Poglings on Kickstarter Wants to Evolve the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure

Poglings is a monster-collecting indie game for PC and Nintendo Switch that just kicked off a Kickstarter campaign, and it looks a lot like the Chao Garden from the Sonic Adventure series. Lead developer Chad Brunsvold, better known as Chadtronic on YouTube, launched the campaign with a video yesterday. Sonic Adventure‘s Chao Garden is indeed the major inspiration for the game, with a bit of influence taken from Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda as well, but it’s looking to be more than just a new coat of paint on an old formula.

Brunsvold is creating the project under his new studio, Yojoyco, along with Right Nice Games, as a cute pet-simulation adventure where players collect, breed, and evolve groups of tadpole-like creatures called Poglings. The team has already created a project that boasts a DreamWorks-like art style with colorful visuals and plenty of activities to enjoy. You can see the Kickstarter announcement video below for a better look at how Poglings seeks to flesh out the Chao Garden experience fans have sought for so long.

The Poglings Kickstarter launched yesterday with the hope of reaching a goal of $40,000 by May 11. It’s already obliterated that goal, with the pledged amount standing at over $157,000 at the time of publication. This means it has reached stretch goals to include bonus features such as an in-game selfie camera, an expanded island, a track from Banjo-Kazooie composer Grant Kirkhope, and six additional Pogling colors. Future goals include a cooking system at $200,000 and a track from Sonic Mania composer Tee Lopes at $250,000.

For more on the world of Poglings, you can read about its characters, creatures, and gameplay in the summary from Yojoyco below:

Keeble has set sail to an assigned island among the ‘Wild Vine’: A scattered chain of tropical islands where magical creatures called Poglings inhabit. Evolve, breed, and race cute mysterious creatures known as Poglings. Stake claim to your island, grow your nest, and establish yourself as the best Pogling Hatcher the Wild Vine Islands has ever seen! Each day is a new opportunity that will offer fun and unique challenges as you make friends and grow your nest of Poglings. Put in a hard days work and some of the more colorful and rare poglings could be yours! Explore your island, discover its secrets and race against other Poglings! Learn enough and you could become a master hatcher!

Poglings is expected to launch in May 2024 and is coming to PC and Nintendo Switch, but Yojoyco says that both versions may not arrive at the same time. Additionally, support for PlayStation and Xbox consoles could arrive in the future.