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

If there’s one genre that’s got a tradition of having scary games (apart from the survival horror genre, for obvious reasons) it’s our genre of choice: adventure games. Oz Orwell and the Crawling Chaos, a new effort from Midian Design, who also brought us Odissea, happily continues that tradition. (more…)

If you’re looking at this game thinking you’ve seen it before, you may be right. It is in fact a completely revamped and extended HD version of the freeware The Journey Down: Over The Edge, which was reviewed by HDJ back in 2010. I, however, haven’t played that version, so what you’re going to read is coming from the perspective of someone completely new to the wondrous world of The Journey Down.
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The recent success of Dear Esther shows there’s a real market for atmospheric first-person games that play more like an interactive story than a traditional game. Process is such a game. In terms of game mechanics, it’s a lot like Myst, although atmospherically it feels like a survival horror game. But ultimately, it is neither, and perhaps best described as an “experience”. (more…)

With all the recently released indie sci-fi goodness such as Gemini Rue and Technocrat‘s (Technobabylon) works I feel it’d be a shame to overlook one other certain brilliant indie sci-fi adventure game. Well, “recently” by procrastinator’s standards anyway but you know. It’s never a bad time to learn of a good game.
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It’s time to grab your gun and your guitar, to shoot and kick some zombie butt! No, this isn’t a review of Left 4 Dead or Dead Island, and yes, you’re still on HardyDevth. This is, however, a review of a zombie survival game… of sorts. (more…)

It’s taken a while, but after a few months, the third chapter of The Dream Machine is upon us. After getting reacquainted with the controls (not that they’re very complicated, but what few controls there were I’d forgotten), I was soon exploring this wonderful dream world again. The first two chapters impressed with their very atmospheric handmade sets. Can this chapter do the same? (more…)

Your name is Abdullah, emissary of the Sultan, and you find yourself on a ship on your way to a secret, diplomatic mission. It is the mid-19th century and the ship also carries
stereotypical, dignified characters such as an Italian engineer, an opera singer, an African sorcerer, Rasputin and plenty others — all hosted by the captain of the ship.

But that’s where the similarities with Cluedo or Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile” end! This game is delightfully wacky and full of anachronisms (Rasputin in the 1850′s?). (more…)