Side-scrolling action adventure game Out of Line announced for PS4

Developer Nerd Monkeys has announced Out of Line, a side-scrolling action adventure game for PlayStation 4 that follows a boy named San as he overcomes puzzles, action challenges, and more to escape a creepy testing dolls facility.

Here is an overview of the game, via its official website:

Out of Line is set in a mysterious world punctuated with “dark toned” hand drawn 2D art style where you, a child named San, progress through a linear yet strong and immersive story.

Instead of making a heavy use of text or a voice over, it’s the player’s curiosity for exploration and interaction with the world that conveys the story. Each new discovery is one step closer to help the player interpret and theorize what Out of Line is about, giving heavy meaning and a sense of purpose to the art, levels, game mechanics and puzzles.

The mechanics revolve around San’s spear, something the character sees as a tool and not as a weapon. While this helps conveying important personality traits for San, it also is the core concept that defines the broad gameplay experience of Out of Line. An experience that becomes better defined with the real story behind it.

In this creepy testing dolls factory lives a very peculiar group of children, and San’s escape from this place is when the game picks up. The player will need to avoid being caught by very odd machines that keep hunting him while overcoming a series of obstacles and puzzles, in search for meaning, clarity and freedom.

This game was born as a result of a young artist, Francisco Santos, wished to create new universes in the videogame industry. Its development began as an academic project during ETIC videogames degree, with a team of 3, an artist, a developer and a sound designer. By the end of last year the team decided to apply for the Portuguese PlayStation Award, which they successful won.

That meant the game became serious business, so Francisco Santos seeked the help of an established Portuguese indie game developer studio, Nerd Monkeys, with the objective of joining forces and to better improve the odds of succeeding in finishing the game.

Watch the announcement trailer below.