To answer questions received on my super secret social media, yes, I preview played PS4 Spider-Man and we will have impressions in a few days once I get through some fill-in duties on the current Television Critics Association presentations. But I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention the crowdfunding plea from a game that looks like it could be a true independent gem.

A few months ago, I was introduced to a simple yet mesmerizing detective story called Tales of The Neon Sea, developed by Palm Pioneer and set to be published by little known Zodiac Interactive. Set in a pixel-realized cyberpunk dystopia, you play the game as a hard-boiled detective who stands as the last preventative measure in escalating tensions between humans and robots.

This retro inspired game is some of the most stunning pixel art seen in modern games. You’ll side-scroll your way through various parts of this setting solving puzzles and uncovering the mysteries of this human/robot conflict. While the tiny 11-person indie studio has finished most of the game’s production, they do need a modest amount of financial help to polish and finalize certain aspects of it. To acquire the funds, the team has launched a Kickstarter campaign, seeking nearly $10k in funding.

Without a major publisher to pay for incidentals or completely fund the game, most small team titles such as TOTNS need a push to help cross their finish line. Zodiac Interactive listed the following financial needs in their pitch:

– Configuration of the stages in the game

– Development of secondary systems

– Completion of remaining scene resources

– The production of special actions of the protagonist

– Production of music and sound effects – Game debugging

It seems like jibberish to the average person, but anyone in any field that utilizes animation knows how time-consuming and expensive even the most seemingly mundane detail in the development process can be. Even if it seems like simple pixel art, the work that goes into it is anything but easy. This is definitely a game that will reach their finish line by some means, but hopefully, we can make it’s journey just a little bit easier.

Currently, there’s no official date for the game’s release but it is expected to come to PS4, Xbox One, and PC later this year. Check out the Kickstarter as backers will be able to get the full game upon release for pledges starting at the $18 tier.