A SPACE ODYSSEY: THE MAGICAL MYSTERY OF CHRISTOFFER HEDBORG & DATAHOWLER’S ELEVEN

Back in mid-2011, Christoffer Hedborg — developer of the starkly beautiful Toys, currently working on Might & Delight’s similarly pretty Pid — offered me a bet, that even though he wasn’t going to be able to finish in time for the 2012 IGF, by the festival’s finalist announcement, he’ll have made a game that would make me cry.

Though the deadline’s slipped a bit, by early 2012, he’d offered up instead the teaser video above, cryptically titled only “eleven” and with a score by Dallas-based musician Datahowler, which didn’t bring a stream of tears per se, only because I was in a coffeeshop at the time and wanted to mask my emotions in front of strangers — suffice it to say that it walloped me straight in the gut regardless.

I’ve deliberately never asked Hedborg to give me any more details about the game, even as he’s quietly let slip more photo evidence of its progress, because I legitimately don’t want to know. I’m completely satisfied simply with the knowledge that it’s still on its way, and that it still appears to be almost my Platonic ideal of the perfect game: gorgeous low-poly & saturated-color mystery wrapped in laid-back beats, that instantly makes me want to spend time in its world.

Hedborg & ‘Howler have just published one more video teaser above, simply titled ‘transmission’, all of which I offer as the first peek at what surely will be much more as Eleven officially comes closer into view.