A Hardy Developer's Journal – as written by indie adventure game developers

I’m a bit behind the schedule with some things that I announced at various places to various people to appear on the blog, so to keep the hopes up I decided to write a quick round-up of what is coming for sure. And soon. In the worst scenario I may not make it before May with everything. Also, in May someone should come to help me with the writing in general, so I expect the number of updates to jump up as well. Anyway, back to April.  Here are the current contenders in no particular order:

1) One of the main reasons I have less time to write new articles now (and sadly this trend will continue) is that I spend lots of it on making an adventure game. On my very own. And I want it to be finished in a decent amount of time too. I already have a working demo with a big chunk of the game. It is currently undergoing some (well, lots actually) polishing processes and I hope to release released sometime in May. In the meantime, I will publish the first entries in a production diary for the game, which will bring you more (lots more) details, as well as some artwork and screenshots.

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Action games’ fans often consider adventure games’ fans an eccentric bunch who likes to think hard during leisure time. Wrong! Adventure games are what you turn to when you need to release all those primal emotions accumulated and suppressed during the rest of the day. A true adventure gaming experience must contain the likes of instant dangers, hidden traps, fist fights, explosions, running away from angry mobs… So what, if many such obstacles require using some basic wits to get past – the wits part is there just to spice up the brutal aspects of the adventuring. (more…)

Pavel Černohous

Tale of a Hero is a heroic fantasy adventure game with lots of charm, storytelling depth and adventure gaming goodness, that was all finished and ready to fall into players’ hands nearly a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, while the Czech developer and publisher Future Games immediately prepared an English, fully voiced version (voiceover-less demo here), there are no set release dates for the biggest international markets yet. I live in one of the few lucky countries where the game is readily available and I must say that Tale of a Hero went on to become my favorite adventure title from recent years (look up my full review for details). Being so fond of the game, I’ve asked its lead designer Pavel Černohous to take part in an interview about it. He not only did agree, but also brought along Jan Kavan (the creator of Ghost in The Sheet). (more…)

There is progress to report. Lots of it. And I can back up my words with all kinds of progress bars, progress gauges and recorded line counts (currently at 15.06%) that are now available to see at the official website here and here. The important news is that from dozens of applicants we have now finally chosen an actor to play Bob (the guy dancing on the right). The lucky person gave a performance completely different to what we discussed for the character’s traits, but still somehow won us over. The second important news is that we have publicly released a sort of WIP or demo of a patch that gets your copy of Secret of Monkey Island 100% voiced (but you’ll be grateful only for the aforementioned 15%)! (more…)

Things just got more complicated, partner!

Somehow almost all my entries seem to go along with cartoony pictures. It’s hard to stay serious in such circumstances. Thankfully I have now dabbled in a realistic, gritty, FMV whodunit adventure game series called Casebook and am able to offer you a taste of something much more dark and realistic for a change. Dedicated especially to fans of solving crimes through methodical clue and evidence gathering and patience-demanding forensic work.

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This little comic strip was originally created to sweeten the reading time for people brave enough to venture into my giant-sized, almost philosophical essay Gamer’s (illusion of) freedom about how games limit your actions to the extreme and make you love it. Still, the comic is a minor masterpiece in itself, so it should be made possible to be admired by everyone. (more…)

aka Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People (SBCG4AP) – Episode 4: Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective - REVIEW

One thing is certain – cheap, gritty, home-made creations by groups of enthusiastic friends (or one-person teams) are slowly taking over the world. (more…)