Dev Access - Cyberpunk Serenade

Nana Moon explains how Keylocker lets you kickstart an anti-capitalist rebellion with some epic guitar shredding

- By Nana Moon

When you play through the prologue of cyberpunk RPG Keylocker, there’s no musical accompaniment. It feels strange. As you begin to explore the silence grows downright eerie, becoming heavy and oppressive. There’s not a single sound, but the message couldn’t be louder: a world without music feels wrong. It’s a bold choice as an introduction to the game’s otherwise vibrant world and an artistic risk that paid off – quite literally. A free demo featuring the prologue formed part of the game’s Kickstarter campaign, one that ended up smashing its goal of $35,000.

For Nana Moon, Keylocker’s game director, Kickstarter was the way to go for funding. Keylocker is vividly wild in both its visuals and game systems, features that were scaring conventional finance providers away. “Keylocker makes investors run for the hills; the same goes for publishers as well,” Nana explains. “The team kept reassuring me we would do it, and that I shouldn’t worry so much, but until the very end of the campaign I was worried. But the success of the demo proved to me ‘this game isn’t a fluke, it’s a good game,’ which was awesome.”