Seeds planted for The Cabbage Incident on DS

There are plenty of indie developers making adventures, and there are plenty of adventure games for the Nintendo DS. What we've yet to see is a first independent DS adventure, but now an Italian team called Impressionware is looking to change that with The Cabbage Incident.

In this comic-styled adventure, something has gone very wrong in the desert town of Hellthroat. An alien spacecraft has crashed on Earth, and a greedy businessman is using its technology to freeze food, but now the food is turning the townsfolk into zombie-like characters. As the little green alien "blob" who crash landed, players must control the various zombified characters by climbing on their backs, using their unique abilities to solve puzzles and complete some light combat and minigames.

The bulk of the The Cabbage Incident will be spent on standard point-and-click gameplay activities, exploring the village and surrounding environments like a cemetery, freezing plant, gas station, and canyon, collecting objects and using them to overcome obstacles. Not every character can perform every task, however, so finding the right pers... err, zombie for the job is part of the challenge. As a DS title, some of the puzzles will also incorporate the system's unique features like the microphone and touch screen.

In what will surely be good news for some, troubling news for others, the game will include some action sequences, as a SWAT team is lurking in the area to remove any and all signs of alien presence, most notably the alien himself. Combat will be reminiscent of the popular Metal Slug games, and the developers claim these sequences will comprise only about 10-15% of the overall gameplay, intended to add variety and excitement to the adventure segments, not to hinder players from progressing. An additional 20% or so will be spent on standalone, puzzle-based minigames, one of which is similar to Pipe Mania.

The bizarre cast of characters includes the likes of the simple, football-loving Billy, his reclusive crazy Uncle Fred, a bumbling prison escapee, and the town "kingpin" who owns everything in Hellthroat except the freezing plant. Comedic dialogues between characters will be an important part of the story, but all conversations will be automated, with no player-controlled dialogue trees.

With more restrictions for consoles than exist on PC, the developers will require DS-authorized publisher involvement to bring the game to market. For now that point is still on the distant horizon, however, as The Cabbage Incident is at a very early stage in production, and the small Impressionware team is working on the game between other fully-funded DS projects. Naturally, earlier publisher involvement and financing would allow them to advance the game's production schedule significantly, and the developers are hopeful for that opportunity.

It's encouraging to see more developers embracing the DS for original adventures, so we're pleased to help spread the word. The Cabbage Incident is definitely a game we'll be keeping our eye on, and we join the developers in hoping that publisher interest will get the game into our hands sooner rather than later.