Earthling Priorities Launched!

It's been years, I know, but Earthling Priorities has finally been launched for Windows! Sporting the wonderful music of Chris Christodoulou, the excellently animated pixel art of Daniele Giardini, and the coding devilry of Jim Spanos, I must admit I'm really happy with this short, silly, and sci-fi adventure game. I believe you will be so too. It might even make you laugh, and it will definitely change the way you see doors.

Play it here. It's freeware.

An Earthling Update Of Priorities

I realize now that I originally announced Earthling Priorities back in May 2014. I also realize that this was almost three years ago, that time does fly by even things do not go well, and that the game should have been released ages ago. But, life is relentless, and even though Daniele created dozens of lovely animation frames, Chris composed some utterly amazing music, and James quickly coded a proper demo, I simply failed to find the time to bring this project to conclusion.

Yes, making games is indeed hard, adventure games even harder, and it was only sometime during the end of 2016 when I finally managed to bring all Earthling Priorities related  procrastination to an end. The puzzle design has now been updated, new animations have been prepared and implemented, descriptions have been added, the flow of the game has been improved, and I've almost finished writing all of the dialog. Provided nothing explodes, I will actually be emailing James before the weekend with all sorts of things for him to add to the game.

By the time he's done, I'll have hopefully edited most of the texts one more time, completed a few relatively minor tasks, and prepared the required sound effects. Or, well, most of them. Add in a bit of testing, some polishing, a few re-writes, a couple extra builds, and I'm certain this nice little adventure game will soon be available for all to download. For free of course. 

Estimated launch date: sometime before the summer of 2017!

(crosses fingers)

Eye^Game^Candy: Wonderland

Being one of the most ambitious text adventures ever created, and making a brave attempt at thoroughly modernizing interactive fiction interfaces, Wonderland by Magnetic Scrolls is one of those few games that should be considered important. It also happens to be one I really do love. Somewhere between the fact that I never managed to finish it, the childhood memories of opening its big box with all those 5.25" floppies, the amazing little visual vignettes, and those incredibly appropriate and very whimsical puzzles I absolutely struggled with, I may have created a mental image of Wonderland that might just be too good to be true. I know. And even though I don't want to spoil the memories, I know I'll eventually have to revisit it.

You can play the game online here (albeit not in its full glory; you'll be needing DOSBox for that), and find out more about it on Mobygames and the Magnetic Scrolls Memorial. 

Strolling through the texty fields of 2015 IF Comp

The 21st Interactive Fiction Competition, the aptly named 2015 IF Comp, has opened its virtual doors (to its titular virtual fields obviously) and you can now either download a single .zip archive containing all 55 --I think-- texty entries, or simply follow this link to the comp's games to download and play stuff individually. 

Many will work better online, some might require you type words, others will come with digital feelies and most parser-based ones should probably be played using an interpreter like the excellent Gargoyle, but, I know, you care not for the details.

You love your interactive fiction, crave text adventures and deeply appreciate CYOAs. You are my precious reader and it's this texty time of the year when you get to play, discuss and judge an excellent selection of i-f offerings. A selection that's so far proven so amazingly good, I couldn't help but think that an exhibition might be a better idea than a competition after all.

As for the games I've already played, well, I've been writing about them over at the Impish Words, Spirited Games page on facebook, though I do suppose I could edit and post some of those mini-reviews here. Actually, I just did:

Let's Tell A Story Together

Words can do amazing things. Beautiful things. Ageless things. And though interactive words haven't yet managed to surpass the things static, printed words have accomplished --which is only natural for a particular sort of words that has been around for mere decades-- they have managed to create a more literary, more engaging and, usually, more demanding genre of gaming: interactive fiction. Or text adventures, but let's not argue terminology here.

