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

Sam and Max are back in The Tomb of Sammun-Mak, episode 2 of new season: The Devil’s Playhouse – and things have gone all Egyptian-y!

(more…)

So, after two years Sam and Max are back for season 3 of Telltale’s re-imagining of Steve Purcell‘s classic characters. Now, I’ll admit right away I’m not a Sam and Max regular, however with this being the comedy duo’s first adventure to be released simultaneously on PC and console (and new platforms such as iPad), it is aimed squarely at newcomers to the series, as well as the regulars. (more…)

I have to say that past years visit to the Monkey Islandish Caribbean has turned out to be a truly epic journey filled to the brim with piratey adventures and charming concepts. And here is where we are now. Right at the end. But is it the last chapter of one big story? Or more like the end to an episodic series? And how good is it exactly? (more…)

Starting a game is easy. It’s really easy – so easy that we often jump in before we’ve thought about it. But we’ve already covered thinking about it beforehand, so assuming you paid some attention back there, we’re ready to look at the next step. (more…)

The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood – a title that instills fear, tension and deep expectation in any loyal Monkey Island fan. When we click that big green DOWNLOAD button, we know we’re in for a real treat. And boy, we sure are! Chapter 4 is simply the most intriguing and exciting episode yet, and it can only get better with Chapter 5!

Remember that spoilers of Chapters 1 – 3 are very likely!

(more…)

Our Tales of Monkey Island Episode 3 review comes a bit late, however, this has allowed me to already get some notion of what other people thought of it. Actually, the review statistics show this has become the highest rated episode of the series so far. (more…)

Mark (in the center) at PAX with Ryan Jones and Dave Grossman on his flanks

So here we are today talking this time to a truly accomplished adventure game designer who has gone from small, but great indie productions (Nick Bounty!!!) to become one of the lead creative forces at Telltale Games. Mark Darin after leading the design on the Strong Bad games is co-creating all the big titles currently in progress, including Tales of Monkey Island and the future Sam & Max episodes. As always we started the interview with the most difficult question. Next we started to differentiate between indie games and Telltale games which may be not entirely fair as Telltale is all independent as far as I know, just maybe a bit bigger than Mark’s own company Pinhead Games. Oh, and Pinhead‘s games are freeware. (more…)