A Hardy Developer's Journal

Gumshoe tells the story of a run-out-of-luck sap from Liverpool called Eddie Ginlay – hitting 31, living alone, small-time bingo caller and noir-fiction aficionado for years trying unsuccessfully to make out as a nightclub comic. As far as the man’s social life goes, his woman was stolen by his wealthy brother a year earlier and his constant Sam Spade-like manner of communicating with people makes them think he’s not right in the head, or at best a poor joker.

Ultimately, even Eddie himself has a mocking way of looking at his life-style. He puts a half-serious advertisement in the paper to appear the day of his birthday, describing himself as a private investigator. Soon, he gets a call from a potential client asking for a meeting, but it will be a very different kind of a job from what Eddie would expect…
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Colin Panetta's amazing Grim Fandango artwork (visit Mojo for higher res)

November 2009 – The 11th Grim Fandango Anniversary (more…)

Here it is at last! Here you can watch the full movie! My premiere animated short! It was created by me and a small group of similar amateurs over the course of 2 very intense days, everyone contributing a part of his soul.

The film was part of a festival celebrating the art and memories of Warsaw from the 50s. The few happy and light moments of that pretty grim period in Poland’s history. (more…)

When I started this blog I thought I was a bit late too include references to 2008 holiday celebrations, but it appears that I can – on the pretext of  others being late too.

The talented team behind Indiana Jones and The Fountain of Youth DEMO, which is still working on the full version of this very promising adventure game in the style of the classic Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis, have just released a very special (if a bit late) Christmas/New Year’s Greetings surprise making adventure fans happy all over the world. By doing so they prolonged (or at least brought back a little) holiday atmosphere far into January, which makes the experience even more nice. (more…)

the good (very good in fact) anime to watch and its main heroes - Galaxy Express 999

What you know, I’ve just learned about a place where you can legally watch some good (and bad) classic anime (as classic as it gets) on the internet. Specifically some of the series that I will be writing about in this blog. I decided this qualifies for a worthwhile news as those anime titles aren’t easy to come by in every part of the world. On the other hand, I’m a bit embarrassed to recommend the website (more…)

As of January 2009, I played a fair amount of indie adventure games released in 2008 (well, just a few of those that were heavily lauded actually). While there are still some last year highlights out there waiting for me, Mental Repairs Inc. is without any doubt the best one I came across so far. What’s more, although it’s completely freeware it matches (and in some instances surpasses) the technical quality of games that require some kind of financial investment before playing. (more…)

2008 was an interesting year for adventure games, but none of the new releases I played was truly groundbreaking. The adventure game scene seems to be still heavily marred by the desperate  struggles to get funding and publishing deals and then to make the freshly assembled teams and  engines work. Even such “sure bets” of current adventure gaming as A Vampyre Story and Gray Matter suffered from flimsy marketing (GM), shameful bugs (AVS) and huge delays in production (both).

Germany is the biggest source for new titles in the genre now. However, (more…)