Monticello developer hits fundraising goal for Mars-based video game

Tyler Owen heads Random Seed Games, a young Monticello company that has developed a video survival game that's set on Mars.

Not an animated version of the Red Planet, but the real Mars.

Owen used the crowdfunding website Kickstarter.com to raise $40,000 to complete the video game, called Lacuna Passage.

Owen and his team used real data from NASA satellites to form exact replicas of Martian landscape, he said. NASA makes almost every aspect of its data publicly available, he added.

"When they're playing the game, they really are exploring real Martian areas," he said.

The project has been in development for a year and was inspired by the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars in August 2012. Random Seed provides a science fiction interactive experience that aims to "inspire others to get interested in space travel and science."

Users of Lacuna Passage play as Jessica Rainer, the only survivor of the crashed Hercules mission, investigating the disappearance of the first manned mission to Mars, according to Owen.

"All along we've focused on this concept of having greater attention to realism than most games," Owen said. "You'll see it oftentimes even in Hollywood films where they don't adhere very closely to real science, or they make lots of concessions in the name of plot or narrative.

"All the people working on the project are really compelled by creating a realistic experience of surviving on an alien planet."

Owen said more than half his funding came through social-media solicitation.

Random Seed's development team is made up of eight volunteers, he said.

He hopes to have the video game completed by December 2014. Once completed, the game will be available for download on personal computers including Macs and PCs.