The Artful Escape is an idealized imaginative and prescient of the whole lot the music trade could possibly be, straight out of the mind of Australian rockstar Johnny Galvatron. In 5 years of growth (not less than), The Artful Escape has reworked right into a psychedelic journey recreation with a residing soundtrack of unique folks and rock music, a solid of ridiculous characters, otherworldly environments, and a roster A-list voice actors, together with Jason Schwartzman, Lena Headey, Michael Johnston, Carl Weathers and Mark Strong.

The Artful Escape is ready to hit Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, and PC on September ninth, priced at $20. It’ll hit Game Pass on the identical time, and it is being printed by indie hit-maker Annapurna Interactive.

Galvatron is the frontman of The Galvatrons, a high-energy Australian rock group that toured the continent and opened for bands like Def Leppard and Cheap Trick within the late 2000s. However, for the previous few years, Galvatron has been a recreation developer at the beginning. In the 2010s, he used YouTube movies to show himself the best way to create a recreation in Unreal, constructing off the 3D animation and coding programs he took again in faculty, proper earlier than Warner Music signed him. He then founded a studio, rented some workplace house, secured a take care of Annapurna, and someplace alongside the best way, he ended up in a recording sales space with Jason Schwartzman.

“We just hung out and spoke about David Bowie and Bob Dylan and video games and stuff,” Galvatron stated. “And it was just like, it was a moment for me. He came into the studio and he had like a cape and he had a dressing gown and like an umbrella and a little tiny Korg synth. He brought all these things and he put them all around him and he would like, do the line with the cape and then he would throw the cape around another way, and then he would hold the umbrella and do the line. I was just on my feet the whole time.”

In The Artful Escape, the primary character, Francis Vendetti, goes on a multidimensional journey to find his true stage persona — which appears to be a David Bowie-esque shred machine — whereas on the identical time reckoning with the legacy of his late uncle, a Bob Dylan-style folks icon. He travels via unusual and trippy worlds, taking part in music and trying to find his true sound.

To give a way of the sport’s oddball vibe, Schwartzman performs an enormous mind perched atop a pile of discarded fish elements.

“He’s a really funny comic support character,” Galvatron stated. “Like a very lofty British alien, like a brain floating in an aquarium on a flotilla of goldfish fins. It’ll make sense when you see it.”

For Galvatron, The Artful Escape is precisely that — an escape. His profession as a mainstream rockstar was finally unfulfilling, full of crimson tape, stagnant paperwork and awkward interactions. In between reveals, he typically discovered himself curled up within the nook of the tour bus, studying Dune or writing his personal novel, watching the continent fly by.