Have a full article being written up, but will post some about it here first as you guys helped me figure this all out.
Firstly, the game's name is indeed Scorn, as some of you guys put together from the email title (which I missed, which I can't help but chuckle at as its one of the oldest tricks in the book).
It is being developed primarily for PC, PS4 is highly considered though.
The game is being made by a newly formed studio known as Ebb software. They currently have 7 full-time studio members on-board, and created a demo pitch for studios with a total of 12 people, and got assistance from a number of freelance artists they have connections with. However, after pitching their demo and idea to several studios, they got the same response every time ; The games too weird for mainstream appeal, its single-player focused, and lacks hooks for the best way to monetize the project.
To directly quote the email exchange;
Im sorry for (the trickery) but we wanted to get some unfiltered impressions of our game without the another indie game stigma. We needed to show potential investors that even if it is a niche genre its not that small and that there are people interested in this kind of game and more importantly this kind of design. We havent had much luck with publishers and we hit the same barrier with investors that are not part of the gaming industry. They always consulted marketing experts and the so called experts always gave them the same answers: game is too weird, its single player, nowadays every game has to be online and free to play cause thats the best way to monetize the players etc. We were not planning to go public with this for at least a year but decide to do it this in hope it will create some buzz so we can show the investors that there is market for it.
They emailed the screenshots to me specifically because of my love for the genre, which I've shown through my posts here on GAF, my YouTube channel, and my work on Rely on Horror, apparently.
Game is being made with Unity 4, but they plan to move to Unity 5. They sent me this as sort of 'proof'.
They've apologized for some trickery, and have agree'd to answer any questions I have and agree'd to an interview. Because you guys helped me, I'll ask questions to them you guys have as well.
I may have been involuntarily involved in some viral marketing campaign, but I don't mind too much. The project does strike as interesting to me, and I hope they can find someone who will publish them. Apparently this went better than they expected, though.
The reason they aren't going with Kickstarter, and to quote;
It seems to me that for a kickstarter campaign to work you not only have to have a great game but even more importantly you have to have a great marketing campaign and that is no easy task. Its also a matter of timing and right now the kickstarter hype has cooled down so only some established developer or well known game design name could raise the budget amount that we need. We may try it as a last resort.
There's a bit more to this, but typing out the full article as we speak.