RPS Feature Terry Cavanagh does the chat
Terry ‘VVVVVV’ Cavanagh’s ultra-minimalist, abstract first-person co-op puzzler At A Distance is nominated for the Nuovo award at this year’s Independent Games Festival. As part of our seemingly infinite series in which we chat to (almost) all the finalists, Terry talks about the concept behind the game, what he’d like to see win at the IGF this year, his disappointment that the Pirate Kart didn’t get a nod, and his answer to the most important question of all.
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Terry Cavanagh’s extraordinary first-person co-op puzzle game, At A Distance, is now available to download for free. You’ll need two networked PCs side by side to play it with a friend or helpful acquaintance. I played it with an Alec, as you can read here. We found it to be something quite special, demanding both considered co-operation, spatial thinking, lateral thinking, inside-out thinking, and boiled thinking, fresh from the pot. It’s remarkably atmospheric, too, and goes a long to way towards showing how minimal first-person visuals can be, while still telling you everything you need to know.
RPS Feature Together alone
Him: silent, stoic, patient. “OK.”
Me: jabbering, confused, hectoring. “Go there, what about that, does that look like that?”
A right pair, Jim and I. Entirely inappropriate, surely, to tackle a co-operative puzzle and exploration game together. We did it, though. We conquered At A Distance‘s abstract shape-worlds, and we did it together. And creator Terry Cavanagh (VVVVVV) only had to give us big, fat hints around half a dozen times. Perhaps he was inwardly thinking “these feckless jokers run a website about videogames?”, but outwardly he was patient and understanding, so I’ll presume we weren’t quite the most pathetic pair he saw tackle his brain-teasing wonder.
Right: here’s the main problem with writing about At A Distance. You say how it works, you spoil it. I’m going to take a cowardly middle-ground and obliquely reference key elements without actually shining a direct light on them (and certainly not on how to solve the game), but if you want to go in totally blind to this 30 minute-long co-op indie game that requires two adjacent PCs to play it, stop reading now.
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RPS Feature The PC brigade at the IndieCade
I spent the weekend in a haunted watermill, which was pleasant and all, but I would rather have been at the Indiecade festival, battling inanely with invisible weaponry and rearranging boxes with strangers. The whole thing is done with now and that means it’s time for me to take a look at the winners, some of which I’ll cast no more than a sidelong glance at because they aren’t coming to PC. Last time I spoke about IndieCade I named my pick of the entrants as Proteus. Read on to see if the judges paid attention to my words and for a PC-centric awards ceremony of our very own.
