You may have seen it announced at the New York Game Awards, or you may never have heard of it before. All you need to know though is that the gorgeous looking Bartlow’s Dread Machine is coming – and it’ll be found hitting Xbox One and PC this coming summer.
An upcoming arcade shooter that has been created by Clayton Kauzlaric (the creator of Voodoo Vince, no less), Bartlow’s Dread Machine throws us back to 1907, seeing one Arthur Harrington Bartlow having invented an extraordinary device – that of a video game, long before the era of advanced electronics.
Unfortunately this early invention has a bit of a tendency to often injure those who played it, seeing him lose every penny he had, and confining his groundbreaking creation to be lost to history. Until now that is. Working from archived diagrams, surviving fragments, and Bartlow’s own journals, the Seattle-based developers Beep Games and Tribetoy have teamed up to recreate this amazing device in Bartlow’s Dread Machine, a dual-stick arcade shooter that has been confirmed to hit Xbox One and PX this summer
Features of Bartlow’s Dread Machine include:
- The Style – Preserving the original’s turn-of-the-century innovation, Bartlow’s Dread Machine plays like a mechanical game from the dawn of the electric age. On-screen action is visibly articulated and rigged, just like an arcade game of yesteryear, while the game’s backdrops and visual effects draw heavily from stagecraft and vintage puppet theater. Characters and environments are rendered from tin — a material that noticeably degrades when struck by bullets. A lively soundtrack by Steve Kirk complements the antiquated aesthetic, incorporating era-appropriate instruments like hammer dulcimer and harmonium, early electronic gizmos, and live musicians playing a vast array of horns and strings.
- The Story – Anarcho-Satanists have kidnapped President Teddy Roosevelt! Playing as the Secret Service agent tasked with his rescue, pursue his relentless abductors through New York’s Central Park, across the Great Plains to the rubble of post-earthquake San Francisco, and through the newly excavated Panama Canal into the South American jungle. The future of the American way of life rests on your tiny tin shoulders!
- The Game – Bartlow’s Dread Machine is an intense arcade shooter with single-player and couch co-op modes. Choose from eight diverse agents and unlock playable historical figures including Annie Oakley and zombie General Custer. Shoot down enemies with a variety of ranged weapons, from six-shooters and machine guns to Nikola Tesla’s Lightning Precipitator and Marie Curie’s Radium Expulser. And stay alert, as there are rumors Bartlow himself left hidden messages in his creation…
Tempted? Can’t wait till the summer months? Let us know what you think of this announcement of Bartlow’s Dread Machine on Xbox One and PC. The comments section is down below – right below that trailer in fact.
