ice - pick lodge
knock - knock is a kickstarter - funded adventure game by russian developer ice - pick lodge .
ice - pick lodge is a russian game development studio founded in 2002. the studio has released four games :
hey ice pick lodge. i' m a big fan of the original pathologic and incredibly excited for this remake .
ice pick lodge have a funny way of talking which i’m not sure i like. it’s a bit defensive and faux poetic .
the game - developing company, ice - pick lodge, was established in 2002 in russia. the headquarters are in moscow .
. i’ll be producing the game from tinybuild’s side, as we’ve partnered up with ice - pick lodge to help finish this gem .
well, probably the only people with more knowledge at this point are ice - pick lodge, and i’m not sure what answer they’d give you .
we are a russian game development studio named ice - pick lodge. we' re challenging death as it is once again. ask us anything .
we are a russian game development studio named ice - pick lodge. we' re challenging death as it is once again. ask us anything. : iama
got the whole newsletter and it’s an exemplary work of communication with fans (as most of the previous ones are). ice pick lodge have my full trust in this, i can wait .
“look. pathologic is the thing for most people in the studio. it is the game that gave ice - pick lodge its identity; it’s like both a beloved parent and a firstborn to us .
just remember that ice - pick lodge seems to posess quantum immortality. it doesn' t matter how deep the hole we' re in is, we' re always somehow tunneled to a better place .
ice - pick lodge is certainly an interesting studio. i find their games a bit too difficult for my taste. and i don' t know what to think of cargo. but they definitely deserve more attention !
as you can see, there' s a lot of ice - picks doing the answering .
ice - pick lodge have announced that the new take on pathologic [ official site ], the diseased delight that put them on the map back in 2005, won’t be released until autumn 2017. having spent some time playing a standalone demo at gamescom, where i also managed to pick the lodge’s brains away from the chaos of the showfloor, i can appreciate why the game is taking so long to complete. the foundations of the original might be noticeable, if you scratch around in the dirt for long enough, but it has been completely rebuilt. and indeed rewritten, reorganised, reinterpreted, and reimagined .
we' re ice - pickers, so we' re just grubbing up the reality covered with a thick layer of ice. what lies beneath - nobody knows yet. we' ll find it out in a year or two .
ice - pick lodge is a russian game development studio founded in 2002. so far we’ve released four games: pathologic (2005), the void (2009), cargo! a quest for gravity (2011), and knock - knock (2013). we wouldn’t go as far as call ourselves artists, but our general philosophy is that games should give players food for thought, not just fun .
ice - pick lodge is without question my favorite game developer. i have loved everything you guys have made and pathologic is my all - time favorite adventure game. i simply cannot wait for this redux to come out. may i ask, have you thought about what you might work on after this is complete, and did you really lock yourselves into an abandoned mental hospital when you made the void? please say yes .
as you are hopefully aware, the most important ipl - related question is whether the lodger’s scarf is soft and fleecy enough; and we are proud to announce that it has finally been answered. it is. need proof? then welcome to our brand new ice - pick shop !
in short, pathologic is a work of outstanding creative maturity and confidence. its rough edges are a product of its schedule and its budget, but what lies beneath is morose genius. ice - pick lodge are in the midst of crowdfunding an updated version, with a new, leaner english translation and ps4 / xb1 ports to boot. if you want to see more games with ambitious, challenging stories, hop over to their kickstarter and help make it happen !
icepick lodge, you guys are great and i hope you have a great time remaking this game, and in all your future projects. i’m a big fan !
i still remember the first time i played pathologic. ice - pick lodge’s grueling survival game had passed me by on its first english release in 2006, and i only found it two years later thanks to quintin smith’s three - part essay on rock, paper, shotgun. after reading the first few paragraphs, i decided to dive headlong into pathologic ‘s plague - ridden steppes before spoiling myself any further, and what i found remains one of my favourite works of art .
ever since i played the path, i' ve been digging into the indie / arthouse game scene. i' ve been a gamer ever since gaming meant hauling ass to the right of the screen and punching dudes, but this is a completely new experience for me. and i' ve come across another game developer that deserves a lot of love: ice - pick lodge. if you enjoyed tale of tales games, i highly recommend you take a look at their games. they have three to date .
hey ice pick! i love your games, and pathologic is probably one of my all - time favorites. i' ve always admired the original because decisions in gameplay had immediate (and often drastic) ramifications for players, and it was one of the first games for me where i decided that brute force was not going to be the most appropriate solution .
as for the new ice - picks, alexandra says she' d have thought that she' s pretty sure it' s illegal to interview her for a job since she' s only 14 .
alexandra here. i hate ice cream, sorry. i mean, you pay your money to eat snow. my mother used to tell me good girls don' t eat snow. also it' s cold .
