Emerging from incognito earlier this week, gaming startup Proxima announced its funding round as well as its inaugural game, Lumari, a sandbox social adventure game that appears to be a mix between Animal Crossing, Pokémon, and Minecraft.
The game studio has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by London Venture Partners, with participation from Konvoy Ventures, Progression Fund, Valhalla Ventures, Maveron LLC, and Artichoke Capital.
Most of the funding will go towards the development of the game, which is still in its early stages.
Proxima founder Ran Mo is a former chief product manager at Electronic Arts (EA), and previously worked on The Sims, one of EA’s major video game franchises. Team Proxima is made up of five gaming industry veterans from Riot, Storm8, Wildlife Studios, and Unity.
Image credits: Proxima
Although specific details about Lumari are kept under wraps, Mo told TechCrunch that, similar to other sandbox games, players will be able to visit each other, chat, and build things together. The game will also allow players to collect creatures (mainly players’ pet companions), build a house and habitat, grow a garden and explore a vast world. Lumari means “creatures of light” according to Mu.
Mo noted that customization will be a major part of the game, including the ability to customize characters and even creatures.
“Ultimately,” he said, “we want to build this for people to find their place.” “We think of it as a canvas for people to express themselves and take a walk.”
As shown in the trailer below, players will also have to fight what looks like purple colored creatures. “Beware, danger lurks across the regions of this fractured world,” Lomare’s website writes.
Mo revealed that the game is not expected to be released for another two years or more.
On June 15th, Lumari holds its first community playtest, which will end on July 15th. Players can sign up at playlumari.com. At this time, the test run will be single player and users must have a Windows PC to participate. When Lumari is officially launched, it will be available on more devices.
