By John Walker on July 21st, 2010 at 2:48 pm.
It turns out there’s a direct channel to my heart. It’s the words, “a Point & Click adventure game made out of clay and cardboard.”
Gosh.
The Dream Machine is looking utterly beautiful. It’s a hand-made game by Cockroach Inc., built in three dimensions, and then photographed. Below are screenshots and a trailer, which you absolutely must see.
The two man team – Anders Gustafsson and Erik Zaring – explain the beginning of the story:
“You play as Victor and Alicia, a couple who’ve just moved into a new apartment. While trying to get settled in, they soon discover that all is not as it seems in the quiet, unassuming apartment building…”
The desire to build the game in the real world came from wanting to stand out, and if you watch the video below you’ll see that they’ve certainly achieved that. It’s quite stunning. (I can’t pretend not to have noticed there’s a torn paper puzzle, but when it looks this pretty my crusty cynical shell begins to crack.)
If you want more details of how the game’s being made, there’s a meticulous development blog here, with lots of lovely behind-the-scenes shots. This is how all games should be made:
The result then runs in Flash in a browser, which makes me want to hug the universe. It does of course mean it’s down to a single mouse button – no “look at” option in Flash’s lunatic no-right-button regime. But it’s not simplified – you can click and drag objects to place them in the world, or manipulate them.
It’s being released in chapters, with the first part coming in a couple of months. I’m currently having a sneak peak at the first chapter, and while I’ll save my impressions for later, I want to say this measured, objective comment: oh good bloody crikey, it’s beautiful.
You can play a demo of the game here, and sign up for the beta to get access to the full first chapter here.
Do want, very very much so!
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A clay adventure game? I neverhood have thought it.
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Yeah, next they’ll be making a some kind of clay fighter game.
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Well played.
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Yea.
This goes on, soon every man and his dog will have their own clay series.
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there is some classic clay game and it has some duck-human or whatever as protagonist, I forgot it’s name, but there are generations too fresh to hav idea about this game.
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That’s positively entrancing.
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I remember playing the demo to this a while ago, really liked it, but since then it had disappeared from my consciousness. Until reading this. Great to see such a radically different approach to game development.
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I might fall into its charm and try it out when it comes out. Thanks RPS!
I haven’t played adventure point and click since the awesomely beautiful and photographic “The X-Files” for PS, but it might be a good year for a coming back.
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Play Machinarium! Do it do it do it! It’s soooo good!
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Machinarium was a wonderful charming little game. Totally recommend it.
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Makes me think that Jan Svankmajer should’ve created an adventure game. Just imagine an Alice game based on his films…
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Wasn’t there something like that being made? There was some teaser website linked on RPS a while ago… a library… mice… maybe… something.
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wow.
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There is a demo available at their site. Very cool!
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Awesome. That’s really lovely. The animation of the characters is presumably done separately and overlaid? So nice though.
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It’s just another way of doing graphics though, right? An awesome way, but not the entirety of Game Development. (Re: “this is how all games should be made”).
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Also — QUITE EXCITED ABOUT THIS.
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I think most artist cheat. And In my book, is the right thing to do. Artist are not artesans, is not about skill.
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“this is how all games should be made” …with love, care and attention?
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Um. Wow.
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Adventure games, RPGs, PC games… all sorts of dead genres seem to be thriving lately.
:)
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New Deus Ex, New Thief, New X-Com, movie licences being made into Adventure Games, Old Style Bioware RPGs, Reasons to be interested in something with Star Wars in the title, a slew of Space Combat games about to be released – It’s like we’re trying to have another bash at PCs last golden age. Let’s see how it turns out this time, eh?
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Movie licenses being made into adventure games? Have I missed something?
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http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/06/09/back-to-the-future-and-jurassic-park-video-games-in-development/
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Love the environments, not so keen on the lead character.
Machinarium’s Josef had so much more life in him, despite being a fairly simple looking robot.
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Machinarium’s robot had a name? That … actually takes some of the charm out of the game for me.
Of course, it was overflowing with charm from the start, so it’s not a great loss. I’m still going to refer to him as “That Cute Robot”, not “Josef”. (Stalin?)
BTW, how did we all decide that the main character in Portal was named Chell, anyway? I don’t remember her being named anywhere in the actual game. I kinda liked it that she was entirely nameless, it made her very Everywoman-like. Then I come on the internet and apparently she has a name, and an odd one at that. Did I miss something?
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Josef is mentioned in the wiki article, and is apparently named after Josef Čapek, the originator of the word robot.
Don’t know about Chell. I wouldn’t be surprised if the models and textures in Portal make direct references to the name though.
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Not keen on the main character either. Bit of a missed opportunity.
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“Hey Joe, where you going with that in your hand?”
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“Hey Joe, where you going with that [useful object] in your hand?”
[reminder: don't use triangular brackets in posts unless you want words to randomly disappear]
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You know, chaps. I think Walker might be hiding some enthusiasm under that surly, cynical article.
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Aw, I thought for a moment that the stuff was *shot* in 3-d (as in I can wear funny glasses and see it all in 3-d). Now THAT would be keen, and should be fairly easy to do, although surely challenging to get to work in Flash.
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Is it possible that the same two guys creating the look of this are also so talented that they can create a great story AND gameplay? Maybe …
It’s like when you find a band you’ve never heard about. And it turns out the lead singer also writes the songs. OK, not surprising. But he also plays the awesome lead guitar? Seriously, can you leave some talent for the rest of us?
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This is not art!
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@robrob
The Neverhood is my favorite game of all time. (no joking)
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I remember Neverhood – cool game, way back in 1996. Bring back claymation!
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Neverhood had some of the most awesome characters and soundtrack ever.
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it looks shite, sorry.
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This reminds me a lot of the ancient P&C adventure Blackout. Not a brilliant game by any means, but an interesting artistic achievement, and possible the most “mature” game I’ve ever played. Maybe something worthwhile for Mr. Walker to check out?
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No one remembers The Dark Eye? The claymation adventure based on Edgar Allan Poe’s works? I loved it!
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Is the main character meant to look like Stuart Campbell?
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It certainly looks fantastic. I like the whole clay concept because I like the idea of people with real artistic talent making games. The animation looks great, too and I love the simple yet effective highlighting of hot-spots. Unfortunately, none of this really means it’s going to be a great adventure game. Great adventure games are extremely difficult to make, especially if you rely on old puzzle conventions.
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other claymation games:
The Neverhood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neverhood
Platypus (Clay animated side-scrolling shooter!)
http://www.shinegame.com/games/platypus/
Cletus Clay (forthcoming)
http://www.cletusclay.com/
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When people think of Africa they also think of a great adventure.
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