уважаемые ice - pick - lodge! я и мои ребята крайне рады возможности написать вам, а уж тем паче задать созревшие вопросы. мы давно следим за вашим творчеством, вдохновляемся и пытаемся
подражать великим
. наверняка мы не первые, кто станут донимать вас этими вопросами, но мы очень надеемся на вашу снисходительность: 1) как раскрутиться, то бишь как разрекламировать себя, допустим, свежеиспеченную команду игроделов? 2) нужно ли связываться с уже известными игроделами или просто людьми, дабы использовать их творчество в собственной игре в качестве забавной, юморной отсылки? 3) можно ли с вами встретиться? то есть будут ли сходки, мероприятия? ибо безумно хочется встретиться если не со всей вашей братией, то хотя бы лицезреть гений руководителя проекта, николая? исполинское спасибо за обращенный взор! )
is... um... well, it certainly is different. there' s... well, there' s naked dwarfs. you kick them in the rump for fun. there' s... um... well, the masks... floating penguin ice fortress ...
get anything and everything (a digital copy of pathologic + a digital soundtrack + a digital art book + an in - game item + a digital book + beta access to the game + a digital copy of original pathologic + a kickstarter - exclusive in - game event + your name in the credits + alpha access to the game + a physical copy of the soundtrack + a signed printed art book + a printed book + a physical map of the town + five huge high quality posters + an iron heart and a brand + pathologic tabletop game) + a tragedian mask + a bendy tragedian + a limited edition physical copy of pathologic concept art + free keys to all ice - pick games released in the next ten years + an executioner mask. you’ll be the one to get to the bottom of it all. you’ll be the one who gets it. you’ll be the one who buries the bodies afterwards .
get tier 3 (a digital copy of pathologic + a digital soundtrack + a digital art book + an in - game item + a digital book + beta access to the game + a digital copy of original pathologic + a kickstarter - exclusive in - game event + your name in the credits + alpha access to the game + a physical copy of the soundtrack + a signed printed art book + a printed book + a physical map of the town + a huge high quality poster + an iron heart and a brand + pathologic tabletop game) + a tragedian mask + a bendy tragedian + a limited edition physical copy of pathologic concept art + free keys to all ice - pick games released in the next ten years. we won’t be releasing those arts, so it’s the only way to get them as a fine poster signed by the artist. we will hopefully be releasing more games though, and you’ll be getting those too .
ten years is a long time. how many of you nine were there at the first attempt? those who were: if you could give your younger self one hint about that development process, what would you have told him / her? to those who were not: if you had been to a job interview 10 years ago, and the interviewer asked you that annoying
where do you see yourself in ten years
, and then a voice from the future tells you
thou shalt breach the ice for misery and beauty
, what would you have thought ?
so, yes, the delay is saddening. but what i’ve played of the game is absolutely splendid .
the demo that i enjoyed at gamescom will be available, in slightly spiffier form, to kickstarter alpha backers in the next couple of months. they’re in for a treat. this new take on pathologic feels like (and indeed is) a new creative team tackling a familiar idea, under the guidance of the original creator. it’s not just prettier and a little bit tidier, it’s creepier, slier and wittier. within fifteen minutes of being reintroduced to the bachelor, one of three playable characters, i’d laughed out loud at his indignant pomposity, which is such a beautifully absurd response to a dying world .
one of my favourite things about pathologic is that everyone in the game has their own specific interpretation of the plague, its origins and its purpose (for plagues can indeed have purposes). logic collides with superstition, but folk remedies and parlour games can seem more rational than medicine and other scientific solutions. the bachelor’s appeals to reason are increasingly nonsensical in a world that has amputated its reason and limps on regardless. that’s horrifying, sure, but in the hands of a writer who understands the attraction of the absurd, it’s also a great source of humour .
