Most people have never heard of Onion Games and the fractured legacy of Japanese studio Love-de-Lic. But for those in the know, it’s responsible for some of the coolest cult hit games over the past three decades. Strange offbeat RPG worlds full of loveable weirdos, strange creatures, odd music and sometimes pretty heavy themes explored from strange angles.
After much teasing, it’s confirmed that its latest oddball RPG, Stray Children, will be launching in English on Steam sometime this year. No specific release date yet, but that still narrows it down to within the next six months. Check out the new trailer below for a hint at the weirdness to expect, including a very large psychedelic fish.
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Stray Children has you playing as a dog-faced child, pulled through a magical computer portal into a world where all the adults have transformed into violent monsters, and the remaining youth live in a stronghold town, outside of which the ‘Olders’ lurk. Creatures—to quote the game’s store page—”carrying the heavy load of their own inadequacies, self-doubt, and all of the grievances that grown-ups gather”. So, there’s some Themes and Ideas going on here.
While Onion Games has produced some great stuff over the past few years (like comedy puzzler Dandy Dungeon and dark fairytale shmup Black Bird), Stray Children looks to be the first in a while to really recapture the aesthetic and tone of Moon the studio’s defining works like ‘anti-RPG’ Moon and smooch-em-up Chulip.
Moon in particular was one of the first games to truly deconstruct the RPG genre as we know it. Rather than have you go around beating up monsters, breaking pots and vanquishing evil lords, Moon had you playing as a minor NPC, living your daily routine, eating, sleeping and cleaning up the messes left behind by the ‘hero’, and saving the souls of the many cute monsters left mangled in the protagonist’s wake. A clever subversion that had some real influence.
Undertale developer Toby Fox has made no secret of Moon being a key inspiration of his, and that inspiration looks to be reciprocated in Stray Children. The store page mentions turn-based combat with real-time bullet dodging elements, and the option to fight enemies with either direct violence or dialogue. It’s a great example of cross-pollination of ideas between Japan and American across the years, especially considering how niche a release Moon was, being a Japan-only cult favourite for decades.
Stray Children is set to launch sometime this year, and can be wishlisted now on Steam. In the meantime, you could do a lot worse than checking out Moon, which saw a polished-up and (finally) English-localized PC release back in 2021, a mere 24 years after its Japanese debut. Oh, and don’t skip out on 24 Killers while you wait, a recent indie gem drawing on that Love-de-Lic legacy too, as explained in more detail by cult media scholar Mara here on Youtube.
