Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is hitting online stores on May 21st, and to juice you up for the release the PA guys are doing a countdown, and releasing a page of a comic each day. If you’re interested, take a look at this very positive hands-on preview by Chris Kohler at Game|Life. The game’s also gotten some very mixed reviews by the mainstream press, according to Gabe.
Precipice will be the first game released via Penny Arcade/Hothead Studios’ new indie game website, Greenhouse. It will be released for Windows, Mac, and Linux simultaneously.
Penny Arcade and Hothead Games have announced the launch of Greenhouse (Beta), their new portal for downloadable PC titles. The first title to be launched, of course, is Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, which is being developed by Hothead.
[Jerry “Tycho”] Holkins says that the idea is to give indie gamemakers a better financial shake. “I think that most publishing arrangements are full of shit,” he says, pointing out that Greenhouse will give indie gamemakers a better share of the profits.
Naturally, the games will be hand-picked by Tycho and Gabe themselves. No indies are currently on board, although Gabe did have this to say in their interview with Wired:
[If] you’re asking me what sort of things are out there right now that I would love to see on Greenhouse? The crayon game. Crayon Physics. That’s the sort of thing that I would love to put in front of our audience, and say, you guys should play this, definitely. And obviously, we can link it, but to be able to actually distribute it through Greenhouse would be fantastic. It would enable us in a way that would be easy for the developer to get it out there with a royalty structure that is not full of shit. Which I think is a great combination.
So what to say, other than that this is exciting news? The enormous, built-in fanbase, the general attitude… I hope the PA guys pull this one off.
Gabe and Tycho have announced that, in cooperation with the DigiPen Institute of Technology, this year’s Penny Arcade Expo will feature PAX 10, a showcase of 10 independent games selected by 50 industry experts (including the two main men themselves). The games will sit right on the expo floor, and attendees will be able to vote for one of the games to win an “Audience Choice Award,” to be announced on the website the next week.
You have until May 7th to submit your game here (it’s $50). PAX, in case you didn’t know, is an annual, 3-day orgy in Washington for video game lovers around the globe. This year it starts on August 29th.
...along with the PC, Mac, and Linux! Not sure if it’s a simultaneous release, however.
Still rather ambivalent about this one, but it’s looking better all the time. One thing that still irks me is how brown the screenshots are, compared to the colorfulness of the comic strip. I understand that they’re going for a steampunk/noir vibe but… okay, I’m going to stop complaining until the game is released! I’m sure it’ll be fun and funny regardless.
Here is the first trailer for Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Loquaciousness, Episode One, Chapter 17, Version 1.02.05.1 Beta. (Penny Arcade’s first game.)
[Prepare for BMcC Rant mode in the extended! -Derek]