“first of all, we have a first playable… thing that will in a couple of months go to the backers of the questions and answers tier and higher (basically, the alpha backers). this is not an alpha though, but rather a short spin - off story that we used to showcase the mood and setting of pathologic at gamescom. it doesn’t feature every in - game mechanic and offers the content that won’t be present in the final game. but first we’ll need this couple of months to polish it so that it would run better and wouldn’t require developers’ hints to play properly. ”
“the original plans for the release date were set with the basic scope of the game in mind. it seems a bit immodest to admit, but we did include our first stretch goal, the town expanded, into that; but not the rest of them. the game has grown in scope now, so developing it properly requires additional time .
“also, the vision for this version of pathologic has shifted during the development. what started as a humble rejuvenation of a classic beloved by the studio turned into a full - fledged reimagining rather quickly, but it took us time to realize what that truly entails. the corners that we were planning to cut turned into diamond quickly. however faithful to the original vision, this pathologic is a new game in many aspects, from the engine to the concept art .
“creating an open - world game in unity is trying. we are solving the riddles the game’s code throws at us valiantly, but then again, there’s no point in releasing a pretty, but stuttering thing, right? and teaching it proper enunciation turned to require a bit more man - hours than we were hoping .
“our miscalculation was embarrassing, and we are fully prepared to accept the thoroughly - deserved stones you may be willing to throw in our general direction, but we want to do it right. if nothing else, the game itself deserves it. ”
i’ll be writing up more thorough thoughts about what i’ve seen of the remake soon .
if you click our links to online stores and make a purchase we may receive a few pennies. find more information here .
i’m planning to stay away from pathologic hd and concentrate on the real new pathologic once it is ready. unless people with more knowledge would recommend otherwise. for a person who’s never touched pathologic before ?
easy question. play pathologic hd. the new one is not a remake, it’s a re - imagining. more like a pathologic 2 or maybe 1. 75 (that’s how i’m interpreting it). the hd version will give you a real sense for how this world works so you can dive right into the new one and not be completely confus
but i would recommend giving the original (hdified) a try. the worst thing that can happen is that you play a brilliant game twice, which is not a terrible outcome. (also, pathologic is sort of three games in one, because each of the three protagonists has a quite different story, so you could play one of them in the old pathologic and another in the new pathologic and the third one in whichever you liked better. )
thanks as well! i’ve been wanting to keep my knowledge of the game limited and since i read the praise articles about it a long time ago, i didn’t even remember / know that dividing the game to three different protagonists .
it’s 2 - 0 to playing the hd now. perhaps, perhaps i will try the hd version eventually then .
i mentioned it in the comments section here before (and the translator for the game even replied to me !) but my favourite bit of the bachelor’s dialogue (and display of his ridiculous pompousness) in the original game is a small exchange you can have with random guardsmen where the guard says to whistle if he gets in trouble and the bachelor gets a little defensive because he’s not able to whistle .
yeah, that’s pretty great, reminds me of the trick you see in a few twine games when they want to reveal something about your character, and they allow another character to get the truth out of you according to your own failure to hide it. it’s really satisfying when it works .
i’m curious what leads you to interpret it as defensive. one of the key reasons for my own optimism about the remake (and the studio in general) is the consistent skill and authorial voice throughout everything they write (in english, no less) .
it might be a translation artifact. the original message is written in russian .
as a matter of fact, more often than not updates are written in english first .
i really enjoyed the original one, certainly one of the most unique gaming experiences around. i haven’t played the 2015 remaster though since it’s basically the same as the original. this new one might be worth a purchase though, if it appears on gog .
not really. the 2015 hd version was simply a polished re - release; think of it as a blu - ray edition of a cult movie, with new subtitles and slightly fewer scratches in the picture, but it’s still the same thing .
this is a, well, probably a reimagining? same basic concept, but a quite different approach. it’s a full remake made by the same director, but he’s older and more experienced now and not afraid to make some radical changes .
i am so damn glad they are remaking this. pathologic has interested me for more than a decade now, but i never got around to it. . but then i was happy to back the kickstarter and am really looking forward to finished game .
being late doesn’t worry me. i think pathologic belongs in that very special subsection of games like kentucky route zero where it exists when it’s ready, like a fine wine or cheese .
