A Hardy Developer's Journal

Marek and his wife

High Res 2D is coming back to the adventure genre! And it doesn’t stop with the recently released Machinarium and The Whispered World haunting your senses with their beauty. The story continues with The Trader of Stories – a fresh new escapist fantasy world that extends beyond just the video game medium. It’s the work of yet another talented Polish adventure game developer (and draughtsman, and writer, and chemist) Marek Rudowski. (more…)

A once cheerful land of forests, mountains and magic has succumbed to permanent winter. A permanent winter conjured up and constantly renewed by the terrible black fire attacks of a mighty ice dragon. As a result most human inhabitants have turned into ice statues and the prospects of the handful that are still able to keep their blood reasonably warm are no better. One of those is an old woodsman who lying ill in his bed has just explained the situation to his daughter in a speech very nicely stylized to archaic jargon. (more…)

There’s little doubt that travels to hidden magical dimensions often become the greatest secret desires. To kids anyway. And in a way we’re generously provided with all kinds of Narnias, Harry Potters or Simon the Sorcerers that allow to taste a bit of this sort of experience. So if you fancied at least one of the imaginary places from those pieces of fiction you’re now invited to venture into the world of troubled vampire pizza deliverers and pizza molding magicians via Pizza Morgana. (more…)

Winner for Best Demo at AGS Awards 2009

You can download the WIP demo here. (UPDATED 02.2010)

Follow Franko himself on Twitter.

Scroll down for links to Development Diaries.

A walkthrough for the demo is available here.

Feedback greatly appreciated!

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I haven’t written about Frantic Franko for quite a while, but it doesn’t mean my work on it doesn’t move forward at a crazy pace! I didn’t make it with the demo in May as originally intended, but it is pretty much ready now – just undergoing some testing. The big premiere is next week! It’s quite a large demo by my standards. It covers about 33% of the whole game, has both alternative puzzle solutions and special features not required to finish it. It also offers plenty of opportunity to get to know the main character – the grumpy psycho that he is. Hopefully the experience will be something truly memorable for the players. (more…)

Franko stands in the pale moonlight unaware of what awaits him

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Finally, there has come the moment that I was waiting for a very long time – I can start a production diary for my own adventure game! Not because I have just put together a loose concept or created the first artwork, no. It is the right moment to begin writing about the game because I have now finished a working version of one of three acts of the full project – to be tweaked and released soon (next month) as a WIP demo. So, while much much work still needs to be done, even on the demo, from this moment on there will be always  some solid virtual entity to refer to. In other words, Frantic Franko now lives! (more…)