Walkerman – Act 1

The town full of adventures.

Score: 8.0
Ages: 13+
2017

Walkerman is a fantasy visual novel with a rich world and a cavalcade of interesting characters. The first act also includes a short prologue to the story, introducing the protagonist and walkermen in general. They are monster hunters, which is a dangerous job with bad pay and no recognition. But someone has to do it.

Memoranda (Kickstarter)

I’ve been writing mostly about kickstarting adventure games for a while now, but sorry, here’s another one. My limited playtime makes me prefer short demos on some nights, and all the hype I’ve recently come across happens around adventures.

But on to Memoranda itself: it’s an atmospheric 2D point & click adventure inspired by the stories of Haruki Murakami.

Demetrios (Kickstarter)

This comedic adventure game has already passed its modest original goal, but the pledges are open for three more days, so there is still plenty of time to get on board.

Demetrios is a love child of a single adventure-enthusiast, who created the early version of the game already 15 years ago.

The Journey Down (Kickstarter)

I’ve played the first two chapters of this excellent and atmospheric point & click adventure, and now that the makers are looking for some extra funding for the third and last chapter, I just need to make a notification of it. The kickstarter campaign is doing fine, but all the extra support can of course make the game even better.

I reviewed the earlier chapters briefly on my compilation of the best games I played in 2014. And I don’t really have a lot to add to that review. Perhaps the fact that I’ve become so excited about the last chapter now that I’ve actually pledged for the physical tier the first time in my life. This will make me even poorer than I am, but I just want to be a part of this campaign. Another reason for a high pledge is that I got the earlier chapters basically free of charge. The first one was a part of some ridiculously cheap bundle and the second one was a freebie from the makers.

The Journey Down is a piece of adventure game history with its distinctive art style, awesome music, wonderful mixture of noir and comedy, and the most lovable protagonist ever. Bwana has a deliciously positive attitude and with it he definitely stands out among all the usual, sarcastic heroes.

Support Bwana!

Kickstarting Psychological Horror

Once again there are several promising games looking to be funded through Kickstarter. I checked some of them out and will give a few short recommendations here. These titles are united by a dark horror themes and are meant for mature players. They are being done by people that aren’t native English speakers so the language might not be perfect in all places, but I consider the artistic vision and atmosphere more important anyway.

AR-K: The Great Escape (Episode Three)

Score: 8.5
2015

The third episode of the sci-fi point&click adventure was released as a standalone game. As a Kickstarter backer I got my “episode” all the same. The third part is a clear improvement in some aspects like graphics, interface and overall polish. It could be played without the earlier episodes if someone isn’t fussy about things like that, but I’d recommend starting from the first anyway. The review will unavoidably contain a vague spoiler or two concerning the earlier episodes.

Old School Adventuring On Kickstarter

I’ve been very happy about Kickstarter and other crowd-funding sites making so many good and great adventures happen in the past few years. And while my initial enthusiasm has died down – and I’m not alone on this – there are great projects emerging almost every day still.

This time I picked a couple of projects that have been introduced by the makers themselves in Adventure Gamers forum.

Herald (Kickstarter)

Herald is a ‘two-part interactive period drama that plays as a mix between a visual novel and a 3D point and click adventure game’. It currently has two weeks left of its Kickstarter campaign and it’s over halfway reaching its goal of 15 000€.

Herald tells a story of a steward, Devan Rensburg, aboard the merchant ship Herald. The story is based on colonial times in an alternate universe and introduces several non-white characters, including the protagonist. This setting is quite rare for games in general, and I don’t ever remember seeing it in a visual novel (not that I exactly played them all or anything). So my interest was definitely piqued.

Dead Synchronicity – Tomorrow Comes Today

Score: 8.5
(12+)
2015

For once I picked up a really fresh title: Dead Synchronicity came out last Friday. It was one of the Kickstarter projects I backed last year (yay me and my name in the credits). The demo was available during the pledging and it showed promise. Along the way the game was picked up by Daedalic Entertainment, so I ended up playing yet another Daedalic title. Once again it was a great experience, this time with a package aimed quite directly to my tastes, as the game tells a dark sci-fi tale with a mystery.