Backbone is a pixel art cinematic adventure with stealth and action elements. As private investigator Howard Lotor, you are set to solve detective cases, interrogate witnesses, explore the intriguing and dangerous world around you, and sneak your way to safety using smell-based stealth mechanics.
Backbone combines the visual and social contrasts of film noir with anthropomorphic animals, retrofuturistic technologies, and dystopian fiction. Crawl through the dark alleys of pixelated Vancouver, and experience the impactful storyline focused on themes of power and prejudice.
THE GAME
A rich, living and breathing world waiting to be explored. Backbone takes place in dystopian Vancouver, BC, featuring real locations and breathtaking pixel landscapes.
A stylistic and thematic fusion of film noir, anthropomorphic animals, retrofuturism and dystopian classics. The world of Backbone is something you’ve never seen before but always wished you had.
Challenging, thought-provoking storyline featuring themes of power, corruption, social decay and systemic discrimination. Backbone tells a tale about how our environment shapes us, and how we influence it in return.
GAMEPLAY
Detective work. Collect evidence, interrogate witnesses, connect the dots and follow leads on your own. No hand-holding - move forward through the game by your own rules. Every case has numerous trails, and it’s up to you to decide which one to follow.
Stealth & Action. In the animal world, smell is the most powerful sense. Hide in multi-level environments, mask your scent in garbage bins, follow suspects and escape the chase.
Special abilities. The Artifact is a unique ancient technology with unknown origins and purpose. If you learn how to use it, it might change the regular order or destroy it.
THE STORY
The planet is sprawling with anthropomorphic animal species. The streets of Vancouver are overgrown with ivy and humongous trees, branches and vines piercing through the concrete, and huge flowers nesting on top of the roofs.
The Great Apes call themselves the founding fathers of this world, and they are the moral, ethical and political compass of society. Citizens are divided into informal classes according to their species. The political and underground power is corrupted, and the glass ceiling seems impossible to break.
Vancouver is surrounded by high walls from every side to make sure that no one from across it intrudes. It is strictly forbidden to cross the wall, and the only thing waiting outside is savage hostile creatures.
Howard Lotor is a raccoon and a private investigator who doesn't feel like he belongs. His mundane life is interrupted with the appearance of a powerful technology that can blur the lines of conventional order and change society forever.