like we said before, many game systems have already been locked in place, and most of our resources go into content creation these days. still, we keep fine - tuning interfaces and experimenting with sub - systems! so let’s dive right into them .
trade and barter are the bread and butter of the game’s economy—and since it is, in many ways, a resource management game, you will likely spend a lot of time buying, selling, and trading for items. the screens for trade and especially barter took us a while to fine - tune: it’s oddly tough to visualize the idea of item value when it’s not monetary, and convey the understanding that different characters value different goods differently .
to be done: we’re happy with our current trade and barter screens and are now mostly concerned with balancing economy .
remember the simpler time, when veins were straighter and organs, less numerous? and blood was drained from a knee? (this is an older version of the same screen. )
trade, however, is a common mechanic in video games, so there’s a bunch of solutions that we can draw inspiration from. things become more fun when we work on a unique, lore - heavy system, like autopsy. even though the process is seemingly straightforward (you take a body, you cut an organ out, you take it), it’s not always trivial to communicate .
to be done: in this case, we want to make clearer still what “organ damage” is and how it works .
that was the new district - by - district system of dynamic reputation, by the way, that ensures that if you choose to go on a murderous rampage, people will remember… but not in a magic ‘stop right there, criminal scum’ sort of way. only the local community cares, so if your reputation in a district drops, you try to avoid the place… unless you need something or someone there .
the system works as intended, but we need to balance what raises and lowers your reputation, because the townsfolk seem reeeeally unforgiving of petty theft now .
picking herbs, that the haruspex needs for his concoctions, is a process that needs to be both streamlined (i. e. the player should be able to find them with reasonable ease, not waste half an hour on a single blade of swevery) and non - intrusive visually. the system we’ve implemented works as intended, throwing something more on top of visual alerts .
as you are hopefully aware, the most important ipl - related question is whether the lodger’s scarf is soft and fleecy enough; and we are proud to announce that it has finally been answered .
while video games are regrettably immaterial, the sensory aspect has always been important to us. so it is with great pleasure that we announce that you can now actually
some things of our making. running this little production also helps us create a pipeline to make sure the backer rewards are of great quality when we finally produce them (which is, by the way, soon now) .
after backers receive their rewards, some of those goods will also become available in the shop .
more goods are to come, so if you’re into this sort of thing, please stay tuned. we ship anywhere in the world .
it’s not a full report, mind you. but we haven’t been sitting on our hands, and there is progress to share .
is a very sensory game. it’s depicts a disease that, among other things, is spread through bodily contact, so we want the player to always be conscious of what their avatar is touching. at the same time, showing a clunky animation each time you eat a slice of bread would be annoying .
the compromise was to make the inventory ui slick and minimalistic, while highlighting the high - resolution image of everything you’re looking at. it doesn’t emulate the feeling of touching objects with your hands perfectly, but it does make the process of using items less mindless. previously the hi - res image was only available on the item inspection screen .
more qol improvements, like tooltips better explaining the ways you can interact with items. and an improved item inspection screen .
and don’t let it get lost on its way, since it contains a link to theodor bastard’s utopia—a bonus album, the tracks from which you’ll hear in the game. this beautiful, shamanistic, and at times downright scary music will either put you in a meditative trance or the state of utter dread. a perfect addition to any pathologic lover christmas party .
you will receive a direct link to the losеless files, drm - free .
we have received a bunch of questions after the recent announcement. a perfect opportunity to make a real faq instead of inventing questions, like we do sometimes! without further ado, here we go .
q. tell us more. who is in control now? who makes creative decisions ?
we kept our independence, ip, and creative control. tinybuild is an indie publisher. they work with small teams and have no reason to change our style. they merely want to make the game known to broader audiences—a desire that we share .
no one says stuff like, “let’s recolor the changeling—blonds are all the rage now”, or “twelve days are too much, how about five? ” we always have the final say in all things creative .
that said, tinybuild are not silent, of course. they do provide feedback. “adding a lamp made looting much more engaging. ” “currently, recoil doesn’t make it clear if you have more ammo or not. ” “the street ambience works really well, adding to the atmosphere; can we have more of that? ” an outsider’s look is useful—especially late in the development, when you tend to get tunnel vision .
