Fight Them In The Trenches
By Alec Meer on August 24th, 2012.
Double Fine’s playful mech-tower defence mash-up Iron Brigade (née Trenched) arrived on PC just over a week back, far too many months after its console version. I’ve been meaning to write about it for some time, but became waylaid by a different kind of big stompy robot and by creating big trouble in little Hong Kong. Now I am ready. Ready for what? Why, to tell you exactly what I think, of course. Let slip the trenches of war!
Read the rest of this entry »
By Nathan Grayson on August 7th, 2012.
It’s been a long time in coming, but we’re finally about to have every recent Double Fine release on our humble Greatest Platform On Earth And In The Whole Of Human History. Well, aside from that motion-controlled Sesame Street game, anyway. But until Cookie Monster arrives and lapses into a homicidal rage over the fact that all I’ve eaten today is four cookies, I’ll just have to make do with infinitely customizable World War I mechs. Because Tim Schafer’s brain is a national treasure.
"unrelated object B"
By Nathan Grayson on June 2nd, 2012.
Yesterday, I had a chat with the first half of Ron Gilbert about his upcoming descent into madness (and in the game), The Cave. Shortly after, the other half of Ron Gilbert teetered awkwardly into the room, so I decided to speak with it as well. In this very special non-Cave-flavored episode, we discuss goofy adventure game logic, the ups and downs of being inextricably tied to a legendary hit like Monkey Island, leaving a legacy, rebelling against that legacy, and kids games like the secretly-completely-rad Pajama Sam. Also Diablo III for some reason. The thrilling conclusion’s after the break.
"nobody liked Jeff"
By Nathan Grayson on June 1st, 2012.
You should be excited about The Cave. It is, after all, Monkey Island maestro Ron Gilbert’s latest brainchild and – startling revelation that brains can have children aside - it looks to be a pleasant reminder that Double Fine’s far, far more than just a one-trick Kickstarter pony. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, the cave talks. So, after seeing it in action last week, I crept back into Double Fine’s offices for a nice, long chat with Gilbert himself, who – much like your average magical cave – also talks. There, we discussed the game’s parentage (Is Maniac Mansion the father? Shocking reveal on page 17), real life inspirations, why there’s an odd number of main characters, the Cave’s voice, and the reason Gilbert can never go on a whirlwind tour of the world’s finest caves. Oh, and more, of course.
By Nathan Grayson on May 25th, 2012.
I recently got to see Ron Gilbert’s latest slice of adventure platformer mania, The Cave, in action. It was pretty great. I mean, characters walked and jumped and moved - as though propelled ever onward by the invisible hand of fate or the very visible hand of someone holding a controller. You should’ve been there. But since you weren’t, I desperately struggled to find a way to best relay that experience back to you. At first, my preview was a bunch of screenshot cut-outs glued to popsicle sticks, and then I fiddled with tiny felt finger puppets. Alas, however, it just wasn’t the same. But then Double Fine released this trailer. Madness, I thought. How could a mere video beat the fully 3D, impossibly high-def and immersive experience of a finger puppet? But you know what? It sort of works. Given time, these things might even catch on.
Deep, dark secrets
By Nathan Grayson on May 24th, 2012.
Really, there are only two things you need to know about Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion mastermind Ron Gilbert‘s The Cave: 1) It takes place inside a talking cave. 2) The cave is mysterious. And a bit sultry. “Welcome,” the Cave said as the demo began. “Don’t let my sultry and mysterious voice startle you.” Meanwhile, when asked about the titular magic rock formation’s overall role in the game’s proceedings, Gilbert chimed in: “He’s kinda mysterious. Sultry, too,”
OK, maybe there’s a bit more to it than that. Here are the basics: there are seven characters, each of whom has ventured to a time-and-space-transcending cave to “learn something about themselves and who they might become.” So yeah, Mr Cave (whose last name is hopefully not “Johnson” – that could get confusing) gets top billing, but this is a game first and foremost about those seven – with backgrounds ranging from Medieval knight to time-traveler. So you pick any three, descend into the depths of their respective madnesses (and, you know, a cave), and leap between them to advance through an interconnected Metroidvania-style world. Appearances, however, can be deceiving, so here’s the bit that should have you jumping for nostalgic joy: “It is an adventure game,” said Gilbert, quickly pocketing an entire bucket in-game. “You want to pick up everything you can.”
By Nathan Grayson on May 12th, 2012.
I feel like uplifting documentaries may be the secret cure for all of societies greatest ills. This goes double, for some reason, when independent game developers are involved. Minecraft’s proof-of-concept made me feel like I, too, could single-handedly build a blocky bridge between Sweden and the rest of the world, and Indie Game: The Movie will probably be used to bring Sylvester Stallone back from the brink of defeat in the next Rocky movie. And now, along comes Double Fine Adventure’s variation on the theme, in all its zany wonderfulness. It is, however, also an irresistibly smile-inducing glimpse behind the scenes of a company just as shocked by Kickstarter’s piggy-bank-stuffing prowess as we all were at the time. Kick off your weekend by giving part one a watch after the break.
What the Dickens
By Alec Meer on March 9th, 2012.
Here’s what puzzles me. We’ve all been so terribly excited about Double Fine making a new point and click adventure game and potentially making Psychonauts 2 – as though the idea of getting games like that had hitherto been openly insane. And yet, on console, they’d already released Stacking, which is positively dripping in adventurey leftfield puzzles and Psychonautsy surreal-slapstick humour. So, before we get entirely wrapped up in crying for more, let’s celebrate lovely Stacking, which arrived suddenly on Steam just a few days ago.
Read the rest of this entry »
Fawning nostalgia
By John Walker on February 28th, 2012.
In the second part of our interview with Double Fine‘s Tim Schafer (the first part is here), we get to talking about the nature of the adventure game, and reflect on some of Schafer’s defining classics from the 90s, Day Of The Tentacle, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, to consider what lessons they offer for today, the reasons for avoiding 3D altogether, and I almost trick him into making a sequel to Day Of The Tentacle.
Adventures In The Unknown
By John Walker on February 27th, 2012.
Industry legend Tim “Industry Legend” Schafer has been at the front of gaming news for the last couple of weeks. After the twitterstorm that followed Notch’s somewhat speculative offer to fund Psychonauts 2 came the record-breaking Kickstarter project, that saw Schafer’s company, Double Fine, raise over $2 million in a fortnight. I spoke to him over the weekend to find out how the process has been, what the intentions are for a new 2D adventure, to reflect on the classic adventures of the 90s, and to see if there were any other dream projects he has left. In the first part of this two-part interview we discuss the reactions to the Kickstarter, the role dads play in playing adventures, and where things are with Psychonauts 2. Tomorrow we’ll go into the lessons learned from Schafer’s previous adventures, memories of Day Of The Tentacle, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, and how that will affect design today.
By Alec Meer on February 20th, 2012.
For all I know we’ll be running a similar headline with a slightly larger number every week for the rest of the year, but Double Fine’s crowd-funding experiment does appear to be slowing down now. Still: $2 million. $2,004,877 to be precise, from 59,854 nostalgic backers. That’s a big fat budget for a 2D adventure game, and hopefully they’ll spend it on making something stellar. Or at least something tiny and rubbish but that ships in a box made of solid gold.
Read the rest of this entry »
