Your long-held dream of playing a heroic Edgar Allan Poe in an 8-bit style, Victorian-era adventure game is about to come true.

EDGAR, the first project of indie developer Wrought Iron Games, takes the classic side-scroller and looter concepts and combines them with Victorian literary themes and characters. Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and Jekyll and Hyde are just a few examples of the characters you'll find among the game's imaginary streets, which will be available on Mac, PC and Linux.

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In EDGAR's alternate history, Poe and his wife are on vacation in London at the time of the 1851 World's Fair. When his wife goes missing after a string of murders, Poe believes infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper is the culprit. As Poe sets out to rescue his wife, he's confronted with a variety of evil creatures, and he even has the option to team up with Jules Verne.

"The story is one of the things I'm most excited about [in] the game, as it will be very layered," Kyle Reid, producer and lead designer at Wrought Iron Games, told Mashable. "Those who have read the [Victorian] books will pick up on things that others may not. This is a game where stopping and examining the surroundings will be very important, as details have been crammed into every single pixel."

The concept behind EDGAR came from Reid's fascination with Victorian literature. Even though Victorian lit has spawned innumerable film adaptations and video games — think Dracula and Castlevania — Reid thought it was time for a game that mashes up all of the classic tales.

"It wasn't long after that first idea was formed that the decision to use Edgar Allan Poe arrived. He's not the obvious choice for a Victorian-esque monster slayer...but something just clicked, and we knew that Poe was the right choice," he said.

But selecting Jack the Ripper as the villain was a much easier choice, Reid says.

"He's the epitome of Victorian evil, the first infamous serial killer and someone whose identity is still unknown... We couldn't pass up the opportunity to have fun twisting that mystery," he said.

Wrought Iron Games is made up of a small team of people working on EDGAR in their free time. Reid lives in Southern California, where all of the company's business is conducted, but the efforts for making the game as great as possible come from team members around the world.

Note: Gameplay has been updated since this teaser video was released.

At the moment, Wrought Iron Games has completed the very basics of the game — player movement, combat, enemy AI, real-time lighting, etc. However, Reid said they still have a lot of work ahead of them — eight distinct levels, cut-scenes and randomized loot — which is why they plan on starting a Kickstarter campaign within the next few weeks.

They're looking at a goal of $20,000, which isn't a final estimate, but the money will go toward Unity Pro licenses, Photoshop licenses, an original soundtrack, servers for network testing, miscellaneous expenses and reward fulfillment, and supporting three to four months of solid development.

"If our crowdfunding campaign is successful, our goal is have a solid beta of the game by summer, and then be nearly finished by the end of the year. That is an optimistic goal, but that's what we're aiming for," Reid said.

You can follow Wrought Iron Games' progress on EDGAR through Facebook, Twitter, IndieDB and even a subreddit.

EDGAR the Game

Images courtesy of Wrought Iron Games.