Summerfall Studios has hit their crowdfunding goal for their first title, Chorus: An Adventure Musical, raising more than USD$620,000 with over 5000 backers as of this press release.

With three days remaining on their Fig.co campaign and their first stretch goal imminent, the studio has announced today the release of a free playable ‘Proof of Concept’ on itch.io that will showcase the gameplay of the game’s unique interactive songs.

The studio emphasizes that this is a very rough and early representation of a scene, and will not be in the final game. David Gaider, Creative Director, said: “One of the questions we get asked most often is ‘how are the branching songs going to work?’ So here’s one of our early playable demos to show you. It was a difficult decision to put this out, as we’ve already identified numerous ways to improve this – both in terms of the song’s structure (the feel of each section being too isolated) as well as the way the player identifies what options to pick.

In the end, we thought it would be better to show our progress than not. So here it is, and thank you once again for your confidence and faith in our team! We’re already hard at work on the final product, and I just know you’re going to love what we have in store for you.” Chorus’ composer, Austin Wintory, had this to say: “Welcome to our playable “Proof of Concept” for CHORUS! I hate to offer qualifiers or disclaimers, as I’m a believer that work should speak for itself, but this is something that would normally never be publicly available.

We’ve decided to show an extremely early “proof of concept,” almost a pre-prototype, to demonstrate our internal model of a working song. But this does not represent the final quality material on any front. Particularly in my domain of music, it was made to test our technology and make sure the songs could react like dialogue choices. I promise the final game will be orders of magnitude more grand, nuanced, subtle, explosive and delicious than this. I hope!”

This first-look at Chorus gameplay mechanics features Laura Bailey (Marvel’s Spider-Man, Gears 5, Critical Role) as the protagonist, Grace, in a musical face-off with Persephone, played by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (Silent Hill, Ghost in the Shell, Steven
Universe). Voice acting veteran, Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Uncharted 4, Death Stranding), served as Voice Director. Chorus was revealed at this year’s PAX AUS during David Gaider’s keynote speech.

One part narrative-driven adventure, one part interactive musical, the game is a unique take on the Greek pantheon, where the player must navigate a complex world of mythology set in the current day. It will begin production as early as December, with a projected release date of summer 2021.