Every so often, campaigns catch our eye on Kickstarter and the action RPG titled Ada is one of those that has most recently. Even though funding is over halfway, time is swiftly running out to ensure the dreamlike world in which it is set becomes a reality.
Ada’s a hack and slash, top-down action RPG full of diverse enemies, secrets to uncover and bearing an unlikely protagonist. You see, Ada – the titular character – is just a fragile girl, thrown into a cruel world, that’s had to learn how to defend herself and even fight back to overcome the harsh reality she’s enveloped in. The land is rather dreamy though, with stunning vistas to enjoy and flashbacks to find scattered around the place. As a narrative, it’s got a rather mysterious vibe to it, mixed in with a sense of loneliness and absurdity. If story depth is what you’re after, then the encouraged chats with NPCs will aim to satisfy your needs.
Whilst exploring the lovingly crafted open world, you must fight your way through lots of enemies behaving uniquely, thus prompting you to learn their moves and embrace the fast paced combat simultaneously. Aside from the standard slashing, an evasive roll and the classic dash manoeuvre, Ada can also be equipped with attacking and defensive skills that have been collected; providing powerful melee attacks, AoE smashes, invisibility, shields and more. To launch most of Ada’s skills though, Dark Ink is required and it’s an energy that’s acquired by attacking enemies.
In each playthrough you get different skills, which leads to new possibilities and because the enemies are randomised, your encounters with those will alter too. That’s the power of procedural-generation right there. But you can give the Ada experience a go to see it for yourself, thanks to a demo that’s available on PC.
It’s time to get down to the reason Ada needs your help and that’s because the Kickstarter campaign to gather the necessary funding is ending very soon. The one-man developer, Jakub Hakiel, needs to raise £20,000 in total, with over half of that now accrued. If you want to see this project to come to fruition and eventually launch on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac and Linux, then it makes sense to chip in with whatever you can. Depending on how much you pledge, rewards range from a digital copy of the game to being able to design your own vicious monster.
There’s not long left though as the campaign ends on 7th March, so don’t mull it over for too long. You can even help out by sharing this, talking about Ada and just generally spreading the word to anyone who might be interested!
