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

As of this writing, it’s been just a few weeks since I finished a project that took me more than a year and a half to complete – Adventure: All in the Game. Whenever I’m asked what this game is about by someone not familiar with adventure games, it’s always a challenge for me to explain it thoroughly. It’s a combination of so many different things clumped together that it’s hard to break it down into its essential parts. (more…)

It’s time to dust off your old school books and brush up on your Latin and Greek mythology, because we’re going to play a game that closely follows the story of Ulysses as related by Homer’s Odyssey, in a faithful retelling of the epic.

Or so it would seem at first glance.

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Flicking through the episode descriptions on the launcher program, Citizen Brown was always the installment of Back to the Future: The Game that appealed to me the most. But did it live up to my expectations?

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In 2006 when Scratches came out I couldn’t be more uninterested in it. The simple, reddish cover art, the cliched premise of a haunted house (no twists on the theme apparent), and in-game screenshots showing interiors devoid of any living soul – made me ignore it completely. I don’t think I even paid any attention to the reviews. It feels strangely appropriate then, that after having played the game I consider it an experience that under no circumstances should be missed. And not only by the likes of me or you, dear adventure games fan – it should be a required play in particular for horror genre authors - game designers or otherwise. There’s something primal within Scratches – a lesson in delivering an elusive, but essential aspect of horror, that storytellers rarely have the opportunity to test the full impact of.
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Jake Elliot is an independent video game developer who releases his games through an experimental studio he calls Cardboard Computer. His game “A House in California” was nominated for the IGF‘s Nuovo Award, and the source code for each of his games is released to the public.

Cardboard Computer‘s most recent game, Balloon Diaspora, was released in February. It’s a calm, subtle and slow-moving game through which the player navigates a hot air balloon and converses with a cast of displaced characters.

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A tree is known by its fruit, and you could say an adventure game is known by its aesthetics, even though that may be a bit oversimplified. If we apply that principle to Jolly Rover, you might come to the conclusion that this is a children’s game.        The gentle, charming dog characters and background art and the pleasing voices may make you think so. But is it really?

The hint system certainly suggests so, at first. Every couple of minutes, a parrot – in itself a likeable character – pops up, asking if you need help. This can easily get annoying, but fortunately there’s an option to just say no to its incessant offerings of help. When you couple that with the ingenious way in which you earn hints – you have to find crackers throughout the game to feed the parrot whenever you require a hint – it’s actually pretty clever, and not that annoying. (more…)

Erik Zaring

I had a chance to chat with Erik Zaring and Anders Gustafsson, the two brilliant minds behind The Dream Machine, and pick their brain about their game, their influences, and their dreams. This is the result. (more…)