A strange little indie has just landed on Steam, freely blending the punishing combat of Dark Souls with the creature tinkering of Spore, and here the scariest boss might not be a monster at all, but your own badly assembled creation. Strange Seed is shooting high with a bold promise of personalized evolution and tough soulslike bosses, and it has already caught the eye of many players looking for something different.

The world of video games still manages to surprise us. The industry may be going through a crisis and big publishers are clinging to safe bets with the highest chance of commercial success, yet smaller teams are not afraid to unleash completely off the wall ideas that grab attention through sheer weirdness. Strange Seed is one of those projects: a freshly released Steam title that dares to fuse the creature editor spirit of Spore with the demanding action associated with Dark Souls.

Developed by Chronicle Games, the game puts you in control of a formless blob that can absorb the DNA of the creatures it defeats. In practice, this means the irregular protagonist can sprout a head, grow spikes, extend a tail or even unfold wings depending on which animals and monsters it battles along the way. Players effectively sculpt their own unique hero, in a fashion that will feel familiar to fans of Spore. This shape shifting talent is not cosmetic flair, it is essential for moving forward in the adventure, overcoming obstacles and standing a chance against the soulslike bosses that block your path.

There will be plenty of room to experiment with this idea. The Chronicle Games team promises that “with 7 slots for different parts [head, wings, tail…] and more than 40 creatures to discover, you’ll have over 10 million possible combinations to play with”. Fights are therefore not just about fast reactions, they are also about how smartly you put your creature together. As the developers themselves note, “the right combination of parts can mean the difference between survival and defeat”.

Strange Seed is not only about combat. The game also offers a world made up of more than ten distinct biomes, “from lush forests and sandy beaches to cities and even the heart of a volcano. Each environment has its own challenges”. If your current form is too large to squeeze through a tight path, the solution is to evolve into something smaller and more agile. Stuck on a ledge you cannot quite reach? Then grow a pair of wings and simply fly across. The world is packed with secrets that reward creative use of your evolving body.

Chronicle Games has been tirelessly promoting its project on Reddit (as highlighted by GamesRadar+), where it is described as a mix of Spore, EVO: Search for Eden and a bit of Dark Souls – “a little bit of everything, to be fair”. In their announcement, the team also shared a line that neatly sums up what Strange Seed is really about: “We just released our game Strange Seed, a soulslike where your worst enemy… is your bad design choices”. In other words, you really need to think twice about how you evolve that reshaping lump of flesh.

Strange Seed Has Launched On Steam With A 10% Discount

If all of this has sparked your curiosity, it is worth noting that Strange Seed has recently arrived on Steam. Chronicle Games is celebrating the launch with a 10 percent discount, which brings the price down to €13.49 until November 19; after that date, the game will be sold at its full €14.99 price. It is an ideal moment to dive into this strange world of creatures and custom evolution and see whether your design skills can keep your amorphous hero alive.

Source: 3djuegos