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[Vampire On Titus]

lmao

Fuz there's an old Rex Crowle illustration of Guybrush that actually might make you hang yourself if you saw it. I wont post it here because I'd prefer if you lived.

Ron Gilbert did confirm that they didn't go with that design, though.

 

[Fuz]

Yeah I saw it.

 

[Fuz]

Recently got a steam deck and will be using it to catch up on a lot of these titles I've been waiting to check out. Last night I played about 90 minutes of If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers. Not much in the way of gameplay but still really enjoyable so far. Will be looking to complete it today assuming I'm about half way through.

Surprised this title is free considering how well crafted it is.

Might read this book that influenced the game when I'm done as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_on_a_winter's_night_a_traveler

Thanks for the raccomendation, I played it too.
Very short and very unsettling game, light on puzzles, more of a narrative experience graced by excellent pixel art - especially some special effects (at time it kinda feels wasted on a small free game). A small pixely Sanitarium.
Fuck the slow walking speed, especially in the watery library, though. I know it's part of the experience, but still annoying.

 

[Fuz]

We made Ron cry.

I think we all need a time-out.
grumpygamer.com will be back soon.

Grumpy Gamer

Ron Gilbert's often incoherent and bitter ramblings about the Game Industry

grumpygamer.com

 

[Vampire On Titus]

If that's really because of the backlash, that's crazy. But it's worded vaguely enough that IDK for certain.

Realistically they should have expected this. I'm mixed/okay with the art and how the main cast looks will be make or break for me, personally. But anyone with good sense should have been able to tell that this super angular and abstract style would be polarizing. You're making a game with a baked in audience that's in their 30's~50's, and giving it an art style like an Eric Carle picture book for 5 year olds.

Again, I'm one of the people willing to mentally condition myself to accept it to give it a shot, but this response is entirely predictable and I can't be mad at it. Plus, the online discourse surrounding the art is getting really annoying. There's an increasing sentiment that either you pour lavish praise on the new art or you're some whining man-baby harasser. I'm sorry, no. People who like the art and people who dislike the art are literally doing the exact same thing. They're expressing their opinion on an upcoming game. It's not a requirement that fans have to like everything put in front of them, even for the return of a beloved franchise.

I get that these people are happy because MI's finally back and they view the negative comments as raining on their parade. But I'm sorry, in life not everyone agrees with your opinion and you have to learn to live with it. These people complain about entitled fans by ironically feel entitled to universal praise for the things they enjoy.

 

[Fuz]

If that's really because of the backlash, that's crazy. But it's worded vaguely enough that IDK for certain.

I don't know, obviously, but I think that's the only logical answer.
I've been reading the comments on that last blog post, and while there was displeasure aimed at the art style, none of them were disrespectful (apart from a single guy who honestly sounded quite young). There was also quite a good number of morons people who were stating they liked the new shitty art style.
Guess he's just under a lot of stress and probably a bit sensitive right now.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Yeah it's clear from the adventure gamers interview that the pressure of living up to fan expectations was a big concern of Ron's in developing the new Monkey Island. So it's gatta feel like shit to see so many people disappointed by the new art style. Taking some time to disengage is fine and the healthy thing to do. But once he steps back into the fray he should recognize that 90% of even the most ardent critics for the game's art say they want to play it and hope it's good enough in other areas to be a great game. The vast majority of people are still rooting for this game. Hopefully he can take some comfort in that.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

45% of the way through 13 Sentinels, the adventure part at least, and things are really heating up. It just dropped the possibility that the cast are actually clones sent from the future, then displaced at various points in time. Keitaro's sister, Chihiro, is actually Morimura -- but a clone version from a failed compatibility experiment who's memories were locked. And Yuki is Natsuno's mom, apparently. So far I think Keitaro's sub plot has stuck with me the most. It's just really heart-breaking how he lost everything in his own time and then found his sister in the future and lost her too. Basically shit is going down. And since I'm still not even at 50% yet I'm sure this is all just laying the groundwork for further mind blowing revelations to come.

I'm excited that it feels like I'm at the part of the story where mysteries are starting to pay off.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Congrats to Wormwood Studios/Wadjet Eye for this impressive milestone. Primordia was severely under-rated in the press but I'm glad it found its audience when everything was said and done.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Ron Gilbert's new blog post addressing the backlash.

