Season Two of Telltale Games’s Sam n’ Max started last week, with the first episode, “Ice Station Santa,” made available on Gametap and the Telltale website.
If you haven’t tried it out yet and you’re wondering whether it’s good – yes, what I’ve played so far is good! I was a huge fan of the original game, and these games seem like a true enough follow-up to that classic. Definitely take it for a test drive, at least. The fourth episode of Season One, “Abe Lincoln Must Die,” is now free, and you can get it here.
Steve Purcell, the creator of Sam n’ Max, also has an S&M (snicker) webcomic on the Telltale site, and the darn thing was nominated for an Eisner award this year.
I’m all over Sam n’ Max like stripes on a candy cane.
Arthur says, “This video is really misleading because I haven’t done as much work on content as I should’ve been (I’ve been working a lot on improving the game engine instead).”
If you’ve been following the news (like I have), you’ll know that development progress stalled for a bit, then picked back up, and now Mr. Lee has even integrated LUA into the game. In MMF. It’s crazy to me that that’s even possible now.
It makes me wonder, at what point should a Click developer just bite the bullet and move on to C/C++? I have a feeling it’d be a lot easier than most think…
Nothing is the freeware 2D Action/Adventure Platformer currently in development by Logan Ames, with music from Sam Dillard. Sound is currently unavailable in the current build, so currently you can just make noises as you play and insert your own name here for funsies. According to the website, the project began after Logan was influenced by Cave Story, and Pixel’s ability to create something with such beauty with so few colours. Well, we’ve all played Cave Story by now, and so chances are then you know what he’s talking about. While definitely sharing some stylistic qualities, ‘Nothing’ separates itself in a few ways, namely there’s a bigger focus on Metroidvania style exploration and power-up collection and the main character is less a robot and more a fictionalised species of quadraped.
Gameplay-wise it should be fairly familiar to you. You explore, fight, upgrade, explore and fight some more! Not that that’s a bad thing of course, if you enjoy it. But, definitely the selling point of this game for me was the hero, currently nameless as I understand it (Though “Nothing” is itself a place-holder name until an official one is decided. It’s a great name as it stands. And come to think of it so is Logan Ames. Lucky…grumble grumble) you play as a four-legged cat-eared creature that awakens in a cavern. That simple fact alone injects some life in what commenter Chris would probably refer to as “another bloody sidescroller”, and he’s just adorable enough for you to occasionally forget what you were aiming to do in the first place.
(More in the extended! I need some kind of catchphrase for that…)
I’ve always been one for most things in moderation (More ‘Lawful Neutral’ probably, depends what rule set we’re playing by), so I guess I’ll try to balance out my clear Ninja bias with a post about Nelly Cootalot.
Another AGS Adventure game, this one doesn’t actually feel a whole lot like one. Affectionately made for the developer’s girlfriend (Marry her. Marry her now.), Nelly Cootalot is, in the creator’s own words, a “fearsome pirate and lover of tiny and adorable creatures, [who] is charged by the spirit of a dead buccaneer to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a fleet of birds known as spoonbeaks”. It’s far more polished than a lot of AGS creations, the environments are colourful and very charming, with the characters looking the greatest in particular. They’re also fairly fun, especially with the twin shop-owners and the incredibly self-involved Widebeard (As if a name like that required explanation).
Amanita Design, the developer behind the beautiful and surreal Samorost series of games, is working on a new flash adventure game called Machinarium, slated for release in the second half of 2008.
Amanita was reluctant to reveal too many details at such an early stage, but the game will use a classic point-and-click interface, and share certain similarities with the Samorost games, such as 2D backgrounds and characters, and no spoken words. However, Machinarium will be much longer and more complex in many ways, and this time around, the art will be hand-drawn and players will have a small inventory.
Everyone in Machinarium’s original world is a robot, including the main hero of the game shown in one of the concept drawings below, who must stand against the bad guys from the “Black Cap Brotherhood”.
An adventure game by Logan Worsley (in fact, the only adventure game by Logan Worsley), Emily Enough is the story of an 11 year old girl, who like other girls her age occasionally has moments of unpleasantness between her parents and herself. Unlike other girls, though, instead of acting out and hiding under the stairs, Emily decides to slice her family apart to free herself from their ineptitude. Of course, she then ends up in the asylum, where all the medical staff have been replaced with pharmaceutical representatives, a lawyer tries to keep the operation running smoothly from within the female toilets, and a sole security guard polices the entire joint between smelling the underwear he’s not quite ready to sell on eBay just yet.
It could be perfect for Emily, but the whole operation stinks too much for her liking… especially the patients. So, it’s up to you and Emily to work together to escape before it’s too late. Or before Aquaria comes out, because like hell we’ll still be helping her then. I’m sure she’ll understand…
Man, I am terrible at adventure games, and Daymare Town is no exception. I just don’t have the patience for all the hovering and random clicking to uncover hotspots. This one seems especially devious about it.
I notice a lot of flash adventure games that have this sort of dreadful, creepy, lonely atmosphere about them. It’s not a bad thing and this one does a good job of it. The doodley, pen n’ ink art style is wonderful. (Wish there were more “music” options, though.)
They can be wildly innovative, copyright infringing, in full pixelated 2D, remakes of classic games, political, silly, absolutely shite, pop, over 500MB, excellent, boring, free or very cheap; anything at all. And, unlike commercial games, especially the ridiculously expensive ones which we’ve been living with for quite some time, they just can’t be proclaimed dead. As long as people ordinary people care for them, they’ll be around.
It’s true. Nothing ever dies in independent gaming. I’m pretty sure there’s some guy out there who’s a fan of Sewer Shark who’s working on a fantastic new FMV game in his spare time.
Check out the rest of the Gnome’s blog, too… it’s fun times.
I really dig the artwork in Miestas, and the music (Nat King Cole?), but it’s incredibly easy and short. It kind of works to the game’s advantage, though. It’s the gaming equivalent of sipping on some hot cocoa and flipping through a comic book.
