IndieGames publishes a monthly feature called "Ask IndieGames" that takes a range of topics relating to indie gaming and development posed as a question to the editorial staff. This month the article provides insight on what makes a press release stand out amidst a tidal wave of similar press releases the team receives every day.
"Try and find out who to actually contact. Not everyone will be interested in your hardcore RPG and contacting IndieGames in order to promote FIFA 13 would be rather silly."
The first of four chapters of SkyGoblin's The Journey Down is released for PC and Mac. The game can be purchased and downloaded from several digital distribution platforms. The Linux version should also be available shortly on Desura.
The game tells the story of Bwana, owner of a waterfront Gas & Charter, and his sidekick Kito who are struggling to make ends meet when they suddenly get thrown into a twisting plot of corruption and adventure. The game oozes a unique mood, with its Jamaican influences and character artwork inspired by ancient African masks and carvings.
Full-motion video games (FMV) were a big trend in the early 90's. They started out quite primitive in the beginning and slowly began to mature. The technology never reached its full potential, as today's polygon-based worlds began to take over.
Aaron Conners is a game designer with lots of FMV experience. He was co-designer and writer of the third Tex Murphy game Under a Killing Moon (the first title in the series to use FMV) and also worked on its 2 successors. He was part of revolutionizing the genre. And now he's back.
Conners, together with Chris Jones, has recently launched the Kickstarter campaign "Project Fedora" to bring back Tex Murphy once again. And yes, the game will be employing FMV to tell the story. The question is whether or not FMV is ready for a return. Aaron Conners believes it is and shares his thoughts about FMV in his article The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of FMV, published on Adventure-Treff.
The three released chapters of The Dream Machine, a point & click adventure game series made out of clay and cardboard by Swedish indie developer Cockroach, are now available on Steam. You can also buy the full bundle, which includes the final, yet unreleased, 4th and 5th chapters. The games come with SteamPlay, so you can play on both PC and Mac!
Watch the trailer below to get an impression of the very moody feel of the games:
IndieGames reports that the much anticipated indie adventure The Journey Down: Chapter One, by Swedish studio SkyGoblin, is available for pre-ordering on Gamersgate. The game is available for PC and Mac and will be released on May 18. Linux, Android and iOS versions have also been announced.
Watch the trailer below to experience the rich and athmospheric look and feel of the game.
We reported earlier about Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, or "The Two Guys from Andromeda", returning to game development. Today the former Space Quest designers finally launched a Kickstarter campaign with an impressive video pitching their "SpaceVenture".
As with other Kickstarter campaigns we covered, backer rewards include development diaries and other behind-the-scenes stuff, which might be interesting and inspiring material for indie or hobbyist adventure developers.
The question now is how many more of these Kickstarter projects will surface before people start getting Kickstarter fatigue. With 16% already funded at the time of writing, at least they're off to a good start.
Double Fine Productions is going to build its community-backed adventure game on an open-source game framework called Moai. Tim Shafer's company made history in March by raising more than $3.3 million from fans and backers on Kickstarter, more than doubling the previous Kickstarter project funding record.
Zipline Games, the developers of the Moai Platform, announced this in a press release. They also noted that the game is expected to be released in Spring 2013.
In 1986 Activision released an adventure named Portal, a (for the time) unique attempt of creating a novel specifically for the computer. It was an epic science-fiction story written by Rob Swiggart about an astronaut who returns home after a failed 100-year voyage to find all inhabitants of Earth vanished into thin air, the remnants of civilization decaying in their absence.
Today Rob Swiggart, together with indie developer Subliminal Games, are aiming to bring the game back, with the capabilities of a modern 3D game engine. To achieve this goal, a Kickstarter campaign was launched. Upon success of this campaign, the game is planned for release on PC and Mac in time for the 2013 holidays.
Backers of Jane Jensen's Kickstarter campaign have voted "Moebius" to be the first game to be developed as part of her company's "A Year of Adventure" project. Backers initially were supposed to vote after the Kickstarter campaign ends, but many people voiced hesitations about supporting a project while it's uncertain which of the three proposed game concepts would make it. With that out of the way, Jensen hopes chances of reaching the $300,000 goal have improved. With 31 days left, the Pinkerton Road Studio project is currently funded for a little over 60%.
