Sadness

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This article contains information about an unreleased video game, and may change substantially as more information becomes available. Please do not add speculation to this article, and remember to cite a published source when adding information.

Sadness is a supposedly upcoming video game for the Nintendo Wii by Polish video game developer Nibris. According to Nibris head Piotr Orłowski, "The scenario will have associations with narcolepsy, nyctophobia and paranoid schizophrenia. The scenario will surprise you." According to Nibris' website, Sadness will take place on the verge of the 20th Century, in Russia. ^[1]

Frontline Studios had previously signed a deal to co-produce Sadness. However, as of March 17 2007, the companies parted ways due to "artistic differences".

In early July 2008, Nibris relaunched their website, confirming in the FAQ section that Sadness is still in development with a projected release date of Autumn 2009.^[2]

Story

Set in pre-WWI Eastern Europe, Sadness follows the story of Maria, a Victorian era aristocrat who has to protect her blind son Alexander after their train derails in the countryside. Their subsequent adventures are based on Slavic legends.

Gameplay

According to an interview with IGN^[3], the game is meant to scare the player by atmosphere and not by violence. Various actions include slitting the throat of enemies with glass or throwing a rope over a wall using the similar motion with the controller. Nibris also stated that the game will have a special way to save progress. This will happen automatically, at specific moments unknown to the player. Piotr Bielatowicz, a game designer for Sadness, stated "We are aiming at completely intuitive behaviour of the player - just as in life. Every choice a player makes is essential - if you experience traumatic events in your life, they are with you all the time. This will be the same in Sadness. We want the player to feel that he is participating in events, not merely playing a game."

Unlike other third person games, Sadness will not make use of a heads up display to allow greater immersion.

Creatures

Werewolves will make an appearance in the game, as well as Likho, a creature that appeared in concept art for the game, an embodiment of evil fate and misfortune in Slavic mythology, a creature with one eye, usually depicted as an old person.

Visual style

Visually the game is to be a black-and-white stylized gothic horror.^[4] On April 10, 2006, Nibris released a video trailer "based-on" Sadness.^[5]

Nibris announced that a trailer would be revealed with in-game footage before the end of 2007.^[6] However, no such trailer was released.

Recently, three in-game screenshots have been released on Nibris' official Sadness page ^[7] as well as the announcement that Sadness would be using the Gamebryo middleware engine for Wii ^[8]

Vaporware controversy

Due to the lack of actual in-game footage, sources^[who?] on the Internet have started to label Sadness as pure vaporware. For instance, the well-known website Destructoid used the term when citing an update to the game website ("Sadness is STILL alive (not vaporware?)").^[9] Nibris tried to address vaporware accusations on several occasions, as happened for instance on the popular videogame blog Kotaku.^[10] In early 2008, Nibris promised on their website that they would be present at the 2008 Game Developer's Conference. They did not appear, however, and have not updated their website since.

References

External links

• Official Site
• Nibris.net
• Sadness Wii trailer