Emerald City Confidential, Wadjet Eye Games brand spankin’ new game has finally been released to the public by publisher, PlayFirst. Finally!

Now, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I got to do a bit of beta testing for this game and can tell you that it’s definitely going to be worth your time and even the $19.95 you’ll have to pay for the download.

I mean, it’s just that good.

Dave Gilbert did a great job with the story behind this game and took what he felt was the true land of Oz into this gritty detective game. You’ll also get to see a strange and new twist on all of your favorite Oz charters: Dorothy (or Dee in this game), the Tin Man, Scarecrow, Lion and even a talking Toto who is smarter than most people I know.

Sounds fun, right?! Well then… Head on over to the official download site to play a one hour demo of the game!

Post from: EveryJoe

Emerald City Confidential – Released!

Okay, this indy game I found thanks to the wonderful website, IndieGames.com, has one of the best tag lines I’ve ever seen: “The Unfortunate Eating Begins”. When is eating ever unfortunate? OH, I know when! When monsters eat a bunch of tourists who are checking out a cave!

In Neverending Light, you get to play one of the tourists who were not eaten by the cave monsters. Seeing as you are the only person who survives the monster attack, you get to find your way out of a dark, monster infested tunnel all by your lonesome! And all you have is your trusty flashlight and maybe your wits. If you’re a type of person who has wits. These days, there aren’t too many people that do!

Want to play it? Well, that’s easy. Go on over to the this website and you get to play in the browser. For free!

Post from: EveryJoe

Neverending Light

The lovely SSH over at The AGS Blog has done an amazing job of showing the world just what developers using Adventure Game Studio can do. All year long, he toils away and posts things about new adventure games and getting exclusive interviews with developers. You know, fun stuff like that!

Well, recently, he has taken on a challenge: getting people to vote on who has made the best adventure games over the previous year! And then he has to take those results and put them in a format us mortal folk can appreciate.

Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Well, it is!

The best part of the AGS awards is that you get to find all the games that did amazingly well and play them instead of having to go through each game individually! So, why not head on over to this blog post, find the best games, download them for FREE and support the indy adventure game developers!

Post from: EveryJoe

AGS Awards!

One of the best things about indie game developers is their need to take an old game and make it nice, new and shiny. And when I say shiny, I mean sparklin’ like a brand new sun. Okay, that didn’t even make any sense, but whatever. I’m an adventure game player, not a damn poet!

AGDInteractive Studios did the damn near impossible: They recreated King’s Quest I. Why? Because they’re huge fans of the series. But also maybe because they want to keep the adventure game genre alive and show a new generation just how fun those old adventure games from the late 80s and early 90s are. The adventure game genre definitely still has some life in it!

What’s even better is that once you finish this version of King’s Quest I, is that you can soon play AGDI’s remake of King’s Quest II. These people are serious about their King Questing! And if this version of King’s Quest makes you happy, you can also check out AGDI’s remake of Quest for Glory II which looks as well done as King’s Quest I.

Yay for remakes!

[Image courtesy of AGDInteractive Studios.]

Post from: EveryJoe

King’s Quest I – An AGDInteractive Studios remake

There’s an indy developer by the lovely name of LimpingFish who is well on their way to producing a new game for us to pet and love and call George. The game, which is being done in one of my favorite adventure game engines, Adventure Game Studio, is supposed to be a horror adventure that will probably make you cry a little. At least that’s what horror games are SUPPOSED to do, right?

The name of the game is The Hollow and judging by the screencaps, this indy game looks more big game developer studio and less indy than most games you’ll see today.

Here’s the story behind the game:

Trent Wexler, host of local network TV program “Dead Secrets”, yearns for nationwide syndication. The premise of his show is simple: find “haunted” locations, set up a number of remote cameras, and spend an evening waxing lyrical about psychic vibrations, while his crew monitor proceedings from a van outside.

His latest find is deep in the heart of the city: an abandoned minor seminary, believed to be part of a building once owned by the nearby St. Cecila’s church.

What appears to be yet another in a long line of paranormal no-shows soon becomes a night of terror, as Trent finds himself unable to leave the building and unable to contact his crew outside. And behind the walls, things are beginning to move…

So, we have a reality TV show and a horror game all wrapped up into one game? Sounds interesting. And awesome.

The game is supposed to be out sometime in Q2/Q3 of 2009.

[Images courtesy of LimpingFish.]

Post from: EveryJoe

Indy Developer LimpingFish introduces new game: The Hallow

Have you ever wanted to play a classic book, like Les Misérables or maybe The Divine Comedy, but just haven’t found that game, because no one has actually created the game? Well, you’re in luck, because some crazy developer guy named Chris Tolworthy is putting together what he calls Enter the Story, where he’ll take a classic book and make it into a rather lovely adventure game. I wrote about Chris a while back when I first heard about his project to make classic books come to life.