is heading as a franchise, and what this means for the game you’ve kickstarted .
in the good old days of game development, typically you’d get a publishing deal in place — receive funding from a publisher, and lock yourselves in for a couple of years until you ship something. repeat every few years. it’s clear this work method no longer works, not for us or for the industry as a whole. releasing
. the build will have a slightly smaller town and a few systems in place to demonstrate the atmosphere and some of the upcoming gameplay mechanics. we will gather feedback from fans, and adjust the direction of development based on this feedback .
in the old structure, we would spend months on getting complicated systems in place, and hope everything comes together in the end .
today we spend shorter sprints on accomplishing smaller tasks, and playtest what we’ve accomplished — figuring out if the direction is still the right one. this empowered us to come up with a few fun mechanics that’ll be playable this weekend at paxwest in seattle .
if the reception of the paxwest demo is positive, that’ll be the first alpha we release to you guys. stay tuned .
take a look at the paxwest demo in action. this is all live gameplay .
the new pathologic will become unavailable for pledging this thursday. this means you will no longer be able to support the development of the game by preordering it; it also means you will no longer be able to purchase add - ons such as posters, pendants, and other thingamajigs .
at some point in the future, we’re planning to launch a shop that will sell some of these items—not as rewards, but simply as merchendise. but the plans are not set, so we’re can’t tell you when it happens and which particular items will be available, so if something on the backer portal has caught your eye already, do consider ordering it right now while the option is still there .
if you’ve already ordered something and your backer portal account is not empty, you will still be able to manage the funds as you please (e. g. choose a different reward with the same cost). you just won’t be able to refill the balance .
of 2005. the sick, foggy town. the dilapidated structures sprayed here and there. the odonghe and herb brides and kids, these little stray dogs roaming the streets. the languid townsfolk, suspicious of a stranger yet seemingly nonchalant about the odonghe and feral kids .
don’t get us wrong, there were interesting choices in how some of the townspeople moved. drunks, determined to move in their swaying plod to their last day are just one example. kids also had a few lovely, albeit unpolished motions. moreover, there was
since there was little hope the amount of animation was going to get smaller, it was natural for us to turn to motion capture—a technology that had long earned it place in the game development industry .
a dead doll on a stage. the machinery of a diseased town. a bizarre and unnerving beaked silhouette that follows the hero .
made by kol belov in 2003 and based on a song of a band called theodor bastard. we first saw it when the original
was still a work in progress—and immediately felt certain kinship. “we were making the game in the comfort of knowing that next to us, other people were creating these wonderful, bizarre things, ” says nikolay dybowski. “depressing but magical things; creepy things that are somehow oddly reassuring! ”
over the years he returned to the animated short many times, drawing inspiration from it. however, at the time we never got past watching this one movie. thankfully, when in 2016 an opportunity to team up with theodor bastard to make something together occurred to us, we were ready to jump at it .
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hey look, it' s a new progress report! showing how pathologic 2 is doing in a bunch of gifs. behold :
want to know which features we were working on for the last few months? we got you covered! behold the new pathologic report. it has cool gifs .
2017 was an exhausting year, but let' s end it with a bang, shall we? or rather with a huge gif - laden post highlighting the coolest aspects of pathologic 2 you haven' t seen before. dive right in :
today. eligible backers will receive a link to theodor bastard' s utopia—a bonus ost to pathologic 2. perfect for making your christmas party a truly haunting experience. urltoken
you got questions? we got answers. here' s a recent news faq :
, an open world survival horror game in a town consumed by plague. trailer :
the new pathologic will become unavailable for pledging this thursday. so now' s your last chance to preorder stuff !
knock - knock .
who' s there ?
xbox one .
xbox one who ?
xbox one™ .
knock - knock is available on xbox one now :
to
animate
someone literally means
to breathe life into them .
we do it to our dolls too. more on that :
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pathologic 2 is an open world survival thriller set in a town that’s being consumed by a deadly plague. face the realities of a collapsing society as you make difficult choices in seemingly lose - lose situations. the plague isn’t just a disease. you can’t save everyone. get to know it, winning the affection of the locals and gaining allies, or try to carve your own path alone. explore the town, its inhabitants, and their traditions; fight both the plague itself and its victims; try to make a difference before the time runs out .