Jimmy Maher does after all cover terms and definitions brilliantly at the beginning of his 2006 book Let's Tell A Story Together (A History of Interactive Fiction). Actually, Mr. Maher does an impressive job of getting you all excited about interactive words, introducing you to the many charms and idiosyncrasies of the parser, the intricacies of designing text adventures and even a more or less complete history of interactive fiction and its evolution.

From the late seventies and Adventure to Infocom's golden era and contemporary interactive fiction, Maher's book really does save me the trouble of doing anything beyond suggesting you read it. Read it even you've never dabbled with a parser in your life, read it if you have always loved the genre and, by all means, read it if you are an interactive fiction author. 

Let's Tell A Story Together, besides being well written and thoroughly researched, offers unique insights into defining text adventures and a comprehensive approach that covers over 30 years of parser driven gaming. Handily, it's also generously available for free both as an online hypertext and downloadable ebook.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• An Interview with Robb Sherwin
• Arcadia: A Pastoral Tale
• Love, Hate and the Mysterious Ocean Tower
• Get Lamp: A DVD Review

DualMondays: Point And Click Jam - Aftermath

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

Well, normally this would have been another philosophical rambling about some topic, but today, I felt the need to bother you with the very recent and wonderfully successful Point and Click Jam. Of all the jams I watched closely or participated in this year, this one seemed to out-polish them all. There were absolutely no amateur entries here. It felt like a bunch of veterans were against each other, fighting for the first spot. This may be a correct first impression, however, upon closer inspection, that is not exactly the case. 

The majority of the contestants, hadn't even done an adventure game before (some I believe haven't even made a game!), so why does this not feel as amateur hour (pointing at the Pewdiepie VS Indie Jam)?

Because, there's no way to pull off certain genres with half-arsed efforts, which explains the duration of this game-making competition and any other adventure game competition. Think about it! Even OROW (abbreviation stands for One Room One Week), that is about making an adventure game in one room/screen, lasts a week. For it is quite known and obvious to all developers, that you could make a platform game in a matter of hours, but as a genre, adventure games are focused on the story and atmosphere, and it's rather hard to set up pacing, flow, story arc, character design, interface, puzzles within the span of a day, let alone in a less time than that.

It's a genre that begs for lots of hours of work, but also for quality. Arguably and regardless of the design of your game, polishing it is a vital element. For adventure games in particular, it works on every little part they consist of, making it something you simply have to do with. And here I am two paragraphs in and I'm already transforming back into Plato.

Anyhow - about the Point And Click Jam.

It was organized by the good people down at GameJolt, and the rules were quite simple (and a bit on the annoying side too). In 15 days you had to make an adventure game of the point and click kind, whereas the interface was left open for developers to either make one that had already been famous from games of the era or construct a brand new one. The resolution was forced to 320x200 so that you could get that "1991 feel" and you could work on your story before the jam begun (but just the story!). The ultra annoying bit for me, was the palette restriction. To make things more challenging and closer to the Lucas Arts / Sierra Era we all loved when we were growing up, the rules stated that you had to use a certain palette (a number of colors) to make your entry.

That was of course set to maintain a retro feel, along with the rule that also made clear that you're not allowed to make use of a technology further developed after 1992 or so (contemporary technologies in making the assets of your game had to be used). While this did help create quality entries in a weird masochistic way, I found it rather unappealing. The jam should have at least broadened the restrictions by allowing the use of transparency, if not alpha channels on sprites.

Regardless I consider the jam to be highly succesful, as, through it, wonderful games such as "A Fragment of Her", "Max Greene", "The Exciting Space Adventures of Greg And Linda", "Void And Meddler", "There Ain't No Sunshine", "A Cosmic Song" and others, spawned. I highly suggest checking all the entries, but the ones mentioned are worth an extra bit of attention. Wait, aren't adventure games dead? :P

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays: Fan Service
• Eye^Game^Candy: Cruise for a Corpse
• The Watchful Indie Watch #5.12
• On indie gaming godhood

Eye^Game^Candy: Cruise For A Corpse

Though largely forgotten today, Cruise For A Corpse was a stunning, triple-A adventure game back in 1991 that launched on the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS and was probably the first Agatha Christie inspired game I truly loved. Granted, the colourful graphics, unique setting (spoiler: everything happens on a posh boat), stunning backgrounds, interesting plot and rotoscaped animation were all I cared for, as I did resort to using a walkthrough and can't really comment on the quality of its puzzles. As for the good news, well, if you still have the game's files you can properly play through it via ScummVM.

