American McGee is bringing his unique touch to another literary children’s classic. This time, it’s the Land of Oz that will be rebuilt in his distinctive macabre style.

McGee’s kickstarter launches today for a game titled “OZombie,” set in an alternate version of Oz in which the Scarecrow has infected society with a disease of unthinking conformity and creativity is deemed an evil that must be repressed. His OZombies have transformed Oz into a dull, mindless place unlikely to resemble the Oz many of us may have known and loved growing up. Oz exists in the real world, a remote island in the Pacific reachable by boat (Dorothy’s means of transportation in this story).

Although the Scarecrow is the apparent villain of the story, defeating him is not the ultimate goal or central arc of the story, which instead explores themes of individual liberty and self-reliance, and the relationship between the individual and society. As the kickstarter page describes it: “Dorothy will have to … build communities and persuade allies to root out and destroy the damage to multiple cultural and political institutions to restore a humanistic civilization. The return of individual integrity, responsibility, and non-conformity is arduous and dangerous.”

A safe, light-hearted Hollywood movie this ain’t.

The game will be produced by American McGee’s company, Spicy Horse Games. Its game mechanics will involve a “variety of perspectives and game modes with an emphasis on role-playing, tactical combat, exploration and story telling.” It will be developed using Unity 3D technology and will be playable on Linux, Mac, PC, and current-gen tablets. Interestingly, although the game will have multiplayer functionality, accessing multiplayer mode will require completion of the single-player campaign — news perhaps welcome to single-player campaign lovers discomfited by the modern tendency to use multiplayer campaigns to boost single-player stats and abilities. Also notable is the promise that the game will not feature any form of DRM.

Goodies for backers include posters, t-shirts, collectible figurines, art books, and, of course, copies of the game upon release. The kickstarter will run through August 5 and has set a funding goal of $950,000. Although this appears to be one of the higher goals for a kickstarter project, it isn’t the highest — or even the highest for a successfully-funded project. That record appears to be held, at present, by the game Elite: Dangerous.