Indie developer and publisher Elden Pixels has officially announced The Prisoning: Fletcher’s Quest, a new metroidvania with a sense of humor. It is currently slated for 2024, and will be available on PC via Steam, where you can wishlist now.

In The Prisoning: Fletcher’s Quest, players must help a game developer through the anxiety of their own mind. You’ll have to survive a variety of enemies and bosses, progressing through procedurally generated stages.

There’s currently no word on a console release. Here’s the full gameplay trailer from the official Elden Pixels YouTube channel:

The humor in today’s trailer will likely make or break your interest in The Prisoning. The premise itself is already pretty amusing.

But the gameplay mechanics also seem very familiar. Ideally, the game will live up to the trailer, and share the same forthright strangeness.

It’ll be important to legitimately surprise and subvert expectations, rather than rely on kitchen sink ideas.

It’d be interesting if the enemies and obstacles also represent something meaningful in the protagonist’s mind. Much of it appears to be more surreal than meta. But that’s too early to judge, out of context.

A haphazard approach is tough to juggle, though it can certainly be done. For example, games like Goat Simulator successfully include both the developers’ signature wit and a freeform bizarreness that reflects that.

I personally got a laugh out of The Prisoning’s new trailer and Steam page, both of which are even self-deprecating at times. The trailer appears to mock the monotony of the genre, so hopefully the devs actually avoid those tropes.

The Steam page jokes that the devs couldn’t “afford real music”. But the retro beats are especially catchy, and a perfect engine for the nostalgic tone.

The Prisoning: Fletcher’s Quest has potential, if the gameplay can muster the same sharpness and humor as the marketing.

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