I’ll be the first to admit I had very little interest in Jordan Mechner‘s latest activities just a few months down the line. We may have had the latest Prince of Persia coming out from Ubisoft, but then again, Mechner had very little to nothing to do with that particular project. All this changed the moment Mr. Mechner started re-posting his old personal journal entries from the late 80s!
In his journal, we discover a moody young man in his early 20s, candidly writing of his wish to become a Hollywood scriptwriter(!) and the hardships of trying to stay motivated and working on a computer game seemingly destined for failure. That is, a game that later received an endless amount of ports, sequels and turned out to be one of the most iconic platformers of all time…
We have a great affinity here for the Source engine. Now that Arkane’s The Crossing is indefinitely off everyone’s waiting list, now’s as good a time as any to bring up another project that inhabits the same register: Salvation from Black Wing Foundation.
Where the Knights Templar seize control of the French crown in The Crossing, in Salvation, a secret society forces its members to take part in a penal cyberspace split into two separate realms: Heaven and Hell. In the former, users are uploaded torment and pain, and in the latter, otherworldly bliss; In both, the prisoners die:
In a world of ashes, where angels are walking among people. There’s only one god, one reason… one truth. In a world of future, where heaven and hell are so real… there’s no doubt, no sin… and no escape. 1)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_mn5_BWFt0
After the jump, a teaser trailer and screenshots bundled with more information on the game.
“Mata Hari makes [gamers] masters in seduction. … [PC gamers] will also perform dances on stage to earn money. … Stylized notes float in and over the screen. Players try to catch them by following the beat at the right time and place by using their mouse cursor.” 1)http://www.matahari-game.com/
Ben304 (author of Annie Android and Shifter’s Box) is currently doing something on his blog that warrants a mention, even if I’m not yet quite sure as to what is going on. This may turn out to be the very point of this exercise: Alienation, uncertainty, disconnection… on the outset, though, it seems as though he’s developing an adventure game thru iteration.
Interactive Selection
Interactive Discussion
Interactive Background
So far, Ben’s released six versions of the “game”, each of which have come with a new background screen to play. From the third Interactive on, you can choose which scene to play; in many ways, his approach comes close to the episodic model, but releasing the game iterated like this, erasing the previous version as he goes, does make the overall procedure a lot more eerie than it normally would. The game’s unorthodox hues and uniform palette do further contribute to this feeling, as do the barren, mountainous locations.
The game seems to be about a person trying to uncover deeper meaning – a raison d’être – in the form of “the essence” or “the source”. At the beginning of the first Interactive, the main character comes close to this source, close enough to begin a quest, a hunt for the truth.
There are temporal layers and distortions in the storyline, and while Ben304 does promise more storytelling and gameplay in subsequent versions, another tangible aspect of the project is the exhibition of meaningful feedback and responses from events and actions: There is a definite emphasis on positioning, movement and object states, as there is no inventory or control switches, just one-button point and click.
All things said, what I especially enjoy about the project is its lack of continuity: The scenes are both self-contained and related in narrative and geography, but what is normally sandwiched in-between screens seems non-existent. Interesting concept, check it out!
But by the time I got to Larry 7, I actually did know “how to do this!” But, damn the luck, that was the last one!
In my earlier, wistful post about ex-Sierra developers, we ended up somewhat brushing over Al Lowe‘s most recent exploits. Suitably then, Noise to Signal talked to the very esteemed game designer in an excellent, good-humoured interview last November. Last November?! Yeah – I had all but forgotten about it until I recently bumped into Narrative Flood’s recent discussion of the Leisure Suit Larry series. Though the interview is ostensibly on the longer side, it still remains a breeze to read through – and more than worth your time if you’re intrigued by Lowe’s trademark topics!
Leisure Suit Larry 2
After all, Lowe has a fantastic reputation as a soft-spoken funnyman – with a dazzling résumé to boot. Nevertheless, having been unable to auctioneer his latest game, Sam Suede, off to publishers, the Leisure Suit auteur is now fully retired from the gaming industry. The interview thus courteously chooses to focus on themes from Lowe’s past, and that’s more than fine with us here at The Slowdown: We don’t have the “Time Machine” category for nothing!
After the jump, I’ve embellished paraphrase from the review with some commentary and tidbits of my own.
