Obscure Becomes More Obscure: Now Final Exam
Quick question: If you were the former developers of a series of games, and you were making a brand new game that had nothing to do with those previous games, you'd obviously use the exact same name, right? No. No one would. Because it's obviously the silliest of all possible things to do. Remarkably, that's what Mighty Rocket Studio thought was the best plan when regrouping from former Obscure developers, Hydravision. Fortunately some sense has been reached, and now Obscure That Isn't Obscure is going to be called Final Exam.
Just how they didn't see a fuss coming eludes me. They'd made two previous games with the Obscure name, Obscure and Obscure: The Aftermath, both of which were distinctly average survival horrors. Leap forward four years and a collection of people from the developer of those two get back together, and announce a new game, and it's called Obscure. As middling as the games were, there's of course a fanbase out there, and people were thrilled to learn they could continue the dreary adventures of teenagers getting trapped in their school/college by plants and monsters. Except, this game is a sidescrolling cartoon platformer. Oops.
Fans obviously reacted negatively, and now the game's name has been changed to Final Exam. Clearly the schools and monsters theme remains, but there's little else to link them, so a proper distinction makes sense. Not realising this straight away does not. And suggestions that it was for a later publicity stunt don't take into account how disastrous it can be for a game to change its name midway, and the ensuing confusion that surrounds.
There's a new website for the game, although no release date as yet. You can see it running here:
