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

Marek and his wife

High Res 2D is coming back to the adventure genre! And it doesn’t stop with the recently released Machinarium and The Whispered World haunting your senses with their beauty. The story continues with The Trader of Stories – a fresh new escapist fantasy world that extends beyond just the video game medium. It’s the work of yet another talented Polish adventure game developer (and draughtsman, and writer, and chemist) Marek Rudowski. (more…)

Are adventures perceived as old and rusty?

As a long time adventure gamer, it has constantly amazed me over the years how the genre has gone from being gloriously at the forefront of interactive entertainment in the early 90′s, to now emerge as the downtrodden and shunted, would-rather-be-forgotten cousin of computer games in general. I often wonder why there has became such a sharp contrast in critical opinion of these games?

By no means am i suggesting that an adventure game, by its nature, will be a good one. Certainly, the classics of the genre often seem behind us, with the shift of Lucasarts in particular towards 3D Star Wars and Indiana Jones games indicating that this won’t change anytime soon.

Still, it saddens me to realize that a lot of good adventure games seem to be put down now simply because of the genre they happen to come under. Take, for example, the following review (from a well known British newspaper). (more…)