When I Made Another Monkey Island​

May 01, 2022
Nine years ago I wrote a blog post titled "If I made another Monkey Island" and it feels like there are some things I need to say.

I can't remember the exact incident, but the day I wrote that I was feeling down about never being able to make another Monkey Island. I wrote it in a single afternoon, and it was not much more than a stream of thoughts. In the movie version, tears would have been pouring down my cheeks, but it wasn't the movie version so I was probably sipping coffee and eating a chocolate chip cookie.

My point is these were not commandments handed down and etched in stone on a giant tablet. They were just random thoughts about a (then very unlikely) new Monkey Island game.

None of these are promises or anything I owe anybody.

People talk a lot about Monkey Island 3a as if it was the game I would have made after Monkey Island 2 had I stayed at Lucasfilm.

Here's the deal.

The totality of that idea was "Guybrush chases the demon pirate LeChuck to hell and Stan is there." That's it. That's all it was.

Games, movies, and books don't come out fully formed. They start as a morsel of an idea and then all the hard work begins.

Roger Ebert had a great quote that I am constantly reminding myself of:

"The muse visits during the act of creation, not before."

Had I stayed at Lucasfilm I might have started with that idea, but by the time the game was done it would have been something completely different and better.

And that is exactly what Return to Monkey Island is.

When Dave and I first got together to talk about Return to Monkey Island we had a nearly blank slate. We talked over ideas we'd had over the years including one of mine where Guybrush wakes up 3000 years in the future on a snowball Earth.

We talked about my original "hell" idea but other Monkey Island games had already done much of that (by pure coincidence) and there was little point in rehashing it.

The one thing I wanted to do was start the new game right where LeChuck's Revenge ended, and that became the one unmovable stone.

I have made one pixel art game in my entire career and that was Thimbleweed Park. Monkey Island 1 and 2 weren't pixel art games. They were games using state-of-the-art tech and art. Monkey Island 1 was 16 color EGA and we jumped at the chance to upgrade it to 256 colors. Monkey Island 2 featured the magical wizardry of scanned art by Peter Chan and Steve Purcell and we lusted to keep pushing everything forward.

If I had stayed and done Monkey Island 3 it wouldn't have looked like Monkey Island 2. We would have kept pushing forward, and Day of the Tentacle is a good example of that.

I never liked the art in DotT. Technically and artistically it was fantastic, but I never liked the wacky Chuck Jones style. But that was Dave and Tim's game, not mine. They can do what they want and I completely supported that.

Curse of Monkey Island also took a leap forward. It introduced us to a fully voiced and taller, lankier Guybrush with painted backgrounds that were all the rage in the late 90s. It was very much a game of its time.

When Dave and I first started brainstorming Return to Monkey Island we talked about pixel art, but it didn't feel right. We didn't want to make a retro game. You can't read an article about Thimbleweed Park without it being called a "throwback game". I didn't want Return to Monkey Island to be just a throwback game, I wanted to keep moving Monkey Island forward because it's interesting, fun, and exciting. It's what the Monkey Island games have always done.

I wanted the art in Return to Monkey Island to be provocative, shocking, and not what everyone was expecting. Rex is an amazing creative force and we have a team of incredible artists, animators, sound designers, programmers, and testers all pouring their souls into this game and it's beautiful to see, play, and listen to.

The music Michael, Peter, and Clint are doing is equally amazing. It's not AdLib, Sound Blaster, or even Roland MT-32 music. Its stunning, interactive, and recorded live.

Return to Monkey Island may not be the art style you wanted or were expecting but it's the art style I wanted.

When I started this game my biggest fear was Disney wouldn't let me make the game I wanted to make but they have been wonderful to work with.

It's ironic that the people who don't want me to make the game I want to make are some of the hard core Monkey Island fans. And that is what makes me sad about all the comments.

Return to Monkey Island is an incredible rollercoaster. Get on and have some fun or stomp out of the amusement park because it's not exactly the rollercoaster you wanted.

I hope you'll jump on with the rest of us.

*Seventeen - The game would be the game I wanted to make. I don't want the pressure of trying to make the game you want me to make. I would vanish for long periods of time. I would not constantly keep you up-to-date or be feeding the hype-machine. I'd show stuff that excited me or amused me. If you let me do those things, you will love the game. That, I promise.