DualMondays: Technobabylon and Cyberpunk

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

You know, a little while ago, around the AGS forums, but not that exclusively, a wonderful game appeared: Technobabylon. In three episodes, its author tried to introduce a bleak universe and a fantastic inter-connectivity between characters. And then, as the series was gradually getting huge attention, James Dearden (the author/developer) halted production. Personally, I felt as if I would never see more of it. 

But what is the game actually about?

Technobabylon revolves around the premise that people choose to accept the false sense of achievement presented in multiplayer videogames over the actual control on their lives, hence slowly deteriorating physically and mentally; getting addicted in a way not wholly dissimilar to drug use. Such is the protagonist of the game, but as  problems pop up, it will be impossible for him to get a last dose of the virtual world. The second game of the series, creates one of the most wonderfully revealed ties between two games - seemingly so different in almost every aspect, that literally the remembrance of it, still takes my breath away.

I do hope, the great content will be kept, if not intact, at least with the same spirit, maintaining the consistency and surprise factor present in the freeware release of the three episodes so far. I fully accept the choice to enrich and re-introduce the saga. Even though, I do feel this should have been out faster, I am still overly excited over the forthcoming release of Technobabylon. Yet nothing could ever excite me more than Cyberpunk as a genre. I'm not sure, but it's the amplification of post-apocalyptic environments surrounded by garbage bags flying around ultra-bright neon lights that does it for me.

To me, the genre always meant exciting, new, even exhilarating horizons being broadened, applying both mentally and perspective-wise a mesmerizing effect on my personal being. That is when the cyberpunk medium transcends the focus on one aspect and instead triumphantly establishes domination in every way.

Portraying flawed characters and an ironic, seemingly idyllic view of the future, whether it's dominated by a certain political view or a technological discovery/revolution, there is a thin line separating breathtaking and thought-provocative from just lasers and neon lights. I strongly believe that taking any story and transforming it into a cyberpunk version of itself is the easier way, and the most common one. While it's nice to see a plot through different glasses, perhaps adjusting its parameters differently, I'm not a huge fan of that.

That is why creating a reality based on projections of combined factors, plowing through plot holes and physical rules to narrate a story that would only be done justice under those calculated, specific list of circumstances and variables, is where the genre shines. It should always be visible to us, that it's not about telling conventional stories within unconventional surroundings, but rather about mystifying the audience with the setting, engulfing the reader, in ways that he/she feels the primal instincts and fears in different unconventional ways, purging reality of all the veils, like tears in the rain.

And I have this weird feeling, Technobabylon could be one of cyberpunk's best.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays: On Inspiration
• Creating the best Monkey Island games possible
• Remember the 2011 AGS Awards?
• An interview with Steve Ince (on all sorts of things)

Kaptain Brawe II singing for Viggo on a ZX Spectrum

Hello reader, here are three Kickstarter campaigns that deserve our love:

Kaptain Brawe 2: A Space Travesty

The original Kaptain Brawe, its very first demo to be precise, was one of the first indie adventures I covered on this blog back in 2006. It was a point-and-clicker that looked absolutely lovely in its hand-painted world  and one that spent a few years in development hell before finally becoming a good game ages later. Now, veteran game writer Steve Ince and Bill Tiller of Monkey Island 3 fame have been brought on board for what can only be described as an ambitious and exciting sequel that needs your crowd-funding moneys.

The campaign will be live for another day (at the time of writing) and can still use all the support it can get in order to reach its goal.