figure out who killed your father while fighting a deadly plague. it’s up to you to assume his mantle of the town’s chief medic. find your alleged twin sister. was she the one who had brought the plague to this town? the local kids are hiding something. try playing by their rules .
fight the disease. do you think a doctor’s job is to ease pain? what if it means you have to cut out someone’s heart in order to produce medicine? your instruments are crude, and the plague can be many things. it wanders the streets while you’re searching for its source; it waits for an opportune moment to corrupt your own body. and getting closed to your goal matters little if you’re dying .
the epidemic is realistically simulated, which means that it’ll unfold in real time, affecting both the gameplay mechanics and the plot. do you need to cut corners in a hurry, or perhaps you’re looking for a butcher? tough luck—if the district you need is infected, it’ll become a danger zone. shops’ll close, houses’ll lock down, and the air itself’ll become poisonous. but you may not have another option .
survival. you’ll find no zombies here—it’s the real deal. hunger, thirst, fatigue, and immunity are all gameplay mechanics. your foe is merciless and ceaseless. each hour the plague claims more lives… and yet you still need to sleep! bread from an infected house is dangerous… but what if you’re starving and shops deny you service? and does survival only mean the preservation of your body anyway ?
scavenge, gather, trade. you’ll always be hard pressed for resources, money not excluded. but money can’t save your life—you can’t eat it, you can’t heal with it, and you may find out money is worthless. so you’ll barter with townsfolk, and that’ll keep you afloat… if you’re fine with taking bullets from kids and trading your only gun for a loaf of bread .
fights are both simple and hard. you’ll find threats here and there: bandits at night, looters, the sick insane with pain, and simply those who don’t like you. pathologic 2 is not a shooter—it doesn’t take many bullets to kill someone. but you may only have one left, or your gun may misfire, or perhaps you simply won’t like killing innocent victims. running or hiding is generally preferable, but you can’t run forever .
explore both the town and the characters. in pathologic 2 nothing is accidental—every place and every person has a story to tell. you are free to go anywhere making your own story, but remember that no one and nothing will wait for you .
2005: pathologic — a story of survival in a self - conscious city struck with an unknown disease. it required a lot of wandering, a great deal of reading and a fluid perspective of events .
2008 - 2009: the void (also known as tension, russian: тургор / turgor) — a story of survival in a monochrome world of the void where every living thing depends on color. every action there was done by drawing, and the hero was represented as a transparent human - shaped vessel. [ 1 ]
2011: cargo! the quest for gravity — too crazy even for its creators, this story is set in a word that faced its apocalypse because of the loss of gravity. there you had to drop the flying islands back into the ocean and to convert the submersibles into the aircrafts .
2013: knock - knock — a story of a lonely forester haunted by strange nighttime visitors. there you had to analyze the causes of insanity, gradually getting to the understanding of being played with by the rules that differ from the initial conventions. [ 2 ]
2015: pathologic classic hd — a remaster of the 2005 cult classic. updated textures, higher resolutions support, new visual effects, brand new in - house english translation, and many other improvements .
2018: pathologic 2 — a reimagining and modern take of the 2005 cult classic. still in development .
this page was last edited on 1 september 2017, at 22: 02 .
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12 days in a town devoured by plague. it' s an enemy you can' t kill. it' s a game where you can’t save everyone
pathologic is a plot - driven survival open - world adventure game for pc / mac / linux, ps4, and xbox one .
we have reached our funding goal already, but the road ahead of us is still long! there are several stretch goals that would make pathologic an even more fulfilling experience if achieved. they are listed below. if you want to learn about the game, please scroll down to the original pitch .
as is stated in “risks and challenges” below, we do have investments that would allow us to make pathologic in any case, and this whole kickstarter is like a huge stretch goal for us. the money we ask for is what we need to create a perfect game. we don’t want to add superfluous entities on top. still, we do have more ideas that we believe will fit pathologic. these are things we really want to make, but they would require a bigger team (or postponing the release, which is something we’d like to avoid). if we get more funding, they will become possible by the planned release date, though .
