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Silence: The Whispered World 2 arriving in late 2014 on PC and Mac
Silence: The Whispered World 2 will arrive in late 2014, Daedalic Entertainment announced today. The German developer will bring the sequel to its 2010 adventure game, The Whispered World, to both PC and Mac. As indicated by the title, players return to the dream-like world of Silence in the game, controlling a boy named Noah on his journey to find his younger sister Renie. Daedalic noted that some "familiar faces" will return in the sequel along with "a host of new features." The developer didn't mention any specifics, though the adventure game will likely adopt similar point-and-click mechanics as those used in the first game. Gametrailers has a debut video for Silence: The Whispered World 2, which sets up the game's dreary environments and wartime-like atmosphere.
Hotline Miami publisher to tackle crowdfunded point-and-clicker Dropsy
Devolver Digital announced that it will publish crowdfunded indie adventure game Dropsy. The game's Kickstarter project, which successfully surpassed its $14,000 goal, is slated to end on November 24. Designer Jay Tholen explained in an update on the project's page that Devolver Digital will help the developer with marketing, QA and localization of the game, and will top off development funds to ensure it reaches its stretch goals. In development since 2011, the PC, Mac and Linux game is a point-and-click adventure game in which characters guide a "misunderstood but cheerful" ex-clown named Dropsy through a "surreal, grotesque world." With his dog Eughh at his side, Dropsy journeys through the world to bring happiness to others, offering unwanted hugs to everyone, as he "doesn't recognize anyone as his enemy." Tholen notes in the game's pitch video that it is almost entirely text-free, replacing traditional point-and-click elements with symbols that players need to interpret on their own to reflect Dropsy's inability to speak. Devolver Digital noted that "any and all funds collected via Kickstarter will of course remain with the developer to fund the development of Dropsy," and that it "is not involved with money from backers nor do we have any say in how it is used." Tholen and his team sought funding on Kickstarter for the game twice before: The developer raised $1,613 in November 2011 before failing to reach its $25,000 goal in July of this year.
First episode of Broken Sword 5 pointing and clicking on December 4
The first episode of Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse will launch on December 4, developer Revolution Software announced. The point-and-click adventure will arrive on PC, Mac and Linux first with Android and iOS versions following "soon after," though no release date for the mobile games has been set. The game will also come to Vita later this year. Revolution Software earned $771,561 on Kickstarter in September 2012 to fund the next entry in the adventure series, which began in 1996. Broken Sword 5 is split into two episodes, each episode being "a full sized game in its own right," the developer writes. The second episode is due out in January 2014.
Indie dev gives game away, hackers steal 30,000 Steam keys overnight
Husband and wife duo Wadjet Eye Games started a giveaway yesterday, offering up Steam codes for Blackwell Deception to celebrate Halloween. The indie developer opted to cancel the adventure game giveaway today after discovering that 30,000 Steam keys were stolen by hackers. The problem was even bigger at first as founder Dave Gilbert discovered that, after issuing a press release to the media about the giveaway earlier this week, the generated keys unlocked Wadjet Eye Games' entire catalog. After sorting that issue out, Gilbert discovered that buyers were "ordering multiple copies of the game – hundreds at a time. And collecting Steam keys for reselling later," he told Red Door Blue Key. Gilbert asked his sales provider, BMT, to create an IP-detecting Steam code generator page, though it didn't stop resellers from masking their IPs to continue their thieving efforts. After removing the link to the Steam key generator, Gilbert returned today to find that because the generator itself still existed, some 30,000 keys had been stolen. He announced via Twitter that Steam has disabled the keys generated after midnight and that, per his request, no bans will be issued to those that redeemed the Steam codes. Blackwell Deception is the fourth game in the Blackwell adventure series, and was first made available on Steam in January 2012. The game can be purchased for $10, though Wadjet Eye Games is also offering a four-game bundle of the series to date for $20.
