In Last Day of June you make decisions "as a puppeteer"

Last Friday, on what was actually the Last Day of June, we interviewed Massimo Guarini from Ovosonico at Gamelab Barcelona about his new game, right after publisher 505 Games had unveiled its brand new gameplay trailer.

Given the timing the creative director was pretty enthusiastic about the game and the reveal, and in the video below explains that Last Day of June is about "how Carl (the protagonist) gets and finds some old paintings that June made (his late wife who is a painter) of the villagers of the village they were living in, and through these paintings basically gains the ability to travel back in time and to go back to the few hours before the crash".

"So it's a Groundhog day-style mechanic with the twist that you get to play not with Carl but with the other villagers, with the other characters, so you get to relive the past through different perspectives. Every day you relive that day it's going to be a different perspective, and you choose which one. And basically the combination of actions all these characters were making a few hours before the crash and that unknowingly maybe let them to somehow have a role in the crash, it's going to be changed by the player".

Guarini goes on explaining how those characters' activities happen in the village while Carl and June were at that time at the lake, and that every character has its own background story for the player to complete the whole picture with their emotional motivations, acting as "sort of a puppeteer".

Different endings, then? Or several paths to the same fate? Of course Ovosonico's founder won't share further details as he doesn't want to spoil it for players and it's anyway around the corner, but what is clear is that "your actions will have an impact on the crash".

In terms of setting, "in my mind the game takes place in the 70's for example, in a sort of a British country village, and they [the couple] are about anywhere between 35 to 45 years old I guess". Guarini also admits being inspired by Pixar's Up, other than the already known collaboration with musician Steven Wilson and animator/director Jess Cope.

The interview also includes some comments on Guarini's previous works (Murasaky Baby, Shadows of the Damned) and a sweet "shameless fanboy moment" related to Fumito Ueda.

Last Day of June launches on PC and PS4 on the last day of August 2017.