Rock, Paper, Shotgun

A while back I was ranting about how the indie developers creating AGS adventure games have a great deal to teach those currently making the games professionally. If you look in other areas of development this truth is beginning to emerge – major development studios are taking notice of indie teams, mimicking them, or even hiring them to creating games of a similar vibe (Dragon Age: Journeys being the most recent example of this). But adventure development still seems to be sticking to its non-indie guns. Which makes a couple of articles on A Hardy Developer’s Journal well worth reading for anyone making the genre professionally.

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Kieron spotted this in the 2010 IGF list. Called 78641, it purports to be an English translation of the classic Esperanto game, Pato Viro Simulilo. It’s, um, sort of an adventure game, but mostly an exercise in surrealism. And unlike most things that people label “surreal”, this isn’t just “silly” or saying “fish” a lot – it’s a genuinely surreal and often unsettling experience. In the game you play Doug Beachez, a frying pan. Who sells dildos.

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It seems there’s going to be another Art Of Murder game. After the original was so dodgy I was a little surprised to see a sequel earlier this year. I never did go on to play the full game after the demo. Some other people must have though, as there’s now to be a third in this series, Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny.

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I’m pretty surprised that there’s another Runaway game coming. The previous two, while extremely pretty, I found horrible. The point and click adventures were remarkably charmless, and sometimes even offensively so. Which makes the news of a third one not the best news I’ve heard. But hey, you might disagree – clearly enough people do – and this one could be different. There’s a trailer below.

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Talking of demos I can’t understand, the gorgeous point and click adventure The Whispered World has a demo out. In German. Which I don’t speak a word of. Which makes me sad, because it looks fantastic. However, I’m aware that people reading this site can speak German! Especially the ones in Germany. So it’s good news for you. And for the rest of us, it’s a chance to remember that The Whispered World is coming, and will be translated.

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Due to adverse weather conditions and abnormal levels of volcanic activity, we’ve yet to bring you thoughts on the Tales of Monkey Island episodic adventures. Alongside the remake of the original by LucasArts, Telltale are currently producing five chapters of a brand new story for the hapless pirate, written and coded by many original LucasArts developers. The first of these, Launch Of The Screaming Narwhal, has been out for just over a month, and the second part has just appeared. (As Alec reported yesterday, you can now buy them individually in the US at least.) Here’s some thoughts.

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Anyone who has played Ben There, Dan That! and Time Gentlemen, Please! will know why to be excited to hear there’s to be more from the mad-walking heroes of time travelling point and click adventures. From an outside glance they’re 2D scratchy indie games made in the AGS engine, but then you need to sit up and take notice when you realise the second game, TGP, has a Metascore of 89 (five reviews listed, but many other 9/10s should be added). We officially liked it a lot. Why this very day Zombie Cow got in touch with us to let us know that after meetings and alcohol, they’ve decided to continue the series, this time episodically.

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We were contacted by Clara Fernández-Vara to let us know about a short adventure game she has developed at MIT as part of her dissertation on the subject. Now that’s a dissertation I’d like to write. The game, made along with a team of students, is an exploration of memories and nostalgia, and can be downloaded for free from here. It’s called Rosemary, and is worth a look.

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I have been enjoying Ben Chandler’s indie adventures so far. Shifter’s Box was a smart collection of puzzles with a neat dimension-shifting mechanic, while Annie Android offered a cute mini-story to play through. His latest, Heed, is by far the more peculiar, and certainly the most interesting.

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Even a week after the announcement, the news that there’s to be more Monkey Island still seems hard to believe. LucasArts, once an adored development house, has become known in recent years for little other than churning out Star Wars themed products of varying quality. Attempts at new licences during president Jim Ward’s realm failed (possibly in no small part because they very were attempts to create new IP, rather than just damned fine solo games), seeing the company once more fall back into the space flick’s safety net. Last year saw Ward step down, and in April he was replaced by Darrell Rodriguez. A man who, if the murmurs I heard at E3 are true, is genuinely trying to see the company rediscover its roots. Then there’s the news that Telltale are to be making brand new episodic Monkey Island games, with original LucasArts developers on the project. Reimagining the original Monkey Island is an important act for a number of reasons.

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