Gruesome is a roguelike in which you play the Grue. Instead of conventionally exploring dungeons to find treasures and slay enemies, you play as the enemy, hiding in the shadows waiting for explorers to stumble into your slavering fangs. Each floor of the dungeon has a few adventurers wandering around, carrying torches that deal a fatal flash if you are caught within the radius. You cannot step into the light willingly, nor can you advance on an adventurer – they must fall into you inadvertently.
Destructoid recently hooked up with esteemed Quest for Glory developers Lori and Corey Cole for an update in response to the recent announcement of the Special Edition version of Monkey Island. The interview mostly touches upon Sierra’s past reluctance to commit to remakes – past quite an admirable amount of EGA-VGA revisions, anyhow. However, as is evident from just a few straightforwarded questions, it also becomes clear that the Sierra we used to know has not existed for a long, long time.
Quest for Glory 3
Let’s look at the current state of the Sierra alumni: Al Lowe is forcibly retired, the Two Guys from Andromeda bitter and battered, the Williamses have not created a game in 10 years and the Coles have zero interest in the genre. Jim Walls worked on a game as recently as 2002, so this only leaves us with Jane Jensen, who is actually and really working on a game.
When an adventure game designer manage to bring up both Lord of the Rings and WoW over the span of a three-question interview, it’s obvious that the Coles – much like the Williamses – have intentionally and very purposely lost their touch with the adventure genre as well as game development overall. While this is a hard fact for an adventure fan to swallow, then again, it’s also utterly impossible to fault developers for doing what they want with their lives; we must remember that one person’s exciting childhood was effectively another’s daily chore.
To get back to the Destructoid interview, when the Coles are asked about playing adventure games, the answer is:
All the aforementioned developers seem to believe times have changed for good, with the last train finally departed. No going back, is there? :D To me, the last few years have felt like quite a bit of an adventure gaming renaissance, especially with great indie titiles coming out. What do you think?
Even before its release, Neotokyo already has one distinct advantage over some of its other Source mod peers: We already know that it works. While the original proof-of-concept version of the game, on the UT2k4 platform, may have lacked some content and ultimately a player-base, it also played extremely well and succeeded in illustrating its polished, balanced gameplay.
Textures
Highway
Lovely Ghost
The all-new Source version, then, is bound to play just as smoothly, but also be a tangible upgrade in other aspects of the game. For me, the most exhilarating facet of the game is the team’s utter attention to detail, with years of work poured into prefabs, signs, posters, textures, maps and models: A look and feel in complete accord with its given name. Also worth mentioning, and another illustration of the team’s dedication to their craft: A 27-track digipak double CD soundtrack by Ed Harrison. (I can personally vouch for its quality).
In preparation of the release, Studio Radi-8 have already published examples of their in-game hint system. The team is currently fine-tuning the game, and while we wait for more information and release dates, you should check the project’s official YouTube channel. Finally, I’ve included their pre-release trailer after the break.
Before reading our review of Downfall below, you could also view an alternate take on the game in the form of our interview with the game’s developer Remigiusz Michalski. The interview contains intriguing side-to-side comparisons of Michalski’s work-in-progress sketches turning into the full-fledged game.
The Davises are on a holiday road trip from London, but find themselves in pouring rain and lost in a tiny rural village in Devon, South West England. Suddenly Ivy’s not feeling well, and as the couple stops for a much-needed breather, Joe Davis decides to seek for medical help and a place to stay overnight at a nearby hotel. With the couple’s relationship already under some considerable strain, the hotel seems to exude unexpected hostility, and the foreboding little town seems blanketed in dirty secrets.
Joe suddenly finds himself falling, all too conveniently, into the role of the problem-solver.
Guys, I don’t know how to put this nicely. I solemnly swear, The Slowdown won’t be turning into Negative Gamer any time soon, but… do forgive us, for just one post, while I try to explain this to our advantage. When Max Payne 3 was first announced, we collectively voted, in unison, to absolutely hold our judgement – after all, we’re nothing short of massive fans of Remedy and the Payne franchise. I recently completed ‘The Fall Of’ no less than three times, in the row, during the previous xmas holidays.
Yet this is what we all thought: The new logography seemed to be a poor man’s combination of the ‘Impact’ font and grunge cross-hatches. The reimagined Max seemed as if he had been suddenly relocated, against better judgement, from film noir territory directly into the realm of Kane & Lynch. Everything that was iconic about Max Payne seemed to have been conveniently axed.
Mind you, we thought we had it all wrong. I guess this is where we have to come to terms with the fact that things have really changed somewhat; VG247 happen to be showing off an unfocused photograph of a forthcoming GameInformer cover, and… boy, it does not look pretty. Kotaku, on the other side of the tracks, are hinting at a potential multiplayer feature.
