ASHES RAIN Press Kit

Factsheet

Game

ASHES RAIN

Developer

REDHOUSExMatrix

Status

In Development

e-mail

contact@haimachi.com

Social Network

Twitter

Genre

Action Puzzle

System Requirements

Windows 10/11 (64bit)

Number of Players

1 person

Copyright

Japanese ver

Press Kit JP

Pitch

Quietly, quietly, a city buried in falling white ash.

A battered girl wakes up there, along with,
a small round robot (referred to as "Gearman" in this world).

In this city full of corpses, the girl and the little Gearman will kindle the light of life.
Starting off alone, they embark on an action puzzle adventure. A tale of healing and liberation.

Surely, it will become a place for those weary from everyday life to take a breather.

Description

“ASHES RAIN” is an action puzzle game where a lone girl and a solitary small robot (known in this world as a “Gearman”) cooperate to ascend a tower-like city shrouded in falling ashes.

Together, they can overcome the challenges and mechanisms that they couldn’t surmount individually. They cooperate and complement each other’s shortcomings, gradually solving the puzzles.

The city itself seems lifeless, an eerily quiet ruin where many incapacitated Gearmen are huddled in the ashes. When the girl ignites their souls, a portion of their functionalities is revived, and they assist in resolving the puzzles.

This is a warm light kindled in a world that seems piled with corpses. Our goal is to create a game that allows players to experience the healing and poignancy of the girl’s kindness and redemption, as well as the inevitable sense of loss.

History

RED HOUSE × Matrix is an indie game circle composed of staff members of Red House Inc. and Matrix Inc. RED HOUSE × Matrix was established in 2022 to develop “ASHES RAIN”.

●RED HOUSE Co., Ltd
An art studio established by Kiyoshi Arai, who participated in the Final Fantasy series as an artist for many years at the game company Square Enix. RED HOUSE Co., Ltd. is a design company that not only produces concept boards, designs, etc. for games and anime, but also plans and develops original works for games, anime, manga, etc. from an artistic approach.

●Matrix Corporation
Matrix Corporation is a game developer founded by Kosuke Ohori, a.k.a. “Urusei Anzu,” who was the first person in the world to achieve 10 million points on XEVIOUS and created the best-selling mini-comic magazine “XEVIOUS: The Solution to 10 Million Points. He has developed a wide range of home video game software and smartphone game applications. Known overseas as the developer of Alundra.

Features

Uniquely beautiful visuals

A world portrayed by Kiyoshi Arai - poetic, solitary, imbued with loneliness, and subtly beautiful despite harboring destruction.

This worldview, painstakingly constructed with a dedication to artistic rather than photorealistic rendering, is being sublimated into a game with tasteful 3D visuals by the Matrix development team using UE5.

The aim is to create a space where the user, tired after a day's work, can pause in the middle of the game and feel a bit healed just by being in this space, a place to breathe and empathize. We want to create a time where you can be alone.

Because it's an indie game, we are themed around providing a humble place of empathy for people who think the world might already be over in some corner of the world.

On the other hand, you're not the only one who's alone. There still might be hope in the world.

We want to support these ideas with visuals and music, beautifully and fleetingly, and direct them with absolute affirmation.

A puzzle game where a girl and a small Gearman (known as Coro) unravel mysteries while compensating for each other's shortcomings.

The player characters are a girl and a Gearman. The game unfolds as a buddy story involving these two.

While there are many things a girl can do, there are also many things she cannot do, such as not being able to get into a small hole. In those cases, she is responsible for maneuvering the Coro through the tunnel and triggering the puzzle gimmick.

Also, Coro can serve as a replacement for the hearts of the huddled Gearmen scattered throughout the city, allowing them to operate and assist the girl.

We aim to create a puzzle game that not only involves solving the game while controlling the universal actions of the girl and the acrobatic actions of Coro the Gearman, but also creates an emotionally engaging buddy narrative in terms of visuals.

The Impact of Music

Our game pays particular attention to sound effects in order to express its worldview. The same consideration is given to the music that serves as the background score, thinking of it as an extension of the sound effects.

There is no arbitrary BGM simply flowing in the background in our game. Music has a distinct point of origin, like a radio, which starts off faint but becomes clearer as you approach its source.

The music that pours from this radio, the person playing it, the one conveying the words. Among them, there is certainly an echo of an SOS.

The girl ventures to find the source of the radio signal in order to save this person. By using music as a guide and integrating it into the game system, we aim to enhance the gaming experience through both visuals and sounds, presenting a rich worldview.