I was bored this weekend. As a tribute to Tim Schafer releasing the original puzzle/design document for the film noir game, Grim Fandango, I did some sketches of my own. These were based off ripped off some of the concept artwork by Peter Chan in the released document.

Update: Tim Schafer retracted the document!

Manuel Calavera

Manny and Meché

The document is an amazing 72 page treat, and includes many puzzles and sub-plots that did not make it into the final game. Possibly my favourite part, apart from the artwork, is the comment on the final page.

To protect this document, please restrict your fallen tears of joy to this box. Thank you!

If you haven’t played Grim Fandango, you’ve missed out of one of the finest and last great adventure games ever released, and not only that - an excellent film-noir story. It was one of the few games that were produced in what I think was the unfortunate end of the adventure gaming era. It is a title that a lot of people missed, even if you were looking for it on the shelves of Electronics Boutique at the time. It is also one of only a hand-full of games that I have felt genuinely moved by, and it is shocking that a story like this could be ignored, forgotten or lost.

The file was released as part of Grim Fandango’s 10th anniversary. If you would like to know more about Grim Fandango, see the escapist’s fantastic article, written this year.  N. Evan Van Zelfden of the Escapist has been quoted, in what I think summarises the difficulty marketing the game, as saying:

No other game has come close to its perfection. Once, I told a videogame magazine editor I considered Grim Fandango the finest game ever made. “Yes,” she replied, “But I enjoyed playing Half-Life more.”

I’ll leave you with a quote from Mr Schafer that explains why the final puzzle piece is not revealed in the document.

“We didn’t have the last puzzle designed when I wrote that document, so I wrote two nonsense paragraphs and then overlapped them in the file so it would look like the final puzzle description was in there, but obscured by a print formatting error. That way I could turn the document in by the deadline. As if anybody was going to read it all the way to the end anyway. Ha ha. Obfuscation triumphs again! I delight in Evil!”

Oh god no! Brink’s dead!

Maybe I should contact someone?

Or maybe just one more game of asteroid lander. I love this game.

OH YEAH! COME ON! You hear that Brink? … Brink?

Merry Christmas all.

And to all, a happy <holiday name here>, courtesy of the Orange Box & Portal.

If you’re already rather inebriated due to Mulled wine and Port and happened not to notice, a Turret from Portal, some HL2 boxes, the HL2: Episode 2 gnome and all the Team Fortress Characters (check the tree) are there with the Companion Cube too. More pictures after the jump. (more…)

A necessary post about the fantastic game from Valve, Portal. To start off on a bad note, it’s disappointingly short, and pretty easy. The game and the advanced levels were completed a matter of hours after I received the Orange box through the post last week.

Now for the good; the different, interesting but yet simple, game style make the game so incredibly playable.

It’s fun and rewarding to spend a few minutes using the portal gun to try to jump over something and then realising a way of using momentum more effectively and flying to the goal. Momentum being conserved through portals, making them a fantastic ways to propel yourself. I wont say the game is physically realistic, I mean, there is a ‘portal gun’ voiding any realism on first glance, however, there is some loyalty to physics in motion and aspects of weight in the physics engine. Combining this with the abstract Portal device makes a wonderful mix that is very fun to play, making you think differently about the possibilities of moving yourself around and achieving the solution.

The puzzle elements never got to the point of frustration either, and the touches of humour lighten the mood and blanket the fact that there are you are almost alone in the ‘Apature Science’ laboratory.

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I completed the original Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars today after a long time of either forgetting to play it or not being able to get my hands on the game. It’s a fantastic game, and it can be picked up really cheaply. It’s by far the longest adventure game i’ve played, even comparing it to Grim Fandango, but I really enjoyed it. I do miss the days of the point  & click adventure game. I also found out a few days ago that due to the commercial success of the most recent title (Broken Sword 4: The Angel of Death) a film is planned! I have to say I haven’t played the two most recent titles, but I’m definately going to now. However, to my joy, the film is based on the first title of the series.

Quote from ComingSoon.net:

“Specific details of the storyline are being kept under wraps, but filmmakers promise to stay true to all of the fan favorite elements. “‘Broken Sword’ is the kind of complex story every producer dreams about, rich with mystery and adventure, so for me, this is a real honor.” said Douglas.

As for who will helm and adapt the novel-like video game, initial talks have begun with leading directors and screenwriters from such films as “Harry Potter”, “Casino Royale“, “X-Men” to name a few.”

I think the first Broken Sword would make an amazing film adaptation, I just hope it’s done right.

More Info:

IGN: Broken Sword the movie
IMDB - Broken Sword (coming soon 2009)
CastleBright Studios (horrific) Myspace

I attended the MCM LondonExpo on Saturday, and thought I might share some pictures of the event.

Flickr Set

Slideshow!

The event itself wasn’t as amazing as last October, mainly because Nick Frost and Simon Peg weren’t there. The organisation wasn’t so great either, it was difficult to know what was going on, especially due to some issues pushing everything back an hour. However, there was still a robot wars style battle, and some absolutely amazing costumes, far better than I noticed last year.
I will mention a couple of my favourites; Master Chief from Halo, the Stormtroopers, the Night Elf from WoW, Princess Zelda and Link, Ulala from Space Channel 5 and Spongebob Squarepants. Most original in my opinion was Shonen Bat from the little known anime Paranoia Agent. There were many very good Final Fantasty character costumes as usual. I was distraught that I underestimated the poor lighting in the expo some of the photos I took for use by a University society were nowhere near as good as I hoped.

Overall, it was a fun event. Even if I had to get up at 6am to pack all of my material possesions into a car, as I was moving out of my rented university accomodation, and then head to London on the train.

I’m beginning to feel however, that it has become far too much about selling overpriced items, rather than what it should be, a media expo - which is a great shame.