By John Walker on April 9th, 2010 at 1:12 am.
Tonight’s good news: The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom is finally arriving on PC, via Steam and 2K Play. It’s due to appear on the 20th April, when we’ll be able to enjoy the self-cloning, pie-consuming puzzles. It’s one of those games that would take a squillion words to explain, but two minutes to watch the video that lays it all out nice and neatly. So that’s below.
The PC version is being developed by 2K China, and will contain five extra puzzles not found in the XBLA version, along with Steam achievements and Steam Cloud options. And it looks jolly fun, and has had some really rather excellent reviews on the 360. Take a look.
I totally knew someone whose surname was Winterbottom. And he LOOKED like someone whose surname is Winterbottom.
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I’m assuming he had a handlebar moustache, a centre parting kept there by a generous amount of hair wax, a fob watch in one pocket, a monocle in one eye, and was dressed in clothes from the Victorian era. That’s how I’d imagine a Winterbottom to look.
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Sounds like your describing Kieron, minus the center parting of course…Ahem..
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I saw that ages ago, damn if only steam worked for me I’d buy it in a sec, looks damn interesting to me.
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It looks great, and has a nice soundtrack, but can anyone actually back them up on how it plays? I’ve heard mixed reviews stating that it tends to lose its charms through repetitive puzzle design. This seems to be a bit of a problem when translating little indie games into bigger, publisher backed titles. The tiny concept that worked in the original is inevitably stretched too thin, and covered by improved visuals and other quirks. Of course I could be completely wrong.
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I enjoyed what I played on my flatmates Xbox. Well worth the four quid I think.
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There was a flash game posted on this site earlier featuring similar cloning / time manipulation gameplay, AND a man in a top hat but with much rougher graphics and a total absence of pies. What game was this, and why do I have the feeling they’re by the same person?
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I thought of that too! The Company of Myself, mmyes?
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hrmmmm, just in time for Hitler’s birthday :P
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Looks nice, I’ll buy this.
Helps me get over the loss of Penny Arcade episode 3.
:)
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I knew someone called Sidebottom, Cyril Sidebottom. And he too looked like a Sidebottom.
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Damn reply fail!#!’….You have mocked me for the last time reply button!
…..The last time……..
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Sold at “Mischief. Mayhem.
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Seems to have alot of character, looking forward to it.
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Time-manipulation and pies? Awesome.
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Yeah, a Braid-Portal marriage!
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Gees, that looks lovely. And “Unstuck in time, no pie is safe” should win something.
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I don’t want anything that associates itself with the Victorian era.
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@Malawi Frontier Guard
What? That’s the most awesome era of all!
:)
Are you fed up with steampunk imagery, or?
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Looks like Time Donkey, but without the donkeys. At least it has moustaches.
I’m sorry to say The self-cloning portion of Braid, and Time Donkey, were quite unenjoyable for me, so I might have to skip this. If it did anything else at all I’d be more interested.
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I really enjoy this current generation of puzzle platformers. It seems to me that the developers attain a great sort of cohesiveness in their games by distilling a simple mechanic and experimenting with many permutations of it. To combine the (hopefully) cerebral nature of a puzzle game with the fluid freedom and frenetic sensibilities of an arcade platformer creates a kind of blissful synergism in my brain. Throw in the creativity of multiple solutions, and a game becomes a kind of lateral thinking problem, albeit more logically constrained, if that makes any sense.
It’s unfortunate that their does not seem to be any precedence for time travel or cloning in silent films. I wonder if any treatments were put forward and deemed too ‘intellectual’ at the time. It would seem likely, considering these concepts have fascinated writers since at least the 16th century.
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I agree. These past few years have had so many stand out platformer titles centered around a single compelling mechanic. VVVVVV, Braid, Continuity, P.B Winterbottom, Specter Spelunker Shrinks*, and so on. It’s been a pure joy to play through all of them
*Ok this one is more prototype than actual explored game but it’s still really awesome.
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The pie is a lake.
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Most excellent! Took me a second, I’ll admit.
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Reply to stahlwerk (Reply button is broken)
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I tried the demo on my Xboxotron just last week, but I didn’t much care for it (perhaps because I was too stupid to finish the tutorial). The music is maddening — it seems like it’s a good choice at first, but nobody wants perky old timey circus music when they’re trying to solve a frustrating puzzle.
@Lars Westergren
Good grief, who _isn’t_ sick of Steampunk?
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I really enjoyed the X Box demo. but I shall wait to grab it on the pc.
I shall be most disapointed if there is no cameo from Weebl, though.
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Goodness, I just noticed that this is going to be $5 on Steam, which is a total bargain when you consider that it’s $15 on XBLA.
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From what I’ve heard of this game it’s worth playing. While games like Braid are about finding the developer’s solution the point of P.B. Winterbottom is to create a challenge and let players figure out how they want to solve it. It’s a rare thing for a puzzle game to nail this well, but that’s what P.B Winterbottom has supposedly done.
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I’m sure it’s wonderful but my mother won’t let me watch anything with comic mischief in it so I’ll just take your word for it.
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Clever.
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I’ve started playing this, a couple of levels in. It’s awesome so far.
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Excellent game. It only needs a timer reset button.
I preodered it back when this news was posted here.
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