Latest Adventure Games News - PC page 107

If there’s one thing Carol Reed fans have come to expect, it’s Swedish developer MDNA Games’ clockwork release schedule. In keeping with this tradition, the next installment in the prolific point-and-click adventure series, Bosch’s Damnation, is on track to appear this March.

Some preliminary news has emerged about an upcoming point-and-click thriller called A Poison Green, as the newly-christened Faraway Industries has released a few details concerning the story and gameplay we can expect once the game is completed. The year is 2070, and the conditions of Earth’s air have deteriorated to the point that protective gas masks are a must to keep from inhaling hazardous environmental diseases. In the face of an ineffective government, ordinary citizens must resort to extraordinary measures, even violence, to make a difference in the world. In Washington D.C., three people’s paths are about to cross in this story of espionage and eco-terrorism. Alternately controlling William, an investigative journalist, Mia, an unemployed and impressionable woman, and Elijah, an idealistic history professor, players will control both the hunter and the hunted. As a terrorist attack looms close, some characters will join in the anti-government movement while others will actively try to uncover their plans and warn authorities. Switching control from one character to another at pre-set points during the narrative, players will have to help one side evade capture while helping the other to foil their plans. A sample from A Poison Green’s soundtrack

Live-action “interactive movies” have a spotty history in the minds of many gamers, with frequently-hammy acting and a lack of actual gameplay being a few of the more common complaints. True to its name, Contradiction, a recently announced point-and-click adventure currently looking for funding on Kickstarter, hopes to change all that, incorporating mystery-solving gameplay with a full motion video presentation.

Adventure gamers are used to saving the world, but what happens when your world has already been torn apart by the gods? The answer is Not Quite Black and White, an upcoming epsodic adventure series.

Things have been pretty hush-hush around Daedalic lately, but at last we know the reason why, as the German developer has just announced production of Silence: The Whispered World 2.

Developer MidBoss Games is preparing to let us visit the future by taking us into the past in their ultra-retro cyberpunk adventure Read Only Memories, currently seeking funding through Kickstarter.

For those who are intrigued by multiplayer games but shy away from playing with strangers, now you can play one with the person you know best: yourself. At least, you can if the indie sci-fi first-person puzzler Reset achieves its funding through Indiegogo.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to follow in the footsteps of a great mythological hero? Indie comic adventure Jason the Greek promises to let you do just that, albeit in a totally tongue-in-cheek way, if the game is successfully funded through Kickstarter.

We're all familiar with the classic case of Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who stalked the streets of Victorian-era London and made life unsafe for members of the world’s oldest profession. Now UK-based indie developer Alex Francois (a.k.a. Brainchild Studios) is throwing his hat into the ring of point-and-click adventure games inspired by this gruesome mystery in The Slaughter, currently seeking funding through Kickstarter. The Slaughter tells the story of private investigator Sydney Emerson, who, amidst a professional slump, is drawn into an investigation to find The Ripper. The search for clues will take Sydney through London’s back alleys and into some of its seediest slums and opium dens. To prevail, he’ll also have to look to his dreams and hallucinations for leads, adding a surreal element to the already nightmarish setting. It’s not all doom and gloom though. Professing a love for comedy, Francois promises plenty of comic relief woven into the tapestry of The Slaughter, with original music drawing inspiration from the likes of Trent Reznor and Radiohead, Pink Floyd and Nobuo Uematsu.

If famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman had created a video game, it might have looked something like Decoherence.

For the past six weeks the world of Interactive Fiction (IF) has seen a surge in activity with the advent of the 19th annual IF Competition, which has annually hosted what is considered to be some of the most creative modern text adventures.

Her Majesty the Queen is looking to return the British Empire to its former glory by going where no empire has gone before (outer space, of course!), but she can’t do it without some help from her loyal subjects – and other adventure fans around the world.

Classic adventure game fans may soon get a chance to put the old movie tagline “In space, no one can hear you scream” to the test. Canadian independent development studio 4th Monkey Media has brought a concept for a story-driven point-and-click murder mystery with a comedic spin to Kickstarter. The twist? Murder One: Mars is to be set on the Red Planet, away from the safe familiarity of Earth. Players will take control of special investigators Lloyd and Cole, who have been sent to Mars to solve a murder in Garden Manor, home of the planet’s wealthy mining magnate and Big Cheese, James Garden. Contrasting with the posh manor will be industrial mining facilities and research labs, which are described by the team as “realistic” and “mundane”. Don’t expect a clean, glitzy space colony, but rather the down ‘n’ dirty fare of such classics as Alien and Blade Runner.

Horror fans will be pleased to hear that Dreampainters, the indie Italian studio behind last year's Anna, is hard at work crafting their next fright-filled outing, White Heaven.

State of Play Games' 2011 puzzle adventure Lume was a charming trip into a unique paper-and-cardboard world, but it was also very short – more of a prologue to whet your appetite for the main event to come. Well, Lumino City is about to become that main event.