The campfire story has been resurrected in videogames recently. A rush of independent games have taken their own spin on the sit-around-and-talker, and the idea of making a game out of a fable is currently being tested by upcoming games like Forest of Sleep. The recently-announced game Djur expands this area of thinking, and aims to combine the quiet calm of fantasy worlds with sci-fi, and explore the meaning of myth and humanity through folk tales.

So far we don’t know much about Djur besides the unusual moniker of “sci-fi fable.” But that’s okay, because the little we do know sounds really, really cool. The initial description says that you “manage a place of respite” in the woods where creatures and humans gather to rest during their journey. Like most liminal spaces, it attracts the uncanny. The player listens to the stories these pilgrims tell and learns of the world outside her resting place, whether the tales are true or not.

The fable side of Djur is inspired by the team’s own environment: they’re located in Sweden, and consequently have taken cue from Scandinavian folktales in order to create a suitably cozy fantasy environment. The sci-fi parts are a bit more evasive. You can see in early art some sort of device that can be deconstructed, and there are hints of ancient technology within the concepts of buildings. The first screenshot seems to look into an overgrown swamp, with scant hint of either magic or technology besides the central hooded figure.

Djur’s only been in development for a few months, so we may have a while to wait before we hear more from it, but you can keep an eye out on the website for more art as we wait for the fable to be told.