Commander 85 Seeks Kickstarter Funding

You might have heard of the 1980s – it’s currently the rage for indie developers to drain every last ounce of hairspray and neon out of the era and insinuate it was such a great decade. Well, it had He-Man. Anyway, aiming for a release in the autumn is Commander 85.

From The Moonwalls, who made the rather good Bohemian Killing – also on the Switch, their latest title Commander 85 covers a plethora of genres for greedy gamers. Expect to see an adventure game, sci-fi, survival elements and a hacker simulator. Throw in a platforming mechanic, and you won’t need to play anything else. In theory.

At the moment, the developer is looking to fund Commander 85 with £4606 on Kickstarter, which really isn’t much considering the work that’s gone into it. I’m not affiliated with the product but will be looking at backing this.

The story revolves around the 1980s where the main character gets the latest Commander computer – bearing a slight resemblance to the Commodore Amiga, with a slice of the C64 at that. The system boasts state-of-the-art technology with a real artificial intelligence system. Think 2001: A Space Odyssey meets War Games.

Commander ’85 will be full of surprises. The plot will deal with, among others, themes of the arms race, military experiments, the Roswell incident, nuclear war and – of course – artificial intelligence. However, I don’t want to reveal too much and spoil the fun. It’s important to note that each game session is basically different. We’ve prepared hundreds of different possibilities, many random elements, side quests and three different endings.

Marcin Makaj, Lead Developer

Fans of Stranger Things may see a smug nod towards the characters in the game. However, they are a three-piece, the teenagers bear a striking resemblance to the kids from Hawkins.

Here are the main features of Commander 85:

• a retro sci-fi thriller;
• adventure, simulation and survival;
• set in the 1980s;
• random events and 3 different endings;
• a ton of pop-culture references;
• many additional games and programs;
• atmospheric soundtrack.

The full title is actually Commander ’85, but I’m dropping the apostrophe as a lot of gamers think grammar is for squares. It’s not; I’m cool. Anyway, Commander 85 it is, so it shows up in the searches.

Commander 85 is coming to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam in autumn 2020.