achieved the town extended ($ 300, 000). this stretch goal seems pretty self - explanatory, and yet it’s the toughest one to explain. we’ve launched this whole campaign to make an extended version of the game after all, didn’t we? thing is, it’s always possible to add more. more unique objects, more dialogue options, more questlines, more events happening around you. and it won’t be filler content either. say, there are plot - dependent areas planned in the warehouse district; but what if you could also find caches and hideouts there? what if street npcs had additional reactions to your activities? what if there were simply more questlines? you would become even more hard - pressed for time, sure, but we’ll balance it. the town is a finished place, but we can always improve it intensively, adding more small locations, hidden corners, nooks and crannies. also: more quests, more npcs—more content in general .
the steppe extended ($ 350, 000). the steppe is rather poor in terms of content right now, and that makes sense, since the plot of pathologic takes place mostly in a single location, the characters being unable to leave the town. while we don’t intend to change that, we can sneak in some loopholes, inviting the characters to explore new and fresh locations in the steppe (close to the town, of course). it can even lead to them having new activities there. that also obviously means more quests, more steppe npcs, more weird creatures, and generally more steppiness .
lucid dreaming ($ 400, 000). thoughts and ideas are an important part of pathologic, and it’s known that the plague “speaks to its victims, scrutinizing them”. we would like that to become an even more prevalent motif, adding dreams in form of interactive experiences. got infected? go see the plague in person. found out new crucial information that completely changes everything? same here. all those hints and omens dropped and mentioned everywhere will now appear in the flesh. also more weird and creepy imagery. and these are not random events—they will depend on how you play and how the plot you create unfolds .
termitary and abattoir ($ 450, 000). the original pathologic only showed you a chart of these behemoth constructions rather than their real innards. the poor interiors did nothing to reflect their grandeur. we’ll change that in the remake anyway, sure, but reaching this stretch goal would allow us to make a full - fledged ethnographic expedition into the termitary and the abattoir. you’ll be able to see the daily life, the traditions, and the culture of a very peculiar working community of steppe butchers that live inside and retain multiple traits of a primitive society. it’s “a town inside the town”, and it’ll contain loads of new content, quests, and experiences .
a small prequel ($ 550, 000). pathologic is plot - heavy, and a lot of important stuff happens right before the start of the game. as a player, you’ll uncover the partial truth behind the events that have shaped the current state of the town, but you’ll never be able to see the perfect and complete picture. you’ll never be able to see them at all—only speculate. simply showing these events would be a spoiler, but we’re keen on making an additional day - long story with unique content. it won’t be kickstarter - exclusive. please keep in mind that it won’t feature the same playable characters. the whole point of the prequel is to show you the things that the main trio would never be able to see and learn. but you will .
a mysterious and deadly disease breaks out in a remote town built upon old tanneries and butcheries. whilst the disease can be identified by physical symptoms, its roots and origins remain mysterious. the disease is highly infectious and deadly. it affects the neural and the blood - circulating systems, crippling both body and mind .
to fight the epidemic the local authorities first send a learned doctor, then an inquisitor ordered to assess the situation, then a military commander. the first has to investigate the disease and find an optimal solution; the second has to save as many lives as possible while executing said solution; the third has the right to exterminate the whole town should the others run out of options .
along with the authorities’ agents two volunteers find their way through the town along with the learned doctor, who goes by the name of the bachelor. one of them, the changeling, is a strange girl who believes she can heal with her hands, and the other, the haruspex, is a talented amateur who’s fond of experimental surgery .
taking on the role of one of these doctors, you’ll explore the town, its weird traditions, and the complex relationships of its inhabitants. you will only have twelve days to defeat the invisible enemy called the sand plague .
time will become one of your most precious resources. choices will haunt your every step. you’ll want to get closer to your goal, but sometimes it’ll all come down to mere survival. in a time when everyone is in danger, would you lend a gun to a person who may use it with ill intent? would you try to save someone who claims they don’t need to be saved? would you share your medicine with important figures who will unveil the town’s numerous secrets in return, or would you rather help an ordinary stranger in need? or maybe even selfishly keep the pills in case you get sick? and sooner or later you will—pathologic is a bleak and harsh survival adventure that’ll make sure of it .
it’s a place where the main factory is ruled by a five - year - old girl, where districts are named after body parts, where bulls can only be slaughtered by the initiated, and where ideas and projects banned from the capital somehow thrive .
