Father-Mother, hermaphroditic baby factory and major plot point. Part bird, part human, all creepy.

It only takes a moment. Your first, disturbing look at a marsupial in bondage fetish gear, leather straps scantily covering all four of its nipples. A glance around the surreal architecture of candy-colored adobe houses melted into dreamy, impractical shapes. An instant in the world of Zeno Clash is all you need to understand that, no, you're not in Kansas anymore. You're lost in some strange, new place. And you don't want to go home. In this age of interactive fitness fads and true-to-CNN wargames, Zeno Clash follows through on the real promise of gaming: to transport us into fictional worlds. To immerse us in experiences unrestricted by the narrow possibilities of reality. To surprise us.

Its style is what garnered Zeno Clash a nomination in this year's Independent Games Awards for "Artistic Excellence." In exploring the game's world, I discovered the story of three siblings carving out their own path in a global gaming culture. The Bordeu brothers -- Andres, Carlos and Edmundo -- have been making games together since they were kids. Growing up in Santiago, Chile, where they're now hammering out Zeno Clash in a home office with four other team members, the brothers made mods and plotted out an unlikely future in videogames.

"Everybody who heard what we were trying to do here in Chile thought we were crazy some years back," says Andres, whose official title is Game Designer/Artist. "Carlos, Edmundo and I were very interested in working in the games industry, but there was no games industry in Chile. Obviously, we wanted to go to the United States, but it's difficult to get a green card. The natural thing was to do something from here."

Zeno Clash isn't limited to hand-to-hand combat. A variety of hacked-together weapons can be used, though they're easily knocked out of your hands.

Perhaps it was for the best. With the low overhead of working in Chile, and a tight group of brothers and friends, the Bordeus have been able to create a project that may have been impossible for a small-scale indie developer in the U.S. Zeno Clash, scheduled for release on Steam this spring for $20, is ambitious in multiple ways, choosing not only to create its own far-out visual signature, but also to explore a gameplay mechanic that has often failed in the past: fisticuffs in first-person. The hand-to-hand combat in Zeno Clash, simplified by a lock-on button that lets you concentrate on your opponent, feels weighty and satisfying. Though still in need of small refinements (the code I played was unfinished), the action in Zeno Clash is surprisingly polished. It's the result of playtesting and sheer effort, which the Bordeus have in excess.

"Eventually, I think that if you are persistent, you'll achieve your dream," says Andres. "We were just really hard-headed and persistent. Our parents were a little scared at first, but I think they're more relaxed now that the game has finally taken shape." As kids, the Bordeus made total conversion mods -- games like Batman Doom, which turned Doom II: Hell on Earth into a game about the caped crusader. Along the way, they learned by necessity, without special schooling. "Since we were three brothers, everything we learned, we learned together," says Andres. "We're self-taught."

The family theme pervades Zeno Clash. In the opening scene, the game's lead character, Ghat, kills his creator, a very creepy hermaphrodite named Father-Mother. Soon, he's hunted down by his siblings. Edmundo Bordeu, whose official title is Art Director/Writer, dismisses any connection between the story and his own family: "We were just trying to avoid traditional fantasy in the story. I thought, 'What kind of conflict can be interesting, but small-scale?' A conflict against your family! It's very personal ? but at the same time, you don't need to save the world."

Zeno Clash runs on Valve's now-ancient Source engine, but it makes up for a lack of raw power with wild color and surreal art.

Still, the brothers have fielded some concerns from their parents. Edmundo: "My mother has told me several times, 'I hope Father-Mother has nothing to do with me!'" He laughs. "I don't have any terrible conflicts with my family, but this is something I can understand."

Father-Mother is one of the elements of Zeno Clash that could either make you curious about the game or curious about the mental health of those who made it. A birdlike biped with clawed feet and both male and female voices (speaking at the same time), Father-Mother keeps a clutch of baby humans under his/her coat like a Rolex knock-off peddler.

Though central to the game's story now, Father-Mother didn't exist in early versions of the game. "In one of the first prototypes of the game, there was a shady character in the bar that looked a lot like how Father-Mother looks now," says Edmundo. The character was part of the scenery, a freakish creature sitting in a bar with a baby on the table before him. "Every tester who played that level said, 'Oh no! He's going to eat the baby! How awful,'" says Edmundo. "And I would say, 'No, he's just a guy drinking at the bar, and he couldn't leave the baby anywhere.'" The comments nagged at Edmundo: "It bothered me. I wanted to show people that that ugly creature could be the father of the children of the story and not necessarily be evil. He could be creepy, but at the same time, he could be the mother of the story. So I changed that character and gave him a much more interesting role."

Edmundo Bordeu: "Sometimes we worry, if the story is so strange, what if people don't get it?" Certainly a possibility...

Generally, the Bordeu brothers are interested in making the strange acceptable, the unreal real. This seems to be their attitude in creating the game's idiosyncratic visual style. "We've always been fascinated with bizarre, atypical, unusual art," says Andres. "We like expressions of art that are truly free, that aren't restrictive. In Zeno Clash, we have a lot of freedom of expression. I can make a tree look however I want it to look. If I make a door, I don't have to worry about proportions. The architecture can be as bizarre as I want."

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Unlike many of the young, hungry indie developers out there, the Bordeus aren't looking to land a legitimate job in the industry. Now that they've had a taste of independence, they're no longer hoping for a green card. "We all agree that we want to stay in Chile, no matter how the game does," says Andres. "We don't see ourselves becoming a huge studio trying to compete with the really huge, tremendous games coming out. When I see the budgets and the manpower behind some of the larger titles, it kind of freaks me out."

I hear Edmundo yell from the back of the room: "It's creepier than Father-Mother!"