Windwalk Games, headed by former Riot designer Colin Feohas, just announced a new Kickstarter campaign to fund its initial project, Enemy on Board. The crowdfunding effort will launch on October 22, to ensure that their flagship title can fulfill its full potential while remaining an independent endeavor.
Enemy on Board is an online multiplayer game for the PC based around deception, in the model of "Mafia" style games—the original deception game, in which a minority number of members of a social gathering are tasked to secretly "kill" members of, while blending into, the larger civilian majority, who must figure out who the mafia members are before all non-mafia civilians are killed.
Windwalk's twist on the formula puts six players in charge of crew members of the spaceship Andromeda - two of whom are secretly aliens. The aliens will attempt to use an ability invisible to the four humans to gradually drain their life force before being found out as disguised enemies. Should the aliens succeed, they will achieve a powered-up form capable of quickly disposing of the human crew, while the humans gradually grow in strength throughout the match as well, increasing their ability to fight back. Simultaneously, all players must work together to ensure the ship remains functional— if not, everyone loses.
The current version of the game already has a number of notable features implemented, which include regional support for servers in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia; competitive rankings for online players; voice chat, to add a social layer to the gameplay, extending beyond just how player characters behave; and game customization options, which include seven characters with 21 available skins, three kinds of aliens, and 21 different in-game items.
The tagline of Windwalk Games, as stated on their website, is "competitive online games for the Discord generation." Enemy On Board seems to already be delivering on that promise, as, like in-person "Mafia" style games before it, its gameplay is meant to capitalize on existing social dynamics and inevitably make temporary enemies out of even the best of friends. This is befitting of the gaming communities that exist on social Discord servers. Supporting the Kickstarter will ultimately allow Windwalk to improve the game's environmental art, sound design, in-game UI, and potentially more.