A Hardy Developer's Journal

PROLOGUE. On this fateful Towel Day we witness the release of the long-awaited Point&click remake of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by James Spanos (aka Dualnames).
What follows are abridged transcripts of the philosophical dialogs conducted with Spanos that took place during the last week before the release (Which means they’re really HOT right now! – almost like the game itself).  So read them! (more…)

Often games attempt to be too much. Not content with focusing on doing a few particular things right, many games spread themselves too thin by switching between different styles or genres. On game that completely succeeds where others usually fail is Modern Warfare 2, an incredible example of multi-layered adventure gaming.

What really sets Modern Warfare 2 apart is its top-notch storytelling. In the not too distant future, a group of people got really mad at some other people and they both started shooting and all of a sudden it was war. You play not one, but five protagonists, each with his own unique backstory and motivations. (more…)

Hello there in the new year 2010, Dear Reader! I hope it is already treating you well. Welcome after our long December slumber which was caused by many different things (that I was busy with). Among them was my determination to release the reinvented version of Frantic Franko demo right for 2010′s start and HardyDev‘s 1st birthday which happens today.

Franko will get a whole, separate article soon, so I won’t divulge too much on the game right now beyond providing the link to the new demo and mentioning that the game will still undergo all kinds of tweaks and modifications before the full release in March, so any kind of feedback will always be very valuable to me, especially since I made many risky design choices you won’t find in other games. (more…)

Action games’ fans often consider adventure games’ fans as eccentric people who like to think hard during their leisure, when, as everybody else knows, it’s time to release all the primal emotions suppressed during the rest of the day. But that just shows how unaware they are about some of the main ingredients that constitute a true adventure gaming experience: instant dangers, hidden traps, fist fights, explosions, running away from angry mobs… So what if many obstacles standing in the way demand the usage of some basic wits to get past – it’s there just to spice up the adventure. (more…)

They say there is only one true pirate adventure game/game series, the rest just tries to take a piece of its glory for themselves. They are a little bit more forgiving, though, when the game in question is intentionally a love letter to the classic adventure games of yore. Yet there also exists a certain title that is a piratey love letter in both this and a quite different meaning of the expression.

Yes, it’s all true! Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! – the game in question – was made using the freeware AGS engine specifically for the girlfriend of its creator Alasdair Beckett (but don’t worry, YOU can play it too)! Well, actually Alasdair doesn’t really try to hide who is the game’s primary addressee any more than the fact that it was heavily inspired by the Monkey Island series. How could he do that anyway, when the game even borrows the icon coin interface known from Curse of Monkey Island. A very heartfelt tribute to Monkey Island then? (more…)

Colin Panetta's amazing Grim Fandango artwork (visit Mojo for higher res)

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