if there’s one thing games are good at, it’s creating a sense of place, immersive and real. imagine a remote town—so small it doesn’t even seem to have a name, a town where obscure traditions intertwine with progressive ideas and industrialization. you are an outsider here, and yet the town is yours. you’ll be the one to secure its fate, you’ll be the one it’ll open up to, sharing its secrets and mysteries. its inhabitants will confide in you, its history will come back to life before your eyes, and its architecture will tell you stories .
now imagine this town ravaged by an invisible and merciless enemy. the sand plague .
but we’re not just building a body—a physical place. we want to make an immersive town that feels alive, yes, but our main goal is to create a town filled with ideas. we want to make you feel that every nook and cranny is worth investigating, that it’s there for a reason .
the town is remote and thus relatively small, but it’s also very dense, open for exploration. every second building has a name, every district is there for a reason, every street is a thread in the story. it’s a steppe town formed around a behemoth slaughterhouse, but paradoxically the locals worship bulls. a huge construction defying the laws of physics, called the polyhedron, lies to the west. the air is thick, and for some reason there is a sacrificial site right inside the town. it’s hard to understand how it all holds together .
which is why you’ll have to become a kind of sleuth. why is it forbidden to dig wells here? how on earth does the polyhedron not fall? do actors in the theatre really perform even when there’s no audience to watch their plays? we want to make each step you make intriguing and meaningful .
pathologic is hard to define, so we’d rather describe what it feels like and what you can do there. if you’re impatient or hard - pressed for time, it may be a good idea to scroll down to the feature list .
the plot of pathologic is broken down into twelve days, each of them carrying new stories, quests, and events. time flows mercilessly: if you fail to finish a task when it’s due, the opportunity is lost—as are human lives. you are completely free to roam and explore the town, bartering, talking to strangers and generally surviving (which is hard enough to begin with and becomes harder and harder as time goes by and the sand plague becomes more and more deadly) .
you’ll have to keep your body healthy. the hero needs to eat and sleep, to take care of their immune system—it’s the only thing that can preserve them from being infected with the plague. to do all that, you’ll need resources (fresh water, bandages, bullets; even bread and coffee beans !), and procuring them in the town torn apart by the epidemic is not an easy task: inflation and panic will try to strip you naked, making merchants greedy and townsfolk suspicious. you’ll have to be creative while bartering, try to avoid fights, even scavenge infected houses, and you’ll still feel hard - pressed for stuff .
but your scariest enemy is not a bandit armed to his teeth, but rather the disease itself. man can kill man, but the plague slowly kills the whole town, devouring it district by district. so the sick will come to you begging you to save them… and exposing you to the infection. is compassion still possible even when it puts you in direct danger ?
after the district is ravaged by the disease, muggers and looters find their way there. they are searching for food, weapons, perhaps even clothing—in other words, for resources you desperately need to survive (or are you perhaps a marauder yourself ?). and the plague hides everywhere—in every man and woman, in every object—waiting to strike where it hurts most .
so you, one of the best doctors in the town, will inevitably get sick. sickness doesn’t necessarily mean imminent death though. you can fight the disease in your own body… but infection makes you a threat—a vector, albeit an unwilling one. you will find yourself killing the town with your very hands while trying to save it. it will take all you’ve got to bring more good than harm, and there’s a good chance you’ll do that not by providing medicine and pills, but by thinking outside of the box and uncovering the town’s numerous mysteries.
ice-pick lodge ltd. ( russian : айспик-лодж , ооо , translit . ayspik-lodzh , ooo ) is a video game developer based in moscow , russia , established in 2002 . the studio became well known in russia after releasing its first project pathologic , which quickly gained critical acclaim and won several major russian awards . 
ice-pick lodge ltd. (russian: айспик-лодж, ооо, translit. ayspik-lodzh, ooo) is a video game developer based in moscow, russia, established in 2002. the studio became well known in russia after releasing its first project pathologic, which quickly gained critical acclaim and won several major russian awards.
ice-pick lodge ltd. (russian: айспик-лодж, ооо, translit. ayspik-lodzh, ooo) is a video game developer based in moscow, russia, established in 2002. the studio became well known in russia after releasing its first project pathologic, which quickly gained critical acclaim and won several major russian awards.