Nape Games, a small Spanish studio, has just launched the Kickstarter campaign for Restless Anima: Engine Room — a brand-new psychological horror game coming to the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Dreamcast (as spotted by SegaGuru!)
The game features a setting that is loosely inspired by the experiences of the designer, programmer, and producer Napoleón Malpica, who worked as a Merchant Marine Officer for 13 years. On Kickstarter, Malpica describes the project as a game that "recreates the true terror of working at sea on a merchant ship with a video game touch", which, in this case, translates to an 8-bit action-platformer that sees players navigating a ship, solving puzzles, and battling with mysterious entities named Animas with the aid of a trusty spanner.
Judging from the examples given, the Animas featured in the game all appear to be modelled after monsters and spirits from various countries' folklore and mythology, with the Kickstarter referencing the vengeful spirit La Sayona (Venezuela), the Cyclops Ojáncanu (Spain), and the large skeleton spirit Gashadokuro (Japan) in the description for the project.
If you're interested in backing the game, various tiers are currently being offered as part of the Kickstarter, with the cheapest available option being the NES and Dreamcast digital edition priced at €16 / £14, while other tiers include a Dreamcast Standard Edition costing €26 / £22, an NES Standard Edition for €56 / £48, and two additional Kickstarter exclusive physical editions for both NES (€86 / £73) and Dreamcast (€66 / £56). The digital version will be released in November 2024, while the physical versions are currently slated to ship in March 2025.
Looking at the screenshots shared so far, we're not entirely sure why this one is being released for the Dreamcast of all consoles, but we won't ever turn our nose at new games for Sega's classic machine.