Sepulchre, a free indie horror game from Richard & Alice devs
There are a few reasons Sepulchre may be the perfect game to start off your week: It's a horror point-and-click from Owl Cave, the developers of the intensely emotional, four-star adventure, Richard & Alice It takes place on a train, starring a curious museum curator It's short It's free The two-man development team at Owl Cave proved itself with Richard & Alice, crafting a story of loss and survival that transcended the game's pixelated art style. Sepulchre is an adventure short, clocking in at under two hours of playtime, and it's a subtle brand of horror game, Owl Cave says: There are no jump-scare moments, but it's consistently eerie and contains moments of unexplainable, train-based unease. Sepulchre is out now for PC only, in the free version or a $3 Special Edition that includes the game, soundtrack, two wallpapers and a digital copy of Bright Lights and Glass Houses, a collection of short horror stories from Owl Cave writer Ashton Raze. Buy it (or just play it) here.
Beautiful adventure game Candle seeking Kickstarter, Greenlight approval
Spanish developer Teku Studios is hard at work on its introductory game Candle, and is seeking $40,000 on Kickstarter by Friday, August 16 to pay for development costs. Candle is a platformer-meets-adventure game in which players guide a "shaman pupil" named Teku, rescuing fellow survivors of his village following an attack from a rival tribe. Teku Studios' project video shows off some of the hand-painted watercolor backdrops for Candle, and discusses the "dynamic graphic adventure" style inspired by games like Out of this World and platforming elements from games such as Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. Teku Studios has raised $14,944 so far in its crowdfunding efforts, and is hoping to bring Candle to Steam through Greenlight. The developer plans to launch the game in January 2014 on PC.
Lone Survivor delayed to September
Point-and-click survival horror game Lone Survivor has been delayed to September, Curve Studios announced via Twitter. The game's designer, Jasper Byrne, recently noted that Curve Studios' port of the game to PS3 and Vita has led to "hundreds of tiny little changes and improvements." It was originally planned to arrive on Sony's consoles this summer. Since the game "has a lot of new hidden, dark corners" and "even looks and sounds pretty different," Byrne said the PS3 and Vita version will be known as Lone Survivor: The Director's Cut. Curve Studios said it would "rather release an amazing game later than a good game early."
GOG.com adventure game sale offers cheap thrills
Need some more adventure in your life? GOG.com has you covered, knocking 60 percent off a dozen adventure games. Notable games include The Longest Journey, Blackwell, Botanicula, Gemini Rue, Machinarium, To the Moon and, for some reason, Incredipede. With the exception of Miasmata, Dreamfall and the Blackwell bundle, which are $5.99 apiece, all the games are $3.99 each. The sale ends Tuesday morning at 11:59 ET.
PSA: Cryptic point-and-clicker Hiversaires out now on iOS
Hiversaires, a "cryptic point & click adventure game in a textless world," is out now on iOS for $2.99. The adventure game was developed by Devine Lu Linvega, a French Canadian designer currently living in Japan.Hiversaires was "created for adventurers who remember drawing maps to survive," its official site reads. Check out the game's mysterious art style in the gallery below. %Gallery-186413%
Armikrog is the new clay adventure game from The Neverhood creators
We heard last month that the folks behind 1996's The Neverhood were at work on a new clay-motion adventure game, and the name has now been revealed: It's called Armikrog. The title has also earned a website, a Twitter profile, and a Facebook page. There's also a very (very) short video clip available, but all it shows is a confusingly full whiteboard, the scrabblings on which may or may not have much to do with the final product.We do know that it's all being put together by Neverhood creator Doug TenNapel, with help from Mike Dietz and Ed Schofield (a.k.a. Pencil Test Studios) and Neverhood composer Terry Taylor.
