ESCAPE Basingstoke or die - that’s the premise of a new computer game that bears the town’s name.

In Basingstoke, players use their cunning and the occasional weapon to flee monsters that stalk dark corners of the town.

While the layout of the game map does not resemble Basingstoke, it does feature a sign to the M3, and developers hope to include the Wote Street Willy and Festival Place by the time of its planned release date next summer.

Caspian Prince, director of Puppygames, the Somerset firm that is making the game, said: “The object of the game, like any person who finds themselves in Basingstoke, is to get as far away from it as you possibly can.

“It’s going to be quite an achievement to get out – all the monsters wandering around Basingstoke are deadly. If you are killed, then you die and that’s the end of the game.”

Mr Prince said they chose the name because the town was featured in one of their previous games, Revenge of the Titans, as a joke.

In that game, Basingstoke is the first town that monsters come to after invading from outer space.

Mr Prince said he lived in Basingstoke for a year in 2008, staying in a house in Scarlatti Road, Brighton Hill, while he was contracted at Sony.

He said: “My garden backed on to the M3 so there was this constant river of noise that ground my soul away.

“There is some British humour to this that the rest of the world may or may not get. I obviously do not harbour any ill feelings against Basingstoke – it is a small town like any other.”

The developer recently released a trailer of the new game, showing the central character running around in the dark away from monsters with glowing green eyes and massive teeth.

The game is set to be released to play on PC, but Mr Prince said it could also be released on game consoles such as Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox.