DownSouth Press kit

Press contact: troopsushi@gmail.com

Fact sheet

Developer / publisher: TroopSushi
Based in: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Full game: In development
Genre: Morality-driven Platformer / RPG
Game director: Anthony “TroopSushi” Botsford
Full-game release: Coming soon
Demo platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android & browser
Kickstarter: Campaign completed with over CA$125,071 raised from 1,469+ backers.

Official links

Description

Short description

DownSouth is a moral-dilemma platformer RPG where your choices affect your sanity, and your sanity affects how you play.

Long description

DownSouth is a morality-driven Platformer/RPG. Play as South, a stimulant-fueled purple bean, and parkour, converse and fight your way through sprawling dystopian city-scapes. Each choice affects your abilities, dialogue, and even your appearance... Just know, SURVIVAL comes at a moral cost.

Features

Frame-by-frame, hand drawn pixel-art animation.
Detailed dystopian worlds full of bizarre, comedic & morally dubious characters.
Branching dialogue and a sanity system that permanently alters the narrative.
A cast of main clients and characters that you may befriend, battle or kill.
Expressive platforming mechanics and a plethora of hidden secrets.
Upgradeable abilities, fluid movement, and combo-chaining combat.
Moral dilemmas that evolve based on your every choice.

Production notes

Anthony Botsford leads DownSouth’s development with a remote team of collaborators from around the world.

The March 2026 Kickstarter campaign reached 250% funding and achieved its multiplayer stretch goal. Multiplayer is planned for the full game.

LoveBox City is the game’s opening setting. Its dense streets and high-rise buildings draw inspiration from Brooklyn, Detroit and downtown Vancouver.

Game details

Built to test the human experience: our selfishness, our empathy, our endless need to survive just one more day. We all have things that drive us... how much are they truly worth?

Dialogue: Using up to 5 dialogue options, you’ll constantly weigh empathy against self preservation, deciding whether other lives matter more than your own survival.
Soul Points: South’s sanity level is measured through SOUL POINTS, a system that reflects how you choose to treat others.
High sanity: With high sanity, South is a brightly coloured speed-demon: fast and versatile with access to a wide array of dialogue options and movement fluidity... but he’s fragile, vulnerable, easily manipulated, and poorly equipped to brute-force dangerous foes.
Low sanity: As South’s ‘Soul Points’ degrade: his colours fade, fluidity falters, dialogue options disappear. What remains is a devoid, uncommunicative killing machine. Powerful, efficient, and increasingly detached from the world around him.

Team

Anthony “TroopSushi” Botsford
Leader/Game Director | Artist | Writer/Narrative | Sound & Level Designer | Musician
Game director, sole artist, writer, and mad mind behind DownSouth, TroopSushi has been making art for as long as he can remember. With a deep love for human psychology (studied specifically for this project!) and an even deeper love for the absurd in SpongeBob, Invader Zim, Rayman and Katana Zero, he brings worlds to life with wild imagination... and a GREAT BIG GIGANTIC SMILE.
Diego Batiz
Programmer | UI, Combat, Shader & Cutscene Programmer
As a creator of UI, cutscenes, shaders, and other game elements, Diego's love for game programming comes from his two greatest passions: the thrill of solving puzzles and the joy of getting lost in a story. These same passions echo in his love for rock climbing, diving into web novels like Lord of the Mysteries, and wandering the vast, living worlds of games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher 3.
Anselmo Noriega
Programmer | UI, Boss Fight, Physics & Cutscene Programmer
"Nobody truly knows who or what Anselmo is. The inner machinations of his mind are an enigma. A questionable man." Anselmo is secretly very humble and very talented, but asked to be left as one of life's greatest mysteries. Overseeing the technical side of the game with a keen eye for cinematography, he is a silent urban legend that powers the world of DownSouth.
Lis “pixelcat” Glushkova
Musician | Orchestral Tracks | Trailer Theme
Since pixelcat's childhood, her deep love for game making was forged in the fiery pits of ROM hacking and independent game communities. Known elsewhere for pixel art and programming, she now returns in a different role: scratching at DownSouth's emotional underbelly by punctuating characters and moments with haunting orchestral scores. Her biggest joy in life comes from people being united in creating and witnessing art, and she humbly invites you to partake.
Benjamin Halko
Programmer | System Designer | FX Designer
Behind optimization, system design and plenty of flashy effects, plus our web design (downsouth.zone and our itch.io page), Ben is our resident mad scientist and all-encompassing helping hand. Programming for decades with an affinity for shiny things, he's a tour de force at twisting premises into wacky creative experiences. When he's not programming, you'll find him playing Celeste or Just Shapes & Beats.
Dominik “justWiz” Heiler
Programming | Additional art
When he isn't spellcasting or pondering his orb, Dominik takes great pride in working in the realm of the experimental, abstract and uncomfortable, bringing folks together through the artistry of video games. Pixel artist first, developer second, he moves between both departments, polishing and fleshing out the sprawling world of DownSouth. Dominik is a wizard at gathering inspiration from nature, urban life, and games like Everhood and Anthology of the Killer.
Pierre
Environment Designer | Environment Conceptualist
Pierre is a reserve of conceptual wisdom blended with an unbridled eye for environment design. (Only further fortified by his far-reaching travels across the world.) He's helped bring some of the game's new and improved cinematic set pieces to life through sweeping landscapes, and has added tons of cohesion and depth to the grueling and ever-expansive plot of DownSouth. When he's not constructing life-like brutalist landscapes for the game with the exaggerated gusto of a Frenchman, Pierre maintains a library of games that dwarfs all of our team's libraries combined.