This all feels kinda...messy, I suppose? The man is entitled to express his thoughts but this is kinda all over the place IMO. Parts of it come across as petty to me. Plus there's also more conflation between not liking the art and just wanting a retro-throwback. If Return to Monkey Island's screenshots came out looking like Vanillaware production combined with the art direction of a Steve Purcell pinup, I don't think anyone would've complained.

I honestly think the best thing to do would've been to ignore the backlash and wow everyone with an incredible game. At the end of the day if the rest of the game is great people will either warm up to the art in time or put up with it just to play a new Ron Gilbert quality adventure.

 

[Fuz]

I hate the "fans wanted pixel art" strawman so fucking much.

 

[rkofan87]

I hate the "fans wanted pixel art" strawman so fucking much.

lmao you got me i thought someone was dead for real lol.

 

[Fuz]

lmao you got me i thought someone was dead for real lol.

Just my dreams, hopes and faith in humanity.

 

[The Cockatrice]

out this week.

 

[Fuz]

out this week.

Oh, this looks fantastic.


Although this doesn't bode well:

 

[Vampire On Titus]

That puzzle is in the demo, don't worry, you'll solve it in less time than it takes to appear on screen.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Kickstarter campaign launched for Unfortunately Ninja, a classical, Monkey Island inspired, adventure game thats putting its 9 Verb interface front and center. Art looks good and there's apparently a four hour demo available (seems a bit much), so check it out if you're interested.

 

[Fuz]

That puzzle is in the demo, don't worry, you'll solve it in less time than it takes to appear on screen.

Oh the difficulty in itself is not a problem. Actually, it's aggravating - if it's so easy why even put it in the game to begin with? I personally just hate when devs put puzzles (in the literal sense of the term) in P&C games. Worst offender, the 15 tile puzzle which plagued every sort of game in the 90s. And if there's one, there's probably more.
They tend to pull me out of the game's world, and besides... if I wanted to play a puzzle game, I would have played a puzzle game.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Oh the difficulty in itself is not a problem. I personally just hate when devs put puzzles (in the literal sense of the term) in P&C games. Worst offender, the 15 tile puzzle which plagued every sort of game in the 90s.
They tend to pull me out of the game's world, and besides... if I wanted to play a puzzle game, I would have played a puzzle game.

I get you. I enjoy independent logic puzzles sometimes if they're creative enough and there's not too many. Although I'm not sure if I've ever enjoyed a sliding tile puzzle in any context. This puzzle in particular is actually more of a riddle than a sliding tile puzzle in the actual game.

One game that really sucks for this is Broken Sword Director's Cut. No idea why they shit on a classic game by adding a bunch of pointless slider puzzles.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Nah actually the worst I've ever encountered was at the start of one of the Sherlock Holmes games that's basically "know the Knight's Tour or you cant solve this puzzle." But at least some part of Frogwares knew better and let you skip them.

 

[Fuz]

My pride would never allow me to skip them, even if I hate them.

 

[Fuz]

Kickstarter campaign launched for Unfortunately Ninja, a classical, Monkey Island inspired, adventure game thats putting its 9 Verb interface front and center. Art looks good and there's apparently a four hour demo available (seems a bit much), so check it out if you're interested.

Just started the demo. It's perfect. At first glance it got everything right except that anime character design on an artistic/game design standpoint. That ™ is annoying though, I know why it's there, I don't like that why and I hope the game will not be packed with references, seems that everybody else does that and they only destroy worldbuilding. Also, they should have used QWE-ASD-ZXC for verbs shortcuts instead of the initials, but that's just me liking being grumpy. Edit: Oh, they should have put the save/load menus on F5 and F9 instead of ESC. You know why.
The animations stand out and are really good - so far.
This is potentially an excellent game.
More later on.

Edit: "tizioecaio will remember this" no. Please no. I hated Telltale for that. Feels like they thought players are morons and need to be pedantically told everything like small children.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Edit: "tizioecaio will remember this" no. Please no. I hated Telltale for that. Feels like they thought players are morons and need to be pedantically told everything like small children.

Yeah, I always turned that off in TTG games because to me it cheapened the experience. I kinda want to imagine that any of those choice might matter, so to explicitly know "it's just these few" always took me out of the game.