Well, now Chris is done with his first game in the series, Les Misérables and it’s up to buy for $14.99. The best part of the deal, though, is that if you buy Les Misérables, then you’ll get the next two games in Enter the Story for free!

If this sound interesting to you, head on over to the website to download the demo and to get a sneak peak at what you can expect from the game!

[Image courtesy of Enter the Story.]

Post from: EveryJoe

Les Misérables, the adventure game!

You know what website is cool? Indie Games. Why is it cool? Because, well, it features a ton of indie games made by indie developers from all around the world. Not only does Indie Games take a look at all the adventure games that are being developed, they also look at first person shooters, platformers, RPGs and any other game genres you can think about.

In one of their more recent articles, Indie Games put together a list of the top 20 freeware adventure games. 20 games! That’s a lot of indie games to play in one year! All free!

My goodness.

Here’s the list:

• Dirty Split
• Life of D. Duck II
• The Vacuum
• Fedora Spade Episode 4: The Last Job
• Yume Nikki
• Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
• Broken Sword 2.5: The Return of the Templars
• Gun Mute
• NES Quest
• Nanobots
• Sydney Treads the Catwalk
• Ben Jordan Case 7: The Cardinal Sins
• Limey Lizard: Waste Wizard
• Beauties and Beasts
• Chatroom
• Questionaut
• Everybody Dies
• DayMare Town 2
• Pragaras
• The Maze of Madness

Now, if this list sounds awesome to you, why don’t you go on over to this article and see what each and every game is about. Indie Games is so awesome, they’ve done a one page write up of every game you see here.

Who said that the adventure genre is dying?

[Image courtesy of Indie Games.]

Post from: EveryJoe

Best Indie Adventure Games of 2008

There is an interesting new action/adventure independently created game that I just found over at Indie Games called Gravity Bone. If you like people who are entirely made up of cube like shapes, then this game is probably for you!

In the game, you play a secret agent. I’m not really sure what the story is about, but it sounds exciting:

The lobby desk of the Saturday Club is pock-marked with New Musical bullets. Seven bullets, to be exact. They’ve never been removed and have never been painted over. Why? Frankly, who cares.

To make it in Nuevos Aires, one has to have nerves of silk and the filthiest of hands. Mix together a batch of espionage, some high- speed car chases, fire-spewing assassins, and you’ve got one oven that’ll never bake cookies again. We provide the pliers and you bring the moxie.

Do whatever it takes to ensure your loved ones can sleep peaceably at night.

And get paid doing it.

Now, does that sound cool? Being a spy is fun!

According to Indie Games, this little thing will only take 20 minutes to play. And then you won’t be confused as to what the hell is going on anymore. Definitely worth checking out!

Post from: EveryJoe

Indy Game – Gravity Bone

So, out of pretty much no where, there is a new episodic indy adventure game made using Adventure Game Studio. The new game is called Thorak & Steve and features two cavemen who romp around on adventures doing weird stuff.

Here’s what the author and developer of the game, Mark ‘Klink’ Kalinic, says about the game:

The game quite simply follows the weird, random and wacky adventures of Thorak, a surprisingly intelligent caveman, and his best friend Steve, his not-so-intelligent severely retarded best friend.

A severely retarded best friend? I think we all can say we have at least one of these.

Klink’s goal with this series of games is to make game play 20 to 45 minutes long for each of the 12 episodes that he’s planning for his first season. This is Klink’s first adventure game, and I have to say he did a pretty awesome job. He’s even planning on making the first episode better after enough players add their input to what they think can be improved/changed.

The game features a lot of humor, voice acting, wonderful animation and a verbcoin interface. It’s definitely worth downloading the 43mb game, even if there is 30 minutes of play time! Download the game from here if you want to give it a try!

Post from: EveryJoe

New Episodic Indy Adventure – Thorak & Steve Episode 101: The Hunt Begins

There is a new adventure game creation tool that is bound to hit the Internet any time now developed by a guy going by the name Clarvalon. The new creation tool, which is called XAGE (XNA Adventure Game Engine) is going to be using Microsoft’s XNA framework, which is good for a lot of developers who don’t want to learn a new programming language, but still would love to create adventure games.

Now, XNA is being used on a number of different platforms, including the Xbox 360, Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player and PC. This can only mean good things for the adventure game genre, as there is the potential of getting these games created by indy developers out on Xbox Live.

And adventure games getting more lime light definitely can’t be bad.

If you’re interested in taking a look, check out the video below:

Post from: EveryJoe

XAGE – New Adventure Game Creation Tool