A Song for Viggo

Created using folded paper and stop-motion animation, A Song for Viggo is both visually striking and aiming to touch upon the depression that follows a tragedy. Its grim theme is in stark contrast to its beautiful visuals, its writing seems to be able to move and its mechanics will apparently be built around a single puzzle: living you life. Oh, and the two new videos the dev released (here and here) are more than promising.

The Story of the ZX Spectrum in Pixels

It's a new book on the ZX Spectrum by Chris Wilkins and, just like his previous books, it's looking lovely. It will apparently be a colourful and well-laid out affair covering most of the definitive Speccy games, while also providing interviews with developers and bits of history. The book will mainly be a visual journey from 1982 to the early '90s filled with huge screenshots, retro game advertisements, inlay artwork, loading screens and more.

Reminder: I could really use your support via Patreon in surviving long enough to make more indie gaming (and gaming) words and things. Thanks! 

Avaus Text Adventure -- So you wish to become a mighty software developer?

Certain cautionary tales do have to be circulated it seems, if only to save those poor starry-eyed children from a dark and desperate future. But, let's not start by discouraging those young, creative people, shall we?

Better have a go at the free, browser-based Avaus Text Adventure instead; the one subtitled "So you wish to become a mighty software developer?". It's simple, highly enjoyable, plays like a proper piece of interactive fiction and sports some delightfully lighthearted dev stereotypes. Oh, yes, and several extremely well-designed puzzles that are definitely worth your time. Also, after spending over an hour with the thing, I haven't finished it yet, so please do let me know if it's as good as it seems.

Announcing the Earthling Priorities point-and-clicker!

Following my freeware choose-your-own-politics sim Workers In Progress, iOS games Droidscape: Basilica and DroidArcade, the time had come for me to finally work on a (relatively) traditional point-and-click adventure. Hence Earthling Priorities -- a small, satirical, sci-fi, freeware point-and-click adventure bound to be released during the next couple of months for Windows.

Having already designed most of the game, I'm currently working with the brilliant Daniele Giardini of DemiGiant fame who's providing the game with some utterly lovely pixel-art graphics and renowned musician-composer-adventurer Chris Christodoulou who's working on the game's music. AGS coding duties have been assumed by, well, me, but don't worry too much. The game will happen. And I will try and keep you up to date.

Also, I do love the assembled team and, hopefully, you'll love the game we are working one too.

For now, why not grab the glorious, pixel-arty Earthling Priorities wallpaper (found on the closest thing we have to an official webpage) and listen to some excellent music Chris has already done for the thing?

Today's Musical News: The Journey Down Performance

I, sadly, am not aware of many games that have managed to get eleven jazz musicians to perform their music and I have to admit that this is an excellent idea. An excellent idea indeed, and one that will actually happen with the help of composer and saxophone player Simon D'souza, who will be performing a live evocation of the original music from lovely adventure The Journey Down (Steam, App Store), featuring tracks played live to clips from the game and, to quote, "exemplary playing from some of Brighton's finest musicians". 

The event will take place on June 23 at 2:00pm GMT+1 at The Brunswick, in Brighton, and the live broadcast will be available via justjamit. More details will become available here.

The CC-BIAB indie bundle has INDIE PIXELS in it!

This time it's not just me and Kyttaro Games. This time it's me, Kyttaro Games and Capsule Computers who put The Capsule Computers Indie Bundle together and you should be lovely and kind and nice and buy it and let everyone know about it, oh gentle reader! It has of course just gone live and is featuring 11 fantastic indie games, while -as always- supporting an important charity and the Indie Dev Grant.

Expect many DRM-free downloads, Steam and Desura codes, Windows, Linux & Mac games and an interesting selection of unlockable extras. Also something pretty special for the three people that outpay everybody else...

