With four days to go, Compulsion Games' intriguing/creepy first-person survival game We Happy Few has successfully been funded on Kickstarter. As of this writing, the crowdfunded campaign has raised $211,732 — about $10,000 more than the initial goal. A series of stretch goals have been created, but with only four days left I doubt we'll hit any of them — things like additional drugs that enhance certain traits, a new Sandbox "indefinite" game mode, etc.
But at least we've got the main game, which takes place in the drugged-out, dystopian English city of Wellington Wells in 1964. We Happy Few was at E3 this month, giving fans a more in-depth look at the procedurally generated, first-person survival game which sees you attempt to escape the city before society collapses around you.
Last week, Compulsion Games released a new video called "Nighty Night," one of a number of different live-action shows featuring the disturbing face of Uncle Jack. In this particular series, Uncle Jack delivers an unsettling story of "The Pied Piper of Hamlyn," a fairy tale that is obviously an allegory for We Happy Few's backstory, which involves the citizens of Wellington Wells doing something so awful during the German occupation of England in the alternative-history WWII that they invented a drug, Joy, to completely forget about the horror. The drug is designed to keep the citizens friendly and complacent, and anyone who doesn't take it — called "Downers" — are beaten to death.
The whole game just has an incredibly troubling premise, and I can't wait to see more of it.