Month: August 2010

The Journey Down Interview with Theodor Waern

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

In this interview with main Skygoblin Theodor Waern, who is fresh off releasing the very first chapter of his four-part adventure game series, The Journey Down, we discuss the game’s unique look and feel, Waern’s inspiration for the game and find out more about the role Adventure Game Studio played in the game’s development. We also got around talking about the importance of polish, what makes a puzzle a good puzzle, and Waern’s workflow.

In addition to this interview, we have also simultaneously published our review of the first chapter of the game here at The Slowdown. “Over the Edge” can be downloaded from Skygoblin right now.

The Slowdown: Starting off, I would like you to return to the origins of the series for a minute: In the manual provided with “Over the Edge,” you reveal how the game’s origins actually lie in brainstorming sessions with your colleague, Mathias Johansson. How big a catalyst, though, was simply finding the correct tool to work with?

Theodor Waern: There’s no point denying that when me and AGS first laid eyes on each other, we both knew it was love. I realized right from the start that this was THE tool for me. The learning curve was perfect. I had a problem, I banged my head at it, I solved it. I had another problem, I banged my head some more, and I solved that one too. It has been that way ever since I started production on the game and I doubt I will ever come to a complete stop.

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The Journey Down – Chapter 1: Over the Edge Review

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Under the moniker of Skygoblin, Theodor Waern, with music provided by Simon D’souza, has written, painted and animated a standout freeware indie adventure that is perhaps most easily described as an amalgamation of three LucasArts classics from the past: Monkey Island, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. Even if the game does recall the meta-level humour and carnivalesque of the first, the animations and the magnificent meld of 2D/3D of the second, and the stylish ambiance and setting of the third, all in all, Waern’s series – The Journey Down – is no simple exercise in nostalgia.

At this juncture, I would love to point you all to our interview with the game’s designer, Theodor Waern, published in conjunction with this review. In the interview, we discuss the game’s unique look and feel, Waern’s inspiration for the game and find out more about the game’s history and development.

The first chapter, “Over the Edge,” finally released after being four years in the making, tells the story of Bwana and Kito, brothers abandoned by their adoptive father captain Kaonandodo, whose abrupt disappearance left the brothers struggling to make a living. Apart for some slight “financial instability,” the duo has been running Kaonandodo’s Gas and Charter ever since, that is, until the Armando Power Company throws a proverbial wrench in their gears.

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Boiling Point 2 and Precursors in English

Martyn Zachary 2 Comments
Intent stare, intent marketing

Update: GamersGate are now digitally distributing both Xenus II and Precursors!

A few months back, we lamented the fate of Russian developer Deep Shadows’ two latest projects, Xenus II (“Boiling Point 2,” or White Gold: War in Paradise, as it would have been called here) and Precursors, two very unique games that unfortunately remained both untranslated and unpublished in the English-speaking world.

Thanks to Badmofo’s comment on the original post, however, it came to our attention that fan-made English translations for both games are finally available at Patches-Scrolls. Both have already seen a 31th July update, and are now up to version 1.1. The Xenus II patch can be downloaded here, with the following changelog:

Fixed many small details, and manually translated many broken lines. 1)http://forum.dlh.net/thread;threadid__34941.html

The Precursors patch is available here, with these changes:

Fixed many details and inconsistencies, and added item descriptions.
Removed Kasterley quest line and changed vehicle menu to roll/slide.
Corrected transactions with Perk, ice merchant and a race organizer 2)http://forum.dlh.net/thread;threadid__34942.html

Let us know if you have any luck with these patches!

References   [ + ]

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New Left 4 Dead DLC: The Sacrifice

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This Friday’s Portal 2 GTTV episode also had a brief but promised Left 4 Dead segment to it. Valve’s Chet Faliszek talked with Geoff Keighley to announce the details of the new Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 DLC, called “The Sacrifice,” to be released free on the PC and on the Macintosh, too.

Unlike the previous Left 4 Dead 1 DLC, “Crash Course”, which did so in name only, the forthcoming downloadable content is all about Valve bridging existing gaps in the games’ storyline: “The Sacrifice” will reveal to players exactly what happens to the original four survivors, leading all the way up to the events of the previous DLC, “The Passing.”

In addition to the new playable content, a digital L4D comic by Michael Avon Oeming (best known for the Powers comic with Brian Michael Bendis), of 150 pages and four separate parts, will be released. Each part will tell the background story of one of the original four survivors, the first of which will be released as early as September. Gathering from the screencaps below, we’ll probably see Louis’ story first:

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Open Outcast

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Open Outcast is a to-be free total conversion of Crysis Wars, planned as a successor to Appeal’s original 1999 release Outcast, a game that remains in many ways the artistic pinnacle of voxel-based graphics. While Novalogic’s series – Comanche and Delta Force – were always the best-known trumpeters of the technology, and though voxels have been utilized in a far lesser role in various strategy games and even in the level editor of Crysis, it was Outcast that made the world of volumetric pixels all its own.

Though the original never saw its promised sequel after the Belgian company went out of business (you can see existing screenshots of the project at Unseen64), the ageless gem is now fortunately available at GOG.com, in full working order – if you’re interested in running your old mothballed copy, the OpenOutcast team have a good tutorial.

The original remains utterly beautiful to this day mostly thanks to its stronger-than-most audiovisual direction and rare feeling of “being there.” The same, however, can also be said of the new fan version:

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