Gonna give that demo a shot soon, looks really good. Although I'll probably only play an hour or so of it. Four hours feels like a long time to play an adventure game that you can't finish.

Also, Crowns & Pawns is out today:

out this week.

(on GOG as well)

 

[Fuz]

Also, Crowns & Pawns is out today:
(on GOG as well)

I'm already losing sleep to play, how the fuck am I supposed to play everything I want to play?

 

[The Cockatrice]

It better not have some cliffhanger ending with to be continued bs or I swear...

 

[Fuz]

It better not have some cliffhanger ending with to be continued bs or I swear...

Why do you think it could?

 

[The Cockatrice]

Why do you think it could?

Just a gut feeling.

 

[Fuz]

Just started the demo. It's perfect. At first glance it got everything right except that anime character design on an artistic/game design standpoint. That ™ is annoying though, I know why it's there, I don't like that why and I hope the game will not be packed with references, seems that everybody else does that and they only destroy worldbuilding. Also, they should have used QWE-ASD-ZXC for verbs shortcuts instead of the initials, but that's just me liking being grumpy. Edit: Oh, they should have put the save/load menus on F5 and F9 instead of ESC. You know why.
The animations stand out and are really good - so far.
This is potentially an excellent game.
More later on.

Edit: "tizioecaio will remember this" no. Please no. I hated Telltale for that. Feels like they thought players are morons and need to be pedantically told everything like small children.

Done with the demo. 4 hours my ass
It's good and can potentially be excellent. The demo is really, really easy though. Insultingly easy. Hope it gets more complex in the final product. The "puzzles" are immediately obvious, and the only moment I got stuck was because I didn't notice an item in the background. The game needs a hotspot key, especially considering that when you select an action it gets "stuck" on the UI and you can't "explore" the background with the pointer to look for other hotspots. Veeeery frustrating to me, I think some recent game had the same issue, can't remember which one though.

If I remember correctly, Maniac Mansion and Zak had this same issues, maybe Indy 3 too, but no other Lucasfilm game.
The writing is a little on the amateurish side and often too straight to the point, making the characters less believable. The puzzles suffer from this issue too, for example you get the three trials!!! and you complete them 2 minutes later, without any world building or character building. The game has no breadth and this kills the sense of adventure. I hope it's just very semplified for the demo. The choice and consequences system has no real effect in this small demo, but they definitely could and it feels that the devs are aiming too high. I can't imagine all the choices having an effect with a P&C game budget, especially the big one at the end of the demo. Which is only the beginning, so more should have been planned.
But again, the art is really excellent, both the pixel art itself and the nice animations. The characters are potentially interesting. The game is potentially great. The devs just need to iron some little bits here and there and they could have a memorable game on their hands.

Edit: another little thing. Often, when I finish reading a sentence and click the mouse button to skip to the next, it ends up skipping the next one not letting me read it (I usually reload the game because I'm not a sane person). This happens way too often, so I guess they need a bit of fixing on the dialogue timing.

Edit2: the music is good, well composed, pleasant and appropriate for the setting, but the main theme, while also good, isn't really suited to be the main theme IMHO.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Started playing Crowns and Pawns and so far my initial impressions are that she has a nice ass, oh and the game is pretty good so far as well.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Finished 13 Sentinels and began playing Crowns & Pawns. I can confirm both statements.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Enjoying my time with Crowns & Pawns. The story moves at a really brisk pace, and while I do think it could stand to linger on certain topics for a bit longer, I'm liking the developments so far. It's got a really colorful and clean style which works great for avoiding pixel hunts in an adventure game. Milda's a fun protag and her observations are enjoyable to click through, there's an occasional line that dips into saccharine territory for my tastes, but I'm a Life is Strange fan so I've endured worse.

The only thing I've encountered that I would call a significant issue is a single puzzle where the game wants you to use its notes mechanics to combine clues (similar to Blackwell or the Edgeworth AA spinoff). You can actually get the answer correct (as I did) but the game won't accept it until you do a very particular inventory interaction to verify the thought in the characters brain. Not great but I haven't encountered anything like it since and hopefully it stays that way.

