The Monkey Island & N. Bounty Pack – INTERVIEW with Mark Darin

Mark (in the center) at PAX with Ryan Jones and Dave Grossman on his flanks

So here we are today talking this time to a truly accomplished adventure game designer who has gone from small, but great indie productions (Nick Bounty!!!) to become one of the lead creative forces at Telltale Games. Mark Darin after leading the design on the Strong Bad games is co-creating all the big titles currently in progress, including Tales of Monkey Island and the future Sam & Max episodes. As always we started the interview with the most difficult question. Next we started to differentiate between indie games and Telltale games which may be not entirely fair as Telltale is all independent as far as I know, just maybe a bit bigger than Mark’s own company Pinhead Games. Oh, and Pinhead’s games are freeware.

 

Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay – REVIEW

Well I was a sucker. I pre-ordered Tales of Monkey Island. I mean, how could you not when Steve Purcell himself promised us an awesome DVD cover, and one at this level of coolness! Once again I answered the call of duty from Igor to review another complete masterpiece – The Siege of Spinner Cay. A game that starts epic and ends epic will full promise of an amazing 3rd episode to come! It is highly recommended that you finish playing the first episode before reading ahead! Thar be spoilers on the Horizon!

 

Nick Bounty: A Case of the Crabs – REVIEW

How funny can be a game that parodies the classic noir fiction, but happens neither on the Discworld, nor in the skeleton-laden Land of The Dead, but looks like just a “straight” parody of the genre set in our boring Earthrealm? Incredibly funny it seems. Presented in true B&W and equipped with a P.I. hero who likes to provide elaborate narrations full of metaphors, Nick Bounty is a game which stays true to the original detective novel, at the same time being completely crazy.

It all begins with a scene borrowed from The Maltese Falcon – a man delivers a box with mysterious contents

 

DEV INTRO #2: Andrej Bevec (Clever Hans Productions)

For this month’s Dev Intro we conducted an interview with the studio behind that striking Briefcase Romanin game – the surreal little thing which emerged totally unexpected with a superb hand-drawn HD trailer last month and has instantly become the talk of the town. While the game being announced as a participant in the XBox Dream Build Play contest gave a bit of an impression that it might become available only for that particular platform, fortunately this isn’t the case at all – the creators confirm a PC release as well!

So what is it all about? Well, in the center of the game is that very (very) strange briefcase you see… (but you can’t that well see on the screens here, so watch it in the excellent trailer below)

 

The Horror of One’s Downfall – INTERVIEW with Remigiusz Michalski

As a reviewer, you can’t help not having particularly great hopes when asked to review a first time developer’s indie game. Especially a project that a single designer without any game-making background spent 5 years on. Yet a reviewer’s life can be full of surprises – Remigiusz Michalski’s Downfall provided what I quite frankly consider to be one of the finest stories told in an adventure game in the last 10 years. Moreso it really takes advantage of being an involving player experience – challenging you with choices and actions that have real emotional impact. Some time ago I wrote down my own personal experience of playing the game, and today I have the distinct pleasure to  pick the mind of the creative genius behind Downfall…

 

Blackwell Convergence – REVIEW

The Blackwell Convergence is the third installment of Wadjet Eye Games’ Blackwell franchise. For many, the wait has been even more of a killer than The Countess herself; originally slated for release in 2008, the July 2009 release of Convergence has had much to live up to. Delays usually lead to two main progessions of thought in a gamer’s mind: the game will either be of a lesser quality than before due to problems in development, or polished to a finer shine than was originaly expected.

 

DEV INTRO #1: Oded Sharon (Corbomite Games)

We proudly present our new series of “mini” interviews called Dev Intro. The goal is to give some (yet) unknown indie development studios the opportunity to talk about their premiere adventure game titles and their approach to game design in general. After more interviews in the series are published it will be possible to compare different ideas on starting out with a first promising title, as well as thoughts on the struggles connected to being indie.

Our guest for this interview is Oded Sharon of Corbomite Games who have just released the first episode in five of Pizza Morgana – an adaptation of a comic book under the same title. It is about the adventures of a young girl while delivering pizza for a company that also happens to hire monsters, vampires, faeries, and daemons. A demo version is to be found here.

 

Blackwell Unbound – REVIEW

Blackwell Unbound is the second episode of the Blackwell franchise from Dave Gilbert’s Wadjet Eye Studios. It is an interesting game in many ways, in particular due to the decision to tell a story from the past, rather than continue directly on from The Blackwell Legacy. The ever-informative director’s commentary immediately sheds some light on this decision:

 

The Blackwell Legacy – REVIEW

The Blackwell Legacy is the first episode of Dave Gilbert’s The Blackwell Series, published by Wadjet Eye Games. It was actually originally released as Bestowers Of Eternity, created with the AGS engine and winning several awards in the process. Yet The Blackwell Legacy is more than a mere graphical update and the addition of voices to an old title. Much has changed, and the game is certainly a more polished, engaging experience the way it is presented now. This is the story as it is meant to be told.

 

Time Gentlemen, Please! – REVIEW

Freelance adventurers Ben & Dan don’t have any extravagant goals in life. A nice, meaty session sat in front of the telly watching Magnum P.I is usually all they wish for. Unfortunately, it’s not the safest possible way of spending one’s time. In the award-winning game Ben There, Dan That it has caused our heroes to be teleported on an alien spaceship filled with gates to alternate versions of Great Britain -  from one where UK is ruled by the USA, to one where dinosaurs remain the dominant species and evolved to the point of producing electronic entertainment.