Away is a straight-up sugar glider adventure game and it's melting my heart

Away: The Survival Series has popped up a few times in the past year or so, but it's only recently become a bona fide thing following the conclusion of its Kickstarter campaign, which raised over double its roughly $45,000 goal. Developer Breaking Walls can now properly focus on finishing the game, which stars a young sugar glider on a nature documentary-inspired adventure. It's every bit as adorable as it sounds. 

For the unfamiliar, sugar gliders are biological weapons meticulously engineered by nature to elicit cooing and head pats from humans. Said differently, they are the cutest damn thing on the planet, and now one of them is about to become a video game protagonist. You play as a young sugar glider which, after being separated from its family, strikes out on a journey through "a distant future where the animal kingdom reigns supreme," Breaking Walls explained on Kickstarter. "From the mighty treetops to the forest floor, immerse yourself in nature as you explore a vibrant world brimming with life, but beware of the dangers that await on your adventures."

Away is sort of a third-person action game, but it's more about flight-aided exploration than, say, combat - relatedly, if you play on PC you can sample the game's flight on Steam thanks to this free gliding prototype. Away is channeling nature documentaries, so it focuses on taking in the richly detailed ecosystems from a sugar glider's perspective. You can also play as other animals which were added in via stretch goals - like a stag beetle, grasshopper, fox, and bear - but I'm still partial to the sugar glider, the hero we deserve. 

Away looks mighty promising. Here are some of the other the best indie games of 2019 and beyond.