 

[Danjin44]

AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative delayed to July 8 in Europe

Spike Chunsoft, in cooperation with distributor Numskull Gmaes, has delayed AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative from its previously planned June 24 release date in Europe to July 8. Th…

www.gematsu.com

July 8 in Europe

 

[Vampire On Titus]

I finished Crowns & Pawns, it's actually a rather short game. Overall I'd say it's solid, it looks good, the VA is well done (especially by indie game standards), there's good puzzle variety, and the characters are all likable enough, there's even a few moments that I found laugh out loud funny (the bus driver's reaction to Milda's home made shirt). There were two puzzles I felt were actually bad, if not conceptually bad then executed poorly. In both instances what the game wants from you is too specific for the lack of sign posting they give. It's not that the solutions don't make sense, they're just very particular. The example of this I mentioned earlier is even more bewildering because there's a very similar puzzle later in the game that actually does correctly prompt the player to give the kind of interaction the game wants.

Relatively minor gameplay complaints aside the biggest thing that keeps Crowns & Pawns shy of being a great game is that it lacks the build of intrigue from its primary inspiration, Broken Sword. That game really took its time establishing the villains and teasing out its mystery across many different locales. Crowns & Pawns has an interesting historical conspiracy plot to its own but rushes to the finish line, so you don't get as much time to speculate and let the mystery take shape in your mind. Also, the end leaves a proper resolution to two major threads untouched, and instead ends on a thematic note that didn't get enough support from the prior story IMO (That family is more important than pursuing the wealth of the Crown. If they wanted to hammer that theme home there really should have been a middle act where Milda loses her way, and acts selfishly at the expense of her family & friends while pursuing the Crown, then realizes that she lost herself finally rejecting the Crown having learned a lesson. You also probably should have explicitly uncovered the nature of the Crown's curse before the final cut-scene)

For that Crowns & Pawns is a fun game with many good moments, but falls short of its ambitions. I'd give it a 7/10.

 

[The Cockatrice]

It's out. Played the entire series with a friend a while back and now we're replaying it before tackling the new one.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Interesting.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Interesting.

I saw this a few months back but it didn't have a Steam page. Had no idea it was coming out so soon, and with a soundtrack by Peter McConnell! They need to get a better trailer up on that page if it's really launching so soon, though.

 

[The Cockatrice]

I saw this a few months back but it didn't have a Steam page. Had no idea it was coming out so soon, and with a soundtrack by Peter McConnell! They need to get a better trailer up on that page if it's really launching so soon, though.

They need better marketing indeed. I didnt even know this existed and it looks really great.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Small VA teaser for Old Skies. Seems like Dave's using the same voice actors from the original game jam entry.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Small VA teaser for Old Skies. Seems like Dave's using the same voice actors from the original game jam entry.

The descri[tion also says they are preparing for a demo on the steam next fest so that should be soon.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

I will say that personally I wish Dave hadn't scrapped the character portraits. He said it was because this game was HD and that he felt the character art itself was detailed enough that it would be redundant, but the range of expressions you get from a full painted portrait vs a face made of just a few lines makes a difference to me. Not a super big deal or anything but I have gotten used to them in Wadjet Eye games.

 

[plushyp]

The demo for this game was released 2 years ago and I had forgotten about playing it. The new trailer popped on my YT homepage out of nowhere and saw that it's releasing on 21 July.

Wayward Strand

waywardstrand.com

 

[Vampire On Titus]

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is a new unique mystery-adventure game.
Directed by Koichiro Ito, and with Yasuhito Tachibana as the Cinematographer and Scenario Director, beautiful yet thrilling live-action footage intertwines with mysteries to solve, creating highly immersive gameplay.

The player follows a chain of murders which take place over the span of a century. Four murders have been committed in three different time periods - 1922, 1972, and 2022.
Each episode is comprised of three parts, the Incident phase, the Reasoning phase, and the Solution phase, inviting the player to seamlessly enter into this world of mystery.
Explore these time periods, collect multiple clues, and solve a 100-year mystery.

The Shijima family have suffered a chain of inexplicable deaths over the past century.
When Haruka Kagami, a mystery novelist, visits the Shiijmas, she finds herself taking on four different murder cases - occurring at different points in time.

The red camellia and the Fruit of Youth, which invite only death.
And the truth behind it all, waiting to be uncovered...

