Press Release
Launch (Embargo) Date: 28 June (12 am CET)
Launch Trailer:
Game Cover & Screenshots
More Information
About Dream Tango: Ascension (Store copy)
The Primordial Gods have hidden away the Powerful Items of Creation at the pinnacle of the Cosmos: the Astral Sanctum. And you, a young spirit traveller with a vague memory of who you are, find yourself at the threshold of that sacred corner. Dream Tango: Ascension is a story driven fast-paced VR wave shooter with melee combat mechanics, set as the prequel to Dream Tango. Fight your way through the game’s arenas and defeat waves of Hecate-Astraea’s minions. Raise your level by gaining XP, and beat the Celestial Leaderboard by proving your fighting skills. Discover secrets and hidden clues that will reveal your lost origin and purpose. And finally ascend to the Higher Sanctum of the Dream Dimension and face off against a being of cosmic proportions in what is probably one of the most epic final boss battles yet made in VR!
Gameplay related:
Dream Tango: Ascension spans a unique mix of game genres. The core mechanics combine influences from shooters like Space Pirate Trainer, together with free movement and melee combat elements. Our final boss fight draws inspiration from classic turn-based RPGs boss fights, like the ones in the early Final Fantasy series. Another nuance of the gameplay is that the default spell-casting attacks are deployed as traditional shooting.
The players can gain xp and level up by defeating enemies. The fallen foes might drop power-ups that can augment the players’ stats or grant them unique time-limited abilities.
But also, there is a story seeking aspect to Dream Tango: Ascension. Easter eggs have been laboriously hidden across the four game arenas, to be discovered by the most curious of players. All they need to do is choose their moments of exploration wisely, so that they do not fall prey to the incoming waves of hostile guardians in the meantime.
Visual style / world:
The Dream Tango: Ascension aesthetic leans strongly on the celestial theme: its universe is an other-worldly, glistening and ghostly setting, full of colorful crystalline formations and warped in dramatic skylines. The theme touches upon a lesser known corner of Greek mythology. According to Andreas Panagiotopoulos “Dream Tango: Ascension’s visual direction is like an amalgam of Hayao Miyazaki’s art style with darker undertones and distinct dashes of cyberpunk aesthetic.”
Quotes from Uncloudy & Co (Pick & Choose):
The Dream Tango universe is the brainchild of Creative Director and Uncloudy & Co’s founder Andreas Panagiotopoulos:
“In the Dream Tango universe, there are several storylines that will be expanded through a series of instalments and will refreshingly combine various game genres.”
“The dream-world remains a mystery, but hints at a broader story that can be found in hidden items and the ominous taunts of the goddess whose realm the amnesiac hero has just entered. While the players are told they are in the dream world in their spirit forms, one cannot but wonder where their sleeping bodies are, and if that is even a factor to the story. The answer is yes. Even in Ascension, there are clues about the location of the protagonist’s body, and throughout the series, the players will have to wake up and walk in and out of the physical world as well (within VR), discovering unsettling truths.”
“The Dream Tango series offers a multi-faceted user experience, where players will engage with the expansive universe both inside and out of the games. The main idea is that while the titles are totally enjoyable in themselves, there is a mind-boggling overarching story revealed across all entries in the Dream Tango series, including off-game elements, like comic strips, mini films, and website unlocks… perhaps even a Netflix Pilot. The players will e.g. be able to discover secret codes in Ascension that they can use to unlock hidden lore-related sections on the game website.”
About Uncloudy & Co:
Uncloudy & Co is a Sweden-based hybrid marketing agency & metaverse studio focusing on building digital and virtual products and experiences. Uncloudy & Co is a member of Meta’s both Start and ISV programs. Dream Tango Ascension is the first complete title of the studio, in a series of instalments taking place in the same universe.
Links
Website: dreamtangovr.com
Launch trailer: link
Meta Store page: link
Early access price: $9,99 (30% off)
Contact Email (Andreas Panagiotopoulos): andreas.pan@uncloudy.se
Dream Tango Discord: Link
Youtube: Link
Game Twitter: @DreamTangoVR
Company LinkedIn: Uncloudy & Co
Dream Tango: Ascension soundtrack: Spotify, AppleMusic
Who is Dream Tango Ascension for:
Primary audience : Competitive players who enjoy motion, combat and beating high scores.
Secondary audience: Story seekers who like exciting their imagination and connecting dots.
Trivia about the series:
The sequel of “Dream Tango: Ascension” called “Dream Tango: Shards of the Cosmos”, already exists as an early (non-promoted) demo on the Meta store with the name “Dream Tango Beta”. It was initially planned as the first instalment of the series, but the studio decided to pause it and develop Ascension first, so the two titles fall in the right chronological order.
Regarding our blent game genres / Manifesto:
As a studio, we theorized early on that VR gamer types are not one-on-one equivalent to gamer types on other consoles, due to the motion and visceral aspects of the medium. In VR, even a puzzler will require a certain level of physical movement, as opposed to the desktop point and click equivalent. Also, intuition and gut feeling might kick in to affect gameplay. Broadly speaking, genres that would not mix properly in other platforms, might as well blend nicely in VR. Gamers can find equally gratifying yielding virtual swords in battle, creating safe spaces to solve puzzles or pausing for a moment to take in a magnificent view, moving from one state to the other, all in one same game. In other words, what seems to be traditionally a distinct standalone game, could potentially constitute one of many moods/instances that go in the same game, one of certain depth and breadth. This is where our exploratory approach to building games stems from. We want to build VR games as broad multi-layered non-linear experiences that span smoothly different moods and genres.
And that informs our approach to building persistent and in-depth gaming experiences.
This is not entirely theoretical. We have put this to the test, as our first instalment of DT series, Dream Tango: Ascension, is a fast-paced wave shooter with clues and story related secrets hidden amidst the waves; whilst the second instalment, Dream Tango: Shards of the Cosmos (already existing as an early demo on the Meta store with the name “Dream Tango Beta”,) is a story driven puzzler with combat mechanics. As we follow through with our roadmap, we aim to create self-sustained games that players would like to spend hours in, moving from one mood to the other, or just taking a break, while enveloped in the mists of a compelling universe.