Aconite Moves Forward on Slime in the Ice Machine

Aconite, the studio behind HoloVista, has passed its $25,000 Kickstarter goal for Slime in the Ice Machine, a hand-drawn adventure game set in Houston. As of Oct. 15 the campaign had raised $36,785 from 510 backers, and it closes at 9:01 a.m. Pacific on Nov. 4. Watch the campaign video below.

The game is written by Miracle Jones, who grew up outside Houston, and co-created by Aconite co-founder Nadya Lev. The player character, a journalist named Margot Crystal, comes home to a failing black-cat-themed metal bar in a strip mall and finds a pool of hallucinogenic slime in its ice machine that opens onto bars across space and time. The campaign describes a puzzle adventure for adults, more than 15 hours long, with narrative puzzles meant to give players "the feeling of doing actual journalism." The title comes from Marvin Zindler, the Houston TV reporter who shouted "slime in the ice machine" in on-air restaurant inspection segments, Houstonia reports.

Andreu Zaragoza drew the art. The score is by Buzz McCoy of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult; the campaign says it is McCoy's first game score. The Kickstarter lists PC, Mac and Xbox; Steam lists the release date as "To be announced," and Houstonia reports a tentative spring 2027 release. A free demo of the first three levels is on Steam and itch.io.

HoloVista, its 2020 iOS game, won a 2021 Apple Design Award in the Inclusivity category. A University of Houston student group, Coog Interactive, playtested Slime in the Ice Machine.

For more reading, see Houstonia on the game and Coog Interactive, Apple's 2021 Design Award winners and Aconite's press kit.