Haruka Kagami, the main character, is an up-and-coming mystery writer.
Play as Haruka Kagami and pit your wits against the murder cases.

Each murder case comprises of three parts.

The Incident phase: See the entire murder as it unfolds, from start to end. The keys needed to solve the mysteries surrounding the murder can always be found in the video itself.

The Reasoning phase: Put together the [Clues] and [Mysteries] found during the Incident phase and create a hypothesis in your cognitive space. You can create multiple hypotheses, but not all of them will be correct. Some things you uncover may lead you down the wrong path.

The Solution phase: Pin down the killer based on the hypothesis you created in the Reasoning phase. Select the correct hypothesis to determine the killer. When facing a trickier culprit, they may attempt to refute your claims, so strike back with your reasoning!

Square Enix's FMV adventure game is out today. I'm tempted to jump in despite the steep price because the deduction mechanic is very interesting to me. A while back when I was deep diving into Japanese adventures I came across a blog by someone called "Tantei Kid" IIRC. He reviewed all kinds of mystery fiction and also understood Japanese, so he'd played a lot of the detective style games I was looking up. One of the games Tantei Kid praised a lot was Trick X Logic for PSP and this game has staff that worked on Trick X Logic and uses a similar puzzle mechanic. So it's kinda my chance to finally try it out. The price really is steep though, so I'll likely wait for reviews.

 

[The Cockatrice]

I finished Crowns & Pawns, it's actually a rather short game. Overall I'd say it's solid, it looks good, the VA is well done (especially by indie game standards), there's good puzzle variety, and the characters are all likable enough, there's even a few moments that I found laugh out loud funny (the bus driver's reaction to Milda's home made shirt). There were two puzzles I felt were actually bad, if not conceptually bad then executed poorly. In both instances what the game wants from you is too specific for the lack of sign posting they give. It's not that the solutions don't make sense, they're just very particular. The example of this I mentioned earlier is even more bewildering because there's a very similar puzzle later in the game that actually does correctly prompt the player to give the kind of interaction the game wants.

Relatively minor gameplay complaints aside the biggest thing that keeps Crowns & Pawns shy of being a great game is that it lacks the build of intrigue from its primary inspiration, Broken Sword. That game really took its time establishing the villains and teasing out its mystery across many different locales. Crowns & Pawns has an interesting historical conspiracy plot to its own but rushes to the finish line, so you don't get as much time to speculate and let the mystery take shape in your mind. Also, the end leaves a proper resolution to two major threads untouched, and instead ends on a thematic note that didn't get enough support from the prior story IMO (That family is more important than pursuing the wealth of the Crown. If they wanted to hammer that theme home there really should have been a middle act where Milda loses her way, and acts selfishly at the expense of her family & friends while pursuing the Crown, then realizes that she lost herself finally rejecting the Crown having learned a lesson. You also probably should have explicitly uncovered the nature of the Crown's curse before the final cut-scene)

For that Crowns & Pawns is a fun game with many good moments, but falls short of its ambitions. I'd give it a 7/10.

I just finished it as well. Certainly not a 12+ hour game like the devs said, unless you're really really bad at these sort of games. Took me 7/8h only because I was dumb as shit at two puzzles. Will do steam review later but suffice to say, story wise, was ok, ending sucked ass, obviously rushed even if its a proper ending. You can even tell by the zone itself that there was clearly supposed to be a puzzle there with the pieces but they just said eh fuck it lets end it and thats it, you dont find out a ton of things, lots of plot holes, and as you said it lacks intrigue, suspense and most importantly theres no danger. It's very safe. Gameplay was pretty good, puzzles were not idiotic nor extremely obtuse so no huge complaints there, plus I liked that they tried to do some multiple ways to do stuff based on what your main character has as a job. Audio wise was also good, voice acting well done, I laughed, and the main character has charisma, side characters are just okay. Decent soundtrack as well. Atmosphere wise was a bit lackluster, not that many interesting backgrounds, for someone who travels a lot you see quite a lot of boring locations and very few.

Overall I'll prolly give it a 7/10 as well.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Some gameplay for Voodoo Detective



This looks hilarious. It's insane how they are not promoting this wtf.

 

[Fuz]

Some gameplay for Voodoo Detective



This looks hilarious. It's insane how they are not promoting this wtf.

