Alien invasion PC platformer Orphan hits its kickstarter goal, PS4 still a possibility

After a shaky first few months, stealth-minded platformer Orphan has successfully reached its Kickstarter goal - thanks in no small part to a last minute push from fellow devs and media outlets alike. Much like Harmonix’s Amplitude revival project last year, the moody side-scroller was in danger of missing its $32,000 goal with only a few days to go, but a wave of last minute backers has helped push it over the monetary finish line with hours to spare. Over 30 hours remain on said crowdfunding clock, so there’s also a chance it could hit its $36,000 stretch goal, which would see the game arrive on PS4 as well as PC, Mac and Linux.

Orphan is the brainchild of Tennessee-based indie developer Windy Hill Studio, and lead developer Brandon Goins cites Journey to Silus, Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and Another World as major influences over the style, look and feel of his own sci-fi action-platformer.

With its silhouetted protagonist (a young boy hoping to survive in the wake of an alien invasion), and its foreboding use of shadows and darkness, Orphan certainly smacks of fellow indie 2D side-scroller Limbo, which enjoyed critical across multiple platforms back in 2010. However, Goins is quick to point out Orphan is still a unique experience in its own right.

“Unlike Limbo, Orphan is not a game of puzzles or abstraction. Orphan is about action and stealth, about collecting and using an array of inventory and weaponry. Orphan is not completely linear and will contain a minimum of five hours of gameplay. That being said, Limbo was awesome and being compared to it is quite alright!”

Orphan’s crowdfunding push will end on Tuesday 3 March at 5AM UT.

Dom has been a freelance journalist for many years, covering everything from video games to gaming peripherals. Dom has been playing games longer than he'd like to admit, but that hasn't stopped him amassing a small ego's worth of knowledge on all things Tekken, Yakuza and Assassin's Creed.