King's Quest: The Silver Lining Episode 4

See what I did here? I said King's Quest, where clearly I weren't supposed to. Hah! Take that intellectual property. You didn't expect such a nasty blow, did you? Well, that's gnomes for you I suppose.

Anyway. All I actually wanted to do, was let my precious reader know that the fourth episode of indie, King's Quest inspired, polished, fully voice-acted and gloriously 3D adventure The Silver Lining has been released. It's the penultimate installment to the series in which king Graham finds himself in a race against time to collect the mystic ingredients for the spell that will save his children, while Valanice is struggling with her dark destiny. It's all dark and whimsical and you can download this episode or the complete series so far (if you, like me, haven't found the time to properly play through the series) over at The Silver Lining.

Before watching the trailer embedded below, let me just inform you that this episode will excitingly let you explore the Green Isles from the air, engage with a second playable character, enjoy new action sequences, solve more puzzles and even uncover some of Graham's secrets. Oh, and there's an interesting contest too. The game is of course 100% freeware.  

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures
• The Blackwell Deception review
• The Dream Machine chapters 1 & 2
• The Book of Living Magic

Dead Hotel (on a lonely highway)

As I am semi-randomly and very slowly going through the 2011 Interactive Competition entries, I couldn't help but notice that Dead Hotel is the only game that has been specifically programmed to run as a proper executable for Windows using its very own engine. Out of respect for the extra and, for all I know, difficult effort I decide to give it a look. Didn't regret it, mind.

The game itself is a menu-driven affair, not dissimilar to Snatcher (sans graphics of course), that puts gamers (or should I say interactive readers?) in the shoes of a former policeman trapped in a hotel and facing a zombie apocalypse. Rather banal, I know, but it is pretty well written, though admittedly very short and obviously not quite complete. It's more of a demo really. A demo with some interesting and i-f compatible combat mechanics.

More importantly, it's like a demo of something really promising. The engine, you see, sports a lovely, retro-esque, chunky font, looks fine, can support such things as hit-points, combat and inventories, is fast and already features sound. With a few modifications and additions such as maps and graphics, it could end up being able to produce something really amazing, and I'm definitely looking forward to this. Not that I didn't enjoy the 15 minutes I spent with Dead Hotel...

You can download Dead Hotel, as well as the other IF Competition games, for free over here. Actually, you really should. There are more than a few gems waiting for your attention.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• Deirdra Kiai presents: The Play
• Fragile Shells
• Rogue of the Multiverse
• The Lurking Horror

The Dream Machine Chapter 3

Having already confessed my passionate and unconditionall love of The Dream Machine and despite the fact that it doesn't even know I exist, it's only fair that I happily let everyone know that the third chapter of this excellent adventure has just been released! Yes, it is indeed time to celebrate and find out what's going on on that surreal and rather oneiric cruise ship. Well, provided you've already played through the first two chapters, which, as I've already explained, is something you should do. Anyway. Simply visit the Dream Machine site and join the fun.

The AGS Bake Sale

I've never really seen a real, live bake sale, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with selling bakes or, in the very least, baking sales. Or something vaguely like that; possibly baking stuff that was previously on sale. Thankfully, the recently announced and already covered by the wise Cassandra and Dualnames, AGS Bake Sale is something else entirely. Or so I've been led to believe. On the other hand, it's an initiative that makes perfect sense and is something even my tiny bake-sale-deprived mind can easily grasp. Also, it's an excellent idea.

But what is it, I pretend to hear you ask. Well, for now it's a promise that will apparently become a quality online sale organized by a happy and secretive band of highly organized indie adventure game creators. Indie creators using the excellent AGS adventure authoring tool in order to come up with equally excellent little games, that will be sold following that trendy pay what you want model. Their goal? Why, to raise enough money to buy a new server to, err, serve the AGS community. The whole thing will happen sometime in mid-December and will hopefully allow you to enjoy a variety (multitude too) of games.

An example of what you should expect. Lovely, innit?

Though you can already follow what's happening with the Bake Sale via this handy forum thread, I have to let you know that the announced games are looking pretty brilliant. I'm already eagerly waiting to point and click my way through Fragment, Paranormal Investigator: In search of the sweets tin, Mythaumatology, Falling Skywards, Understaffed and Barn Runner. Actually, each and every game announced so far does look polished, highly intriguing and beautiful, so I'll just stop linking. Oh, and to find out when the whole thing kicks off, better watch this space (preferably, this blog).

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• The Blackwell Deception review
• The Dream Machine review
• Less than three
• Retro adventuring with ScummVM

Zombie Goes Up (Greece Goes Down)

Excuse me if you will dear reader, but I'm not in the greatest blogging mood. After over a million people protested against the latest brutal austerity measures two days ago, yesterday hundreds of thousands were exposed to mindless violence, political bullying, the death of one protester, police brutality, the passing of a disastrous and traitorous law, dozens of injured people and a deep (if hopefully temporary) division among the people fighting for a better future. Not much to celebrate then, despite the heroic mass mobilization of students, public and private workers, shop-owners, doctors, engineers, unemployed and -frankly- almost everyone.

Still, in a vain attempt to make everyone feel a little bit better, let me suggest you have a look at Zombie Goes Up. It's a lovely and innovative browser-based indie game by the developers of the pretty Dino Quake. It's a beautiful pixel art offering, that let's you guide a zombie from its grave to the surface, where it apparently will help with spreading the Halloween aesthetic. It also is a constantly scrolling action puzzler with great variety and well-designed levels, that does play a bit like an inverted (and way more interesting) version of my humble VVVVVV level.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• Calm and post-apocalyptic serenity
• Excellent free games for falling leaves
• The Book of Living Magic
• Enter the Sweatshop 

Oceanspirit Dennis Fights!

I'm at a loss here. Oceanspirit Dennis is simply demented. Also a freeware, point-and-click, open source and pretty brilliant parody of JRPGs that will definitely put a smile on your tired face dear reader. What do you mean you are not tired? After the fight is over and qptain Nemo's music is done with your ear-canal, you most definitely will be. Oh, and this is a Ben 304 game (of sorts), that you can finish in five minutes, provided of course you first download it.