About Moebius, Jensen writes: "Malachi Rector is an antiquities dealer who hunts down artifacts all over the world. After losing everything in a fire, he's hired by a Manhattan millionaire to investigate a series of events and document them in his meticulous way. But Rector soon realizes that the events hold a bizarre significance, as does his own existence."
The game will be a 3rd person, 2D point & click adventure with a modern Gabriel Knight feel.
After a 25 year hiatus Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, also known as The Two Guys from Andromeda, are back together. The duo, known best for the Space Quest series, have formed a new game studio. Their goal: bringing us a new space adventure, or "Spaceventure", as they call it.
A little older, a little wider (well, at least Mark) and a bit more demented than ever (a toss-up there), we’re both ludicrously psyched to be working together again. Combine that with what literally seems like years of pent-up intergalactic pressurized cabin fever to go with it and we have some real…, stuff to share, incorporating that same style of comedy, wonder and excellence you expect from a Two Guys adventure. We have a LOT we need to get off our corrugated calcium chests and out of our titanium-baffled brain pouches.
No Kickstarter link this time, much to my surprise. The developers ask fans to spread the word. You can visit their official website right here.
RPS has published an interview with ex-Sierra game designer veterans Al Lowe and Paul Trowe of Replay Games. The company, with a lot of Sierra allumni on board, has recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to create a remake of the first Leisure Suit Larry game.
The interview also reveals that Replay Games has been talking with Space Quest creators Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe to bring back Space Quest as well. Murphy has already expressed an interest. Josh Mandel, who designed some of the later Space Quest games, is already on board at Replay Games for LSL. Good news, perhaps, for Space Quest fans. Also mentioned is a King's Quest remake, although chances of that happening look rather slim.
Meanwhile, Al's LSL Kickstarter project is going well, with half of the money already raised and still 21 days to go at the time of writing. See live stats below:
Veteran adventure game designer Jane Jensen, probably best known for her Gabriel Knight trilogy, has founded a new studio. Together with her husband Robert Holmes, who composed the music for Gabriel Knight.
Pinkerton Road Studio, as it is named, aims to create 3rd person adventure games with rich stories, gorgeous art and seamlessly fun play. The studio will use a new model, "Community Supported Gaming" to fund and develop their games. To fund the first year of development, a Kickstarter project was launched.
Pinkerton Road Studio will develop 2 or 3 games during its first year. Backers will be able to vote for the game to be developed first, weigh in on development decisions and take part in beta tests for the games.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun have posted a nice selection of their favorite AGS games. You will probably already be familiar with most of the titles mentioned, but it's always nice to see these games getting the attention and praise they deserve.
Meanwhile, the AGS forums appear to be crumbling under the load of new visitors trying to reach the site.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun have published an article about Adventure Game Studio. The engine receives a lot of acclaim for its ease of use and versatility. No surprise there. AGS has been a popular engine for years and with good reason. What I found to be more interesting however, is the part where the author spends some time analyzing the somewhat difficult to gauge AGS community.
It wasn’t until 2008 that Dearden became involved in the passionate community that’s sprung up around Adventure Game Studio. It’s a broadly helpful and pleasant place to spend your time, but I’ve also always found it to be strangely insular, sitting far away from the usual indie development scenes and generally keeping itself to itself. And, just as it often seems to struggle to reach out, it has a slight reputation for being difficult to penetrate for the outsider.
The article also offers some insights on the matter from well known AGS insiders.
Fraser Brown has posted the second and final article of his "The grand adventure" feature on Destroctoid. The first article was posted a few days ago and covers a brief history of the genre.
The second article looks at the future and features insights from industry veterans Al Lowe, creator of Leisure Suit Larry, and Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games. Also indie developers Dave Gilbert, founder of Wadjet Eye Games, and Josh Nuernberger, creator of Gemini Rue, are interviewed.
The last few years have been an interesting time for the adventure game genre. After a decade of disappointment, fans finally started to see more and more titles appear and most importantly, become successes.
Double Fine's recent success in crowd-funding their own adventure game is also mentioned in the article, but only briefly to my surprise.
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