Deeeer Simulator insists that it's quite normal, really
100% authentic wildlife sim
Deeeer Simulator is about a quite normal deer swinging from lampposts with its elongating neck, piloting mechs made of animals, and occasionally turning into a freakish bipedal hybrid. Inspired by the similarly anarchic Goat Simulator, but with a few fun ideas of its own, Deeeer Simulator is the work of a solo Japanese developer under the banner of Naspapa Games. It's currently crowdfunding, and hit its full funding goal of 1 million Yen (around £6,000/$9,000) on Japanese site Campfire within one day. There's also a Kickstarter, though it hasn't done nearly as well. See the quite normal trailer below.
While Goat Simulator was (initially) just about running around and throwing stuff, Deeeer Simulator appears to have loftier ambitions. Animal mechs, dragons, bovine jetpacking, oddball boss fights and apparently playing Go with cows that can freely roam the board. Of course, you can just grapple around the city using your stretchy deer neck. It's all very daft and has me giggling far too much as I rewatch the trailer for the n'th time. Due to the game being well over 100% funded in Japan (much to the developer's surprise), there's a 2 million yen stretch goal now to add prehistoric creatures to the game.
While causing anarchy appears to be a key part of Deeeer Simulator, it has its costs. Anger the city and they'll send patrol cars after you (driven by giraffes) and eventually tanks driven by polar bears. The Kickstarter page also teases some manner of big heavily armed mech unit to fight against as well, although can any weapon truly surpass Metal Deer, seen up top? So, Goat Simulator meets Grand Theft Auto then, with a dash of Armoured Core. There's just something about the way it moves and the sense of humour in the trailer that resonates with me in a way that Goat Sim never did. It feels like a more earnest, less forced vein of silliness. More of that, please.
Deeeer Simulator is due out by year's end, and is currently crowdfunding on both Campfire (Japanese-centric) and Kickstarter. You can find the game's Steam page here. You can also see a bunch more silly clips of the game on the developer's Twitter feed here - you really should.