Editorial: Point out the definition of adventure games until it clicks
As the underground cult of indie development surges to the surface and crowdfunding allows vague ideas to transform into products, the scope of gaming bubbles and changes. Games now span spectrums of physical input and emotional amplitude, and our perspectives change with them.Amid this upheaval is an age-old genre that for some reason resists attempts of acceptance in the "hardcore" gaming audience: point-and-click adventures. They're just choose-your-own-adventure stories; they're interactive novels; the choices in them don't matter – all arguments against adventures as true games, while shoot-die-respawn titles play on, unchallenged.Joystiq's own Top 10 of 2012 list includes The Walking Dead, a high-profile and famously intense point-and-click, and my own Best of the Rest has Yesterday, a gritty adventure from Pendulo Studios. Obviously, we consider both of these games to be games. Other players, maybe not so much – so let the argument begin.In order to debate whether adventure games are, in fact, games, we first need a shared definition of the term. Without definition, you could argue that The Walking Dead isn't a game and I could just as passionately espouse why it is, and we could both be correct within the worlds of our own, secret definitions. While mutually assured correctness sounds like a wonderful conclusion, in reality it does nothing to examine the question at hand and leads to huffy frustration, leaving the debate unresolved forever.What we're really arguing is the definition of a "game," rather than any particular sub-genre, which are all just variations of that main theme. This is my definition.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Anna
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, Dreampainters talks ancient Italian legend, modern murder and the beauty of point-and-click adventure games with its new PC release, Anna. What's your game called and what's it about?The game is called Anna and is a point-and-click graphic adventure about a "sort of haunted" sawmill.What inspired you to make Anna?The main inspiration came from a real-life old sawmill in Valle D'Aosta, an all-mountain region in Italy (to be very precise, in Val D'Ayas). It is an ancient and beautiful place, with some legends about ghosts and hauting around it. We mixed all this with a set of local legends and personal stuff. This game is actually a true homage to Val D'Ayas and its heritage.%Gallery-167122%
Fan-made Mass Effect adventure game surfaces
A Mass Effect fan-game by the name of Finding Shepard popped up on the Adventure Game Studio forums recently. Created by AGS forums user Nightfable, Finding Shepard is an in-progress game set in the Mass Effect universe that directly follows the events of Mass Effect 3.Without spoiling too much of the story from the series, Finding Shepard stars Jack, who is searching for Commander Shepard after the "destroy" version of the series' ending. The point-and-click adventure style of the game lends itself to some interesting takes on the climactic points of the series' plot, and gives fans that weren't thrilled with the ending (or the Extended Cut DLC) an opportunity to experience other stories that folks like Nightfable wish to tell in BioWare's universe.In other words, we'd totally play it. Check out screens from the project in our gallery below.%Gallery-162245%
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Resonance
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, Vince Wesselmann throws it back to an adventurous era with his point-and-click title, Resonance, which launched today on Steam at 10 percent off. What's your game called and what's it about?My labor of love is called Resonance. It's a point-and-click adventure game where you take control of four characters and their memories to work your way through a complex sci-fi mystery. A scientist has died after creating a terrible new technology and the race is on to secure his secret vault before the technology falls into the wrong hands. The player can use the unique short-term memory system to talk to any character in the game about practically anything you see. So you'll have to do some logical thinking to figure out how to navigate the game's tricky puzzles and twisty plot.What's the coolest aspect of Resonance?One of the unique features to this game is the Short-Term Memory system, which is tightly interwoven with the dialogue system. In most adventure games, when you talk to a character, you choose from a small selection of dialogue options the designer has chosen for you. Resonance has that as well, but it adds on the ability to "remember" any object you see in the game using your Short-Term Memory. You can then use these memories in conversation with any character in the game.Since the correct options are no longer served up on a silver platter, you'll have to think critically about which topics of conversation might help you in each situation. And with hundreds of possible objects to talk about, brute-forcing these solutions is right out the window. The window, by the way, can also be used as a Short-Term Memory in dialogue.
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Directors Cut brings point-and-poke adventure to Android
If you're not familiar with the point-and-click classic Broken Sword, then you owe it to yourself to snatch up the Directors Cut of Shadow of the Templars. Originally released in 1996, this title is considered by many to be the pinnacle of genre, one that has fallen out of favor in the age of accelerated 3D graphics and first-person shooters. For $4, in a revamped format with touch-friendly controls, the Revolution Software-produced mystery is a no-brainer. Just don't blame us when your day disappears as you unravel a vast conspiracy involving the Knights Templar, mimes and a terrorist clown (as if you needed more of a reason to hate those things).
