Co-op horror game Deep Madness is getting a prequel, Dawn of Madness

The creators of co-operative horror game Deep Madness have announced a prequel called Dawn of Madness.

Set centuries before the events of Deep Madness, Dawn of Madness will be a standalone story-driven board game set in the Otherworld, another dimension wherein the players must battle horrific creatures and uncover the truth behind the terrible experiments of the Golden Dawn organisation.

A co-op board game for one to four players, Dawn of Madness is being developed by Diemension Games and will include a variable length campaign, with each chapter focusing on one of the four Wanderers featured in the core experience. These Wanderers are the game’s major characters and they include Emily Hawkins (The Nurse), Claude Reinhardt (The Detective), Catherine Little (The Farmer) and Lynas Gershwin (The Priest).

Each Wanderer comes with their own personal storyline and Conscious Realm to shape the Otherworld, making every one a unique experience to playthrough. Choosing a Wanderer to play will mean selecting their storybook, Conscious Realm sheet, character dashboard, personal Aberrations (or enemies) and a suitably gross final boss.

Depending on how many Wanderers are in play (which will depend on the player count) each campaign of Dawn of Madness will include up to four chapters and a finale. However, when taking into account the various choices players will make along the way, each campaign can actually be played multiple times over with new content to be discovered every time.

The campaigns themselves will have players confronting a series of encounters and mini-bosses each chapter, before they eventually face-off against one of the four available final bosses. As with Deep Madness every enemy encounter is intended to be difficult, with each Abomination and final boss coming equipped with their own set of abilities and effects that players will have to overcome.

Wanderers won’t just be fighting the Lovecraftian horrors roaming the Otherworld, they’ll also be interacting with Malformations. These twisted versions of each Wanderer may be important to successfully defeating the campaign’s Abominations, but come with some pretty terrible baggage of their own that players will eventually have to deal with.

The publisher’s previous game, Deep Madness, provided a co-operative horror experience wherein players assumed the roles of investigators exploring a claustrophobic deep sea mining site. Deep madness also provided multiple scenarios and enemies to augment each campaign, with every one offering a unique challenge for players to overcome.

Currently on Kickstarter, the base pledge for Dawn of Madness is around £62 and includes the Core Experience of the game (without the stretch goals). Despite having raised over one million aleady, you still have until 17th December to pledge before the Kickstarter finishes.