We Happy Few Pre Alpha PC: Experience the Retrofuturistic Dystopia of Wellington Wells

Because of this event, every citizen in Wellington Wells was left feeling great guilt and sorrow over what they had done, getting upset over the mere sight of a child. This caused General Byng to commission a drug that would make the consumer go through drug-induced amnesia in order to forget the past, and because they wouldn't remember their tragic past, they'd instead be happy again. Four years after the Victory, Joy was created.

We Happy Few Pre Alpha PC...

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Montreal-based Compulsion is asking for CA$250,000 (about $200,353) to fund development of We Happy Few on Windows PC. Backers who pledge CA$60 or more will receive access to a pre-alpha build of the game.

I was one of the very few people who grabbed the pre-alpha version of We Happy Few back when it released in 2015. The concept intrigued me. However, the game was mostly lacking in its most essential punchline: a story. Or any quests for that matter. The only thing you could really do is bounce around, do some crafting, whack some guys, escape the city. It didn't feel great then. How could it? It was just pre-alpha. What it did do, however, is introduce us all to a craftily created, creepy version of the open world we would be playing in. The artwork was great, the graphics were good, and I enjoyed the crafting and survival mechanics as well. But it was so far from anything that could give me even a remote idea of what the end product could look like. I decided to pass, for now.

In July 2016, when Compulsion Games decided to let loose an Early Access version of the intriguing title on Steam, I decided to grab it. The guys at Compulsion Games were really cooperative and were happy to help me out with a copy of the game as per request. I gave it a whirl, and I must say, I was positively impressed by what I saw. To those unfamiliar, We Happy Few is an open world survival game set in a retro-futuristic London, where its participation in World War II left England so devastated and war-torn that it had no choice but to use a synthesized drug called 'Joy' to keep the people from sinking into madness and sorrow. Simply put, Joy is an antidepressant. But it is an extreme. It simulates a feeling of induced happiness in its subjects, causing them to forget all unhappy memories and see the world as all unicorns and rainbows instead of the grim and morose pile of rubble that it really is. A great example of how the drug functions is in the intro, when the player, about to run out of the effects of his Joy, enters a room full of people celebrating a birthday. The player is pressured into striking open a pinata, which, when shattered, reveals to contain a dead rat inside, instead of the bunch of candies the drug-induced people around him see and eat (gross!).

At some point during the occupation, the population of the island town of Wellington Wells did what is initially only alluded to as a "Very Bad Thing" that caused the Germans to voluntarily leave their island, allowing the British citizens there to live free. However, the repercussions of the Very Bad Thing left the citizens with immense anguish and guilt over their actions, leading to the invention of a new hallucinogenic drug called "Joy", which suppresses all unhappy memories and leaves its user in a chemically-induced euphoria, while also brightening how they perceive their environment. However, its many adverse side effects include addiction, short-term memory loss, loss of appetite, nightmarish hallucinations, and being susceptible to manipulation.

We Happy Few was revealed on 26 February 2015, and publicly debuted at PAX East 2015, allowing attendees to go hands-on with a very early version of the project.[22][23] During June 2015, Compulsion Games ran a successful Kickstarter campaign, raising US$266,163 of the target US$200,000 to fund the development of the game.[24] About 2,000 of these supporters backed at levels to participate in the game's alpha-version testing alongside Compulsion's dedicated play-testing team of five, but Compulsion found this did not provide them enough feedback to know which way to take the narrative elements within the randomly generated world.[9] Instead, Compulsion opted to open the game to an early access release in a playable state on various storefronts for Microsoft Windows and on the Xbox One Xbox Game Preview program starting on 26 July 2016 as to be able to gain much more feedback.[25][26] Part of their choice to use early access was to provide transparency of what the game was actually to be, wanting to avoid the pitfalls that happened with No Man's Sky on its release in August 2016. Compulsion found many were anticipating a AAA gaming experience from their small team, and thus wanted to make sure players were clear on what their goals were for We Happy Few.[27]

We Happy Few is developed by Compulsion Games. It is an upcoming game which has been scheduled to release on June 2016. Its pre-alpha build has been released on 10th August 2015. You can also download Dying Light The Bozak Horde.

