Publisher Big Blue Sky Games and developer 906 Games have announced papercraft action horror game Cutout. It will be available for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. A release date was not announced.
“Most action games reward combat with a new sword” said 906 Games co-founder and art director Giulio Perez in a press release. “Cutout rewards you with the arm that was holding it.”
Composer Sergio Missaglia added, “My goal for the music is for it to convey the emotion and struggle of Lena’s journey. To achieve the sort of raw sound you typically only hear in outsider music, I intentionally recorded compositions on instruments I’ve never played before—including some broken instruments I found in secondhand shops—to capture her childlike wonder and to explore the expressive possibilities of the instruments without the filters of traditional culture and musical knowledge.”
Here is an overview of the game, via Big Blue Sky Games:
Cutout tells the story of Lena, the forsaken child of a dying forest. Longing for an acceptance she never received from the people of her village, she embarks on a deadly quest to recover a powerful scepter that grants its wielder total dominion over the land and its people.
Cutout‘s “Cut & Paste Combat” system makes it so Lena can become more powerful with every enemy she takes apart. If you sever an enemy’s limb, you can attach it to Lena, enhancing her with new attacks or abilities. Players can customize Lena to embrace a favored playstyle or experiment to discover new possibilities throughout the adventure.
The papercraft visuals in Cutout were carefully achieved under the guidance of Giulio, who spent more than a decade in the world of fashion working with elite brands such as Versace and Gucci before bringing his talent for creating eye-catching designs to the world of gaming. Cutout‘s spooky and gloomy environments are laid out like a handcrafted diorama assembled from real-world materials, including the kinds of everyday objects one would find stashed away in the attic.
The soundtrack is similarly crafted in that spirit by co-founder and classically trained composer Sergio Missaglia. Sergio is scoring Cutout using a variety of unconventional instruments and recording techniques to create an avant-garde soundscape built to match the game’s horrifying world–both equal parts disconcerting and enthralling.
While the game is being developed with a mix of both modern and classical techniques, every asset in Cutout was 100 percent made by people. No generative AI was used to create the game’s art, animation, music, or writing.
Watch the announcement trailer below. View a set of screenshots at the gallery.