Oh wow, this looks surprisingly good.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

I just finished it as well. Certainly not a 12+ hour game like the devs said, unless you're really really bad at these sort of games. Took me 7/8h only because I was dumb as shit at two puzzles. Will do steam review later but suffice to say, story wise, was ok, ending sucked ass, obviously rushed even if its a proper ending. You can even tell by the zone itself that there was clearly supposed to be a puzzle there with the pieces but they just said eh fuck it lets end it and thats it, you dont find out a ton of things, lots of plot holes, and as you said it lacks intrigue, suspense and most importantly theres no danger. It's very safe. Gameplay was pretty good, puzzles were not idiotic nor extremely obtuse so no huge complaints there, plus I liked that they tried to do some multiple ways to do stuff based on what your main character has as a job. Audio wise was also good, voice acting well done, I laughed, and the main character has charisma, side characters are just okay. Decent soundtrack as well. Atmosphere wise was a bit lackluster, not that many interesting backgrounds, for someone who travels a lot you see quite a lot of boring locations and very few.

Overall I'll prolly give it a 7/10 as well.

Yeah, I'd agree that they played it too safe in certain aspects. Personally I think they should've taken more risks with Milda's character like I mentioned, but there's other parts too. Someone on the Steam forums made a good point comparing how you discover the manuscript in Crowns & Pawns vs sneaking into Kahn's hotel room, feeling as though you might be caught, escaping on a second story ledge, etc. Milda does encounter some threatening scenarios in the game's final 3rd, but like most of the late game, it feels pretty rushed.

Some gameplay for Voodoo Detective



This looks hilarious. It's insane how they are not promoting this wtf.

High res art style and not only did they keep the character portraits... they animated them.

;_;

 

[Fuz]

Just started Crowns and Pawns, not much to say for now, really like the art and the voice actors. I've been to Vilnius years ago, it will be interesting to play around there, wonder how faithful will it be.

But anyway, just wanted to share this.

Spoiler

Sorry if old.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

A newly announced "killing and solving" detective adventure game by the studio best known for The House In Fata Morgana, NOVECT. Description from the game's press kit:

From the developer of The House in Fata Morgana, NOVECT, currently in development is a brand new mystery adventure game set in a downtown Tokyo of modern Japan.
You, the player, create murder scenes as a killer, and pursue the truth of serial murder case as a sleuth.

Traditional adventure-style detective part and a special murder part
In the detective part, the player pursues the mystery of the case in an adventure game style where the player moves around the map, investigating and asking people.
In the murder part, the player becomes the murderer in a special game part where the player plans and executes various perfect crimes, such as completing a locked room murder or faking a suicide note.

Protagonist, a corpse disposal business, takes on a series of murders in downtown Tokyo in modern Japan.
Along with the protagonist, who works for a corpse disposal company, the story explores Asakusa and Yoshiwara, downtown Tokyo in modern Japan, to solve a serial murder case.
While depicting the dark side of Japan, including the Japanese underworld, the story follows the mysteries with a total of over 20 fascinating characters.
We are working hard to develop this game so that players can enjoy the exciting suspense and the thrill of solving a mystery.

An Interview With Hanada Keika of NOVECT About the Developer’s New Detective Adventure Game, Aiming for a Global Launch, and More - The Mako Reactor:

Project Code Name M’s gameplay system explained by NOVECT​

“The game system is divided into a traditional adventure-style detective part with point-and-click gameplay,” he says. “It also has a unique murder part which the player plans and executes. It has serious aspects including those involving the dark side of Japan, but there is a lot of character interaction with strong personalities to make it not feel too serious at all times.”

Hanada Keika goes on to talk about the recent media he enjoys for this approach.

“I like works that dare to show heavy themes in a light approach. For games, Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, and AI: The Somnium Files do this well. For dramas, I love Netflix’s How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) very much,” he says. “But I love to give people despair, so I hope you are prepared for that. Everyone has become more tolerant with The House in Fata Morgana’s plot, so it should be fine, right?”

I'll be interested to see what kind of trick allows you to plan a murder that you still wind up solving. I'm liking the kind of crazy this game is putting out.

 

[Fuz]

Are you a Spud?

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Are you a Spud?

l.

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