Anyway, on to the included games and a ton of screenshots:

Blackwell Convergence

Blackwell Deception

Hacker Evolution Untold

Blackwell Legacy

Pixelry

Super Tower Rush

Blackwell Unbound

Hacker Evolution Duality

Hacker Evolution

Hamlet

Secret of the Magic Crystals

The Cerebral Bundle! It's Alive! It's Indie! It's CLEVER!

Yes, dear reader, the stars have been perfectly aligned and a new Bundle In A Box has been spawned. A very clever bundle. A cunning bundle. A Cerebral Bundle! Also, a bundle sporting a selection of 9 excellent indie games for the rather sensible price of “pay-what-you-want”. And it supports Windows, Mac and Linux!

Anyway, on to the games!

Paying anything above $1.99 will get you:

• deep, retro-esque and utterly elegant RPG Phantasmaburbia (Windows/Desura)
• artful, being-stood-up-sim Dinner Date (Windows/Steam)
• undead infested puzzler Vampires! (Windows/Mac)
• illustrated interactive fiction exclusive debut Necrotic Drift Deluxe (Windows /Mac/Linux)
• beautiful puzzler exclusive debut Dédale De Luxe (Windows/Mac/Linux/Desura)

Beating the always humble (heh) average price will earn you those lovelies:

• sci-fi puzzle exploration adventure J.U.L.I.A. (Windows)
• hilarious boring-job-sim I Get This Call Every Day (Windows/Mac/Desura)
• Jane Jensen powered point-and-clicker Cognition, Episode 1: The Hangman (Windows/Mac/Desura)
• just released dystopian adventure Reversion: The Meeting (Windows/Desura)

As is the Kyttaro Games tradition, for every 100 bundles sold $15 will be added to our Indie Dev Grant and the whole sum will be awarded to a developer selected by the vote of the bundlers. Also, 5% of all revenues will be shared with the Hellenic Centre for Mental Health and Treatment of Child and Family.

What’s more, for every 1000 bundles sold new extras will be unlocked for everyone who grabbed the Cerebral Bundle. Said extras include the source code of Necrotic Drift, the Cognition soundtrack and prequel comic, Phantasmaburbia’s Deluxe Digital Box, Dédale De Luxe wallpapers and more.

Finally, and as an added bonus, all who purchase the bundle will get access to exclusive content for Droidcape: Basilica; you know, that game I've been working on for the past year or so.

PS. Uhm, helping spread the word on this new bundle would indeed be fantastic. We are, after all, at a pretty crucial turn for Bundle In A Box... Thanks a ton!

Creating the best Monkey Island games possible

Ask anyone with a passing interest in gaming and at least a modicum of taste and they will immediately let you know that both The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge are perfect games. Interestingly though, their recent deluxe versions are pretty good too and, despite a few interface hick-ups and some not always spot-on visuals, they also sport some truly excellent voice-overs.

Which leads us to the question: what are the best possible versions of the first two Monkey Island games? How should you enjoy Ron Gilbert's masterpieces?

Simple! By playing the original games with the original point-and-click interface in the talkie versions that never existed; the talkie versions using the voice-overs of the deluxe editions. All you'll be needing are the original games, their recent deluxe versions, ScummVM and the brand new, freeware, legal and utterly fantastic Monkey Island Ultimate Talkie Edition Builders.

You are most welcome! No, really, 't was a pleasure!

Ithaka of the Clouds and the future of quality gaming

People keep moaning. There aren't enough clever games, they say. Indie gaming is stuck in an idealized retro world that never really existed and keeps churning out platformer after platformer, they add. Intelligent adults need their piece of interactive entertainment too, they shout. And then, Jonas Kyratzes goes on to release the brilliant The Sea Will Claim Everything and everyone, and that's despite numerous glowing reviews, fails to notice and keeps on moaning.

