A Hardy Developer's Journal

I have to say that past years visit to the Monkey Islandish Caribbean has turned out to be truly an epic journey filled to the brim with piratey adventures and charming concepts. And here is where we are now. Right at the end. But is it the last chapter of one big game? Or more like the end to an episodic series? And how good is it exactly? (more…)

Mark (in the center) at PAX with Ryan Jones and Dave Grossman on his flanks

So here we are today talking this time to a truly accomplished adventure game designer who has gone from small, but great indie productions (Nick Bounty!!!) to become one of the lead creative forces at Telltale Games. Mark Darin after leading the design on the Strong Bad games is co-creating all the big titles currently in progress, including Tales of Monkey Island and the future Sam & Max episodes. As always we started the interview with the most difficult question. Next we started to differentiate between indie games and Telltale games which may be not entirely fair as Telltale is all independent as far as I know, just maybe a bit bigger than Mark’s own company Pinhead Games. Oh, and Pinhead’s games are freeware. (more…)

Well I was a sucker. I pre-ordered Tales of Monkey Island. I mean, how could you not when Steve Purcell himself promised us an awesome DVD cover, and one at this level of coolness! Once again I answered the call of duty from Igor to review another complete masterpiece – The Siege of Spinner Cay. A game that starts epic and ends epic will full promise of an amazing 3rd episode to come! It is highly recommended that you finish playing the first episode before reading ahead! Thar be spoilers on the Horizon!

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How funny can be a game that parodies the classic noir fiction, but happens neither on the Discworld, nor in the skeleton-laden Land of The Dead, but looks like just a “straight” parody of the genre set in our boring Earthrealm? Incredibly funny it seems. Presented in true B&W and equipped with a P.I. hero who likes to provide elaborate narrations full of metaphors, Nick Bounty is a game which stays true to the original detective novel, at the same time being completely crazy.

It all begins with a scene borrowed from The Maltese Falcon – a man delivers a box with mysterious contents (more…)