dev Kevin Cancienne. In it, you adopt the world view of a homeless dog, experiencing the struggle to find enough food to eat and a warm place to sleep. You'll scavenge for scraps, pilfer food from passersby and sometimes perform tricks to win a handout.

 

Home Free is currently in development and being crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Well okay, actually it hit its crowdfunding goal already. Apparently, the heart-tugging premise of the game was enough for backers to help Cancienne meet his goal of $50,000.

 

Cancienne promises that players will be "truly lost" in Home Free. By making each instance of the game feature a procedurally generated city, players will be expected to learn the quirks of the city and how to navigate for shelter and food within it. "Which neighborhood has the tastiest garbage just after sunset? What park empties at mid-day so you and your dog friends can have a fun romp when no one's around?" are just some of the questions each city will pose.

 

Cancienn has been working on Home Free for two years, and the crowdfunding campaign will give him the funds to focus entirely on applying that last bit of finish before he releases it in early 2016. The completed version of Home Free will also come bundled with Dog Park, his multiplayer game about dogs wrestling. It takes place in a park. 

 

There're still a little under three weeks left in the Kickstarter campaign, which is more than enough time for dog loving gamers to give their furry friend a good hug and cry before clicking their pledges. In the meantime, there are still stretch goals to meet such as new doggie tricks to help garner human sympathy, an extra neighborhood to explore and of course, NPC cats.

 

But the best pledge tier, "Full Digital Best Friend Experience" offers the maximum feels in the form of having you and your dog digitized into Home Free, and a minigame where the two of you will play and frolic and laugh together for all of digital eternity. — TJD, GMA News