There’s been a lot of excitement lately over PSN indie hit Journey. The developers, Thatgamecompany, are renowned for whimsical art-y games and their first effort, Cloud, certainly deserves attention.
Posts Tagged ‘Adventure’
Indie showcase: Cloud
May 14, 2012
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The Humble Botanicula Debut
The 12th in the Humble Indie Bundle series has arrived with The Humble Botanicula Debut. The namesake of the bundle is a trippy point-and-click adventure by Amanita Design which features a group of tree-dwellers who are out to save their home from parasites. The bundle also includes other Amanita Design titles such as Samorost 2 and Machinarium, themselves unique and strange point-and-click titles with a distinctive touch which were featured in previous bundles.
Apr 20, 2012
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Journey now fastest selling PSN title ever
PlayStation 3 developer thatgamecompany is well-known for making off-beat, downloadable games for the PlayStation Store. Their most recent offering, Journey, continues the team’s surrealist take on digital entertainment. The result is one of their best game’s to date, sitting with a Metacritic score of 92.
Posting on the official PlayStation Blog, Jenova Chen (creative director for thatgamecompany) has revealed that Journey has become the fastest selling PSN title for Sony Computer Entertainment of America; that’s including all first and third party releases on Sony’s online store.
Sadly, it’s has also been revealed that two key staff members at thatgamecompany have left the development team now that Journey is complete and in the hands of gamers. Kellee Santiago, who was one of the co-founders of thatgamecompany, left the team yesterday but has not revealed her new prospects. Similarly Robin Hunicke, the producer for thatgamecompany, has also left – she will be moving to Canadian studio Tiny Speck. The departures were both amicable.
Source: PlayStation Blog
Source: Joystiq 1 and 2
Mar 30, 2012
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US and UK Sony teams helping to finish The Last Guardian
Team ICO’s first game on the PlayStation 3 is certainly taking its sweet time. It was announced three years ago and since then, aside from a handful of screenshots and a few trailers, not much more has been revealed. Recently, Team ICO lead designer Fumito Ueda left full-time employment with Sony, opting to finish up work on The Last Guardian on a freelancing basis.
As gaming expos like the Tokyo Game Show and E3 come and go each year without a whiff of The Last Guardian, it’s starting to get a little depressing. In a recent interview with Wired, Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida reported that progress on the game remains slow but steady. It’s also been revealed that Sony development teams from the US and the UK have started helping Team ICO with The Last Guardian. Amongst those teams is Sony Santa Monica, the development team behind God of War.
Feb 22, 2012
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Today I learnt about a game called Cradle
I also learnt that there’s a Russian indie dev team called Flying Café For Semianimals – which is pretty much the weirdest company name I’ve come across in ages. That being said, their pedigree is pretty substantial, with members of their tiny team having worked on titles like Allods Online, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Heroes of Might and Magic 5.
Their debut game Cradle is described as a “science-fiction first-person quest with freedom of movement”. Your character lives in a tent-like structure in the Mongolian hills and it’s up to you to find the parts required to repair a mechanical girl. You’ll need to use science-fictiony gadgets to explore the surrounding areas and abandoned amusement park in order to find the bits needed to fix this robotic girl.
It sounds a little odd, but the gameplay clip has me thoroughly intrigued. The unusual setting and immediate atmosphere also helps a lot. The game is coming to PC sometime during our autumn here in South Africa. The team plans to expand onto Mac OS, Linux and iOS devices after that. Hit the jump for some gameplay footage, and watch out for the terrible Euro-pop music.
Feb 15, 2012
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Double Fine wants your money (lots of it) [update 10/2]
Do you like classic adventure games? Do you like Double Fine Productions? Do you want Double Fine Productions to make a classic adventure game? Of course you do! Only people who are evil and hate cats and don’t ever visit their parents wouldn’t want this magical game to happen, and for that reason, you need to head over to the studio’s Kickstarter appeal page and start giving them money.
But, wait, what is this Kickstarter of which I speak? Damn all of these questions to hell! Kickstarter is a neat little website that gives indie developers, artists, movie makers or any sort of creative organistion access to crowdsourced funding for their projects. That means that you, the people of the world, have an opportunity to give Double Fine money to develop video games. That’s almost like being a game developer, or maybe a producer or something, but you don’t have to know anything about business.
Feb 09, 2012
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Retro review: King’s Quest III: To Heir is Human
For as long as he can remember, which isn’t all that long really because he’s still a teen but anyway, Gwydion has been held captive in the house of Manannan, an evil wizard and ten-year subscriber to Cat Fancy magazine. It’s a hard life for Gwydion, who must feed chickens and sweep the kitchen floor and empty chamber pots at his master’s demand, over and over, until he works out some way to free himself. Seriously, over and over.
“Gwydion, I have decided to take a journey,” said Manannan, for the seventh or eighth time in two hours. “Maybe this time, you might take the opportunity to go through my personal things – I’ve got heaps of cool stuff like a wand, and a magic map, and a secret subterranean alchemy workshop, you know, just saying.”
Feb 08, 2012
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Retro review: Ancient Domains of Mystery
A long time ago, in a fantasy realm far, far away… there was a bit of this, and a bit of that, and then suddenly monsters and a prophecy and a Chosen One who will defeat the great and terrible tide of evil that threatens to engulf the entire world, etc.
YOU ARE [NAME HERE]! And this is where I always got stuck for about two hours, randomly generating characters over and over until I had a dark elf thief vaguely resembling Per Gessle from Roxette. What can I say – I was way into my roguelike RPGs, but I was also a teenage girl, and even when it’s just ASCII graphics, looks matter.
Jan 09, 2012
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Feature review: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
Naughty Dog is back to take us on a whirlwind tour of the globe in chase of the seductive Iram of the Pillars,pulling us back into the sweaty jeans of our favourite wisecrack adventurer, Nathan Drake. Following 2009’s mighty Among Thieves was no easy task but Naughty Dog have stepped up their game in almost every conceivable way, crafting what is quite simply the best made and most beautiful looking game in existence.
The narrative leaps from a brilliantly realised pub brawl in London, across to France, Yemen and beyond as it explores the relationship between Drake and his moustached mentor Sully. While the story is enjoyable (throwing in many nods and jokes to fans of the series) the narrative is a little weaker in construction than its predecessor and the villains are less cleverly motivated, resulting in a climax less fulfilling than it could have been. Despite this, the cut scenes telling this story showcase the very best animation in the industry thanks to the fact that the voice actors are the ones in mocap suits, boasting nuanced animation traditional processes would simply not yield. Accentuating this is exceptional voice acting which is effortlessly delivered along with some of the finest facial animations to date.
Nov 16, 2011
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Review: The Next Big Thing
Ayo! What if horror movies’ monsters were played by real monsters? What if the situation was not all beer and skittles and they decided to rebel?
This is the stellar concept behind Pendulo Studios’ The Next Big Thing. It’s such a good idea in fact, that the game struggles to live up to its potential, but comes pretty darn close.
Sep 16, 2011
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