First trailer for Anna, a pretty, spooky and pretty spooky title from Italy [Update]
This little indie ditty has been on our radar for a few months now, intriguing us with slick graphics and a mysterious, vague storyline that seems to smear the line between Dear Esther and Amnesia. Anna takes inspiration from ancient legends in Val D'Ayas, a scenic valley in northern Italy, developer Dreampainters says. Anna is a PC-exclusive, point-and-click exploration title which, as is obvious in the above trailer, has a dark, subtly terrifying edge to it. It has three different endings, each taking about three hours to complete, thus bringing the entire experience to around nine hours. Anna is coming at a "budget price," according to Dreampainters. Update: That's definitely the release date at the end of the trailer up there, so keep a lookout for Anna on May 18, 2012. We'd look out for it ourselves, but apparently we need to get our glasses checked.
Double Fine Kickstarter adds new rewards, Schafer and Gilbert talk it out
Double Fine's fundraiser for its point-and-click adventure title exploded on day one and has currently raised almost $2.1 million, and there are still 18 days left. To celebrate, reward its backers and entice even more, Double Fine has revamped its rewards for denomination-specific donations as follows: $30 tier: Digital Soundtrack of the Documentary $60 tier: Double Fine Adventure Book (digital PDF) $100 tier: Special edition box set with the game disc and DVD/Blu-Ray documentary $500 tier: Double Fine Adventure Book (physical copy)As standard for Kickstarter projects, hitting a higher reward tier gets backers all of the rewards from previous tiers as well. For extra incentive, the 35-minute discussion between Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert -- filmed before the Kickstarter began -- demonstrates the passion and thought that will be fueling Double Fine's game; check it out above.
Yesterday's gritty, gutsy style makes us excited for tomorrow
Welcome to the Renaissance.The point-and-click adventure is back and it has nothing to do with Tim Schafer, Double Fine or Kickstarter. This particular revolution is being led by Pendulo Studios' gritty, stylized PC thriller, Yesterday, which marks a departure from the developer's previous title, The Next Big Thing, in a few crucial and exciting ways: Yesterday is not a comedy, though the dialogue retains a brilliant wit. It has nothing to do with the film industry. It involves the psychological analysis of a homeless man who believes his son, who was definitely killed in a tragic subway-tunnel collapse, is still alive.Maybe you have to be just as disturbed as Pendulo's fictional homeless man to really appreciate that last one, but if you are -- boy is it a treat.Pendulo has a solid track record in the point-and-click adventure genre -- they liked it before it was cool, even -- with the Runaway series and The Next Big Thing, but the studio had something to prove when it boldly announced that it was giving up comedy to offer an original, dark thriller with Yesterday. The game retains Pendulo's trademark art style, exaggerated features and colors that appear hand-painted over 3D models, and it is just as appealing as it was in 2003. This time around, however, not just the story is darker, but the palate is as well, with much of what I played taking place in a derelict, abandoned subway channel (I bet you can guess which one).
Botanicula video teases Amanita Design's next adventure
You likely know Amanita Design for its work on semi-sweet, semi-sad robot adventure Machinarium. The Czech team's upcoming Botanicula, billed as a "point and click exploration game," has more ... organic roots.
Samsung camera patent application adds simulated depth-of-field to point-and-clicks
High-end DSLRs are pricey and a tad complicated for the everyday user, but that doesn't stop most folks from wanting to take professional-looking shots of their own. Enter Samsung with a patent application that could add simulated depth-of-field discernment to your average point-and-click and smartphone camera. According to the filing, a dual-lens setup -- similar to the 3D cameras we've seen hit the market -- delegates full-resolution image capture to a primary lens, while its secondary partner calculates object distances. The data is then merged with the initial image "to create a depth map" with simulated blur, saving you from tedious Photoshop drudgery. No word on whether this neat trick will make its way to consumers' hands -- but with 3D still the reigning buzz, we'd upgrade that possibility to a very likely.
