''Basingstoke'' is a

roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most ro ...

and

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video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developed and published by

Puppy Games Puppy Games is an independent games studio based in the UK. They describe their game style as "neo-Video game remake, retro arcade games". Puppy Games is a corporation that was founded in 2002 by Caspian Prince and Chaz Willets as a part-time pro ...

. It was released on

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, and

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on 27 April 2018.

Gameplay

The player must escape an invasion of deadly aliens on foot, using their "wits and cunning". The player is not able to use guns, only improvised gadgets. The ultimate objective is to escape the town of

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is a town in Hampshire, situated in south-central England across a valley at the source of the River Loddon on the western edge of the North Downs. It is the largest settlement in Hampshire without city status in the United King ...

and get "as far away from it as you possibly can". However, the game does not have a health bar, and players die if they are hit once by the aliens.

Plot

It is unclear if the game takes place in the same universe as '' Revenge of the Titans'', but the game's name was based on the initial town where the aliens invaded in that game, where it was included "as a joke". When aliens suddenly invade the town, the player character is trapped and must figure out how to escape alive.

Development

The director of Puppy Games, Caspian Prince, lived in Basingstoke for a year in 2008, leading to the idea to use the name in the games he created. The game includes some real locations from the actual town of Basingstoke. The game uses the

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, and was originally planned to be released in 2015. However, the scope of the game changed during development, leading to a significant 3-year delay and lengthening of the game itself.

Reception

In 2017 Julian Benson of

Kotaku UK ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

called a demo version "a wonderful idea that looks excellently executed".

References

{{Puppy Games 2010s horror video games 2018 video games Basingstoke Linux games PlayStation 4 games Puppy Games games Roguelike video games Single-player video games Stealth video games Video games about alien invasions Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games set in Hampshire Video games with isometric graphics Windows games Xbox One games