We Happy Few is is "a drug-fueled alt-60s dystopian nightmare," as we described it yesterday, "in which you take your happy pills or you get your face bashed in." Based on that alone, it's a game I want to play, and given the success so far of the recently-launched Kickstarter, I'm not alone in that. But how does it play? Explaining that part of it is tricky, as you might imagine, so Compulsion Games has posted a video of 15 minutes of pre-alpha gameplay to help clear things up.

Because the game is still in a very pre-release state, bugs and placeholder assets do occasionally pop up. Even so, the video makes it a lot easier to grasp the basics of gameplay: looting, crafting, fighting, dying, and starting over in a new environment, with much of your experience determined by the luck of the draw. Later on in the trailer, narrator Joshua Mills demonstrates the impact of taking Joy, the drug that makes everyone happy: It satisfies those around you that you're one of them, but it takes a serious toll when it wears off.

During PAX East 2015 I had a chance to play We Happy Few, without getting into detail, We Happy Few was really impressive! Compulsion Games sent us a handful of screenshots from their PAX East build. Remember, these screens are from a pre-alpha build, quality or assets can change between now and final release. Enjoy!

The game puts you in the shoes of Arthur Hastings, a family man in charge of newspapers censorship in a fictional post-war England. While one would expect some political satire after this introduction, Compulsion Games materialized this distorting mirror of a decidedly depressed world where everyone strives to look as happy as possible. Clothes and materialistic gain will therefore play a central role, as they give you or not access to particular areas of Wellington Welles, a series of islands that is your playground. In other words, if your clothes stink too much sadness and lack of colors, you might be considered a downer.

The announcement trailer below sets the tone of false, prescription-based optimism in an entertainingly bizarre chat between the in-universe talk show host Jack and creative director Guillaume Provost. He explains how players will control a "downer" who refuses to take his happy pills, trying to fit in with the hopped-up Wellies while foraging for food and supplies. Compulsion expects players to die a lot in their quest to escape the town, so proceedurally generated layouts will greet players each time they give it another go.

The game takes place in the fictional English city of Wellington Wells, a dystopian retro futuristic-fashioned society formed following an alternate timeline of events within World War II, which is now on the verge of collapse in the mid 1960's. The residents of the city, seeking to forget an unspeakable horror they committed, began taking a hallucinogenic drug called "Joy" that makes them happy, but also leaves them easily controlled and lacking morality and understanding of anything else.

At first blush it all seems well and quaint with its Tudor styled homes. That quick impression is quickly dispelled when you see the decay of homes around you and the overgrowth of the local flora. Even in this pre-alpha state of the game the building exteriors and vegetation are impressive. With the recently added stealth ability it is already possible to use the foliage to remain hidden to sneak by or up behind the drug subdued inhabitants.

We Happy Few was first unveiled in February 26, 2015 and was officially shown off at Pax East. The game is being put together by an independent developer that has turned to crowdfunding in order to continue the work. On June 4, 2015 the company launched a Kickstarter for the game and announced it had raised the aimed for $200,000 in the matter of one month. The campaign was officially closed a month later and took in more than $266,000. On October 23, 2015 the was officially announced as being in pre-alpha build 9. In this particular build the developers talked about the fact that they have managed to polish up some of the graphics in order to give the skin pigment and look of people in the game a more realistic bent.

Ever play Fallout 3? That mission with the scientist playing God in the simulator? The citizens are happy, cause they don't think anything is wrong. They water their plants and live in this peaceful cul-de-sac. But then, the old lady down the street says her skin feels wrong. An oven explodes and a mom dies. A kid starts crying in the middle of the street and the dog won't stop barking. Then, the Chinese roll in and everyone's dead. Everyone's happiness is chipping away because the player keeps scratching at the surface.

00:29 And pause. Welcome to your favorite and worst place to be. Think Don't Starve and Bioshock. You have one life, and you need to be careful not to starve, not to dehydrate, and most of all - not to get completely rekt by the creepy denizens of the town. Everyone has a happy mask. And everyone's on drugs. Literally. 2ff7e9595c