Well, everyone, time to set things right and make sure that us appreciators of graceful, artful, beautiful, clever and shockingly meaningful games have a chance to redeem ourselves by helping Ithaka of the Clouds get funded over at IndieGoGo. It is the latest (and most ambitious so far) project of Jonas and Verena Kyratzes, will feature the wonderful music of Chris Christodoulou and, before I go on and ramble a bit more, here's its pitch video:

Watched it? Excellent! You are then quite aware of the fact that Ithaka, the first game to ever feature two gay trolls and the first adventure to ever be inspired by the sublime poetry of Kavafis, is bound to not only be an amazing game, but actually an important one too. Remember how I once mentioned that The Sea Will Claim Everything can make you a better person? Seems like Ithaka of the Clouds will improve on that.

Anyway, here's the illusive Joseph Kyranzes to further enlighten you:

Now, off to back the project! A mere $10$ will get you the game upon release, $15 will get you the game with either the soundtrack or The Sea Will Claim Everything, $30 will get you everything mentioned so far and the rest you'll have to find out for yourself reader. Just support the thing and spread the word!

Jonas Kyratzes stuff @ Gnome's Lair:

• The (oneiric) Interview
• Alphaland
• The Fabulous Screech
• Phenomenon 32

Asylum: The Kickstartering

Not many know this, but I'm more than proud of the fact that Agustin Cordes first announced the forthcoming Asylum via an interview on this very blog back in 2010. Admittedly, it was called the Unnameable Project back then, but it was still the very same horror adventure game everyone seems to be waiting for and the same game that has already released an incredibly promising interactive teaser (a.k.a. a small demo) for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Also, the very same game that has launched a fantastic Kickstarter campaign to ensure it becomes everything it should be. Here's the pitch video:

The Asylum, which I urge you to wholeheartedly support, is bound to be a huge, detailed, beautiful and downright creepy point-and-click adventure, that will build upon the experience its team has gathered from working on the rather brilliant Scratches, while simultaneously being the first adventure game I know of that will be open to modding! It will after all ship with the powerful and open-source Dagon engine Senscape has been busy developing. 

Oh, and if you want my advice, when selecting your perk do go for that boxed version of the game. I know it will be sublime.

Adventure Lantern #32

It is admittedly August, but you should definitely download the July issue of Adventure Lantern. It is after all as fresh as your average August magazine and, by far, the best looking issue the dear, venerable adventure gaming fanzine has so far managed. Pretty impressive really, as are the excellent reviews of Scratches: Director's Cut and Metal Dead. Oh, and the news section is both incredibly rich and downright mouth-watering.

Deirdra Kiai presents Dominique Pamplemousse in It's All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings!

Okay, we still don't have The Threepenny Opera: The Game, but Dominique Pamplemousse in It's All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings! will apparently be able to cover our collective jazz-musical point-and-click adventure gaming needs. Provided we help it get funded, that is. You know, by giving money to this mouth-watering indiegogo campaign and making sure that the brilliantly multi-talented Deirdra Kiai has the funds she needs to actually pull this one off.

Just take a look at the pitch video and tell me the prospect of such a visually and aurally beautiful stop motion detective adventure isn't something worth supporting...

See? You loved it too reader! How very lovely!

A Post-Bundle Lair

The good news is that the very first Bundle In A Box is successfully over and that I have already started working on the next bundle. The excellent news, on the other hand, is that I will actually be taking a few days off, hopefully away from all sorts of digital devices. Before I go though, here are a couple of newsbits I'd like to share:

Jonas Kyratzes has finally unveiled the excellent Lands of Dream site, where he has also made sure even the misguided souls that missed the bundle can buy the utterly brilliant The Sea Will Claim Everything. Oh, and do expect a detailed review of the game some time during the summer.

The indie-loving, game-designing Captain D has released (for the negligible price of $0.99)

Captain Disaster: The Compact eBook Edition. The book comes filled with 11 short stories and something tells me it will have something to do with a forthcoming indie adventure game.

Now, if you'll excuse, I have to pack. See you all in a few days!