Adventures at E3 2014
Fire
Last but certainly not least was my meeting with Daedalic. Along with the chance to see Silence: The Whispered World 2 in action (which we previewed just a few weeks ago), a delightful surprise from my conference with the popular German developer was being introduced to their simplistic but hugely fun adventure Fire, based in the “the cutest Stone Age setting you’ve ever seen.” Playing as Ungh, a cartoon 2D Neanderthal living in a vibrant dino-filled world, players will meet a large number of adorable characters and creatures with hundreds of little animations that will constantly make you chuckle. Fire offers an addictive, one-click experience, lacking any dialogue and mechanically working like Samorost on speed.
While clicking Ungh can move him about the environment, you can also independently interact with countless items on each standalone screen. Doing so causes plenty of comedic events and funny environmental altercations that can help Ungh advance his way through the impeding challenges. Watching Fire in action certainly made for some big laughs, as our demonstrator revealed how clicking objects in a particular succession could overcome the multi-layered obstacles through many creatively hilarious circumstances.
For instance, clicking the sun transformed it into the moon, which of course changed the setting from day into night. Scraping moss off a nearby pillar (by simply sliding your cursor up and down it), you reveal a carved pattern in stone, meant to be recreated in the stars by clicking them together, connect-the-dot style. Unfortunately, some of the stars are obstructed by rain clouds, so you’ll need to perform another sequence of steps in order to awaken an old tribesman to teach Ungh how to rain dance. Hysterically, in teaching Ungh how to rain dance, a thundercloud strikes the tribesman with lightning and obliterates him to dust.
All of this was achieved in a matter of seconds, solely on an individual screen that made up for its limited scope with an abundance of interactive depth. As such, Fire sets out to be a fun, fast-paced, and extremely whimsical take on the genre. It provided some remarkably refreshing and much-needed levity amongst the more serious and sometimes humorless offerings throughout the rest of the event. Fire definitely looks to be a promising tribute to comedic adventures from an earlier, even prehistoric time.
The Devil’s Men
One of the definite highlights of E3 2014 was getting a glimpse of Daedalic’s newly-announced The Devil’s Men. It’s a (partly) hand drawn, Victorian-era steampunk adventure featuring two young, adventurous female leads. Adelaide and Emily are two girls of vastly different personalities, motives, and personal styles who find themselves utilizing their complementary qualities for mutual benefit.
Adelaide is the more innocent of the two. Her father disappeared when she was a child and she devotes her life to solving the mystery of his disappearance when she’s not hiding reclusively from the evils of her world. Emily is more of the “badass murdering-type”, a known mischief-maker in the community who partners with Adelaide after learning information about her father’s whereabouts. But the disappearance of one lone man is not the only haunting mystery in this eyebrow-raising society, which is beset by a series of murders involving men rumored to be associated with a coterie known as the “Devil’s Men”. Although the existence of this group hasn’t ever been proven, they are said to be men of immense power and cryptic experimentation that extends beyond time and space.
The Devil’s Men utilizes the same new 3D projection technology that Silence is promoting, giving the beautiful scenery a real sense of depth. Moving from room to room, it was clear the environments had actually been modeled in 3D and that 2D paintings had been projected across them, creating an enormously striking visual style in the way everything moved and flowed.
The gameplay matches the creative premise, setting, characters, and visual design. For the preview, designer Kevin Mentz picked a scene that demonstrated the game’s power of choice, showing off how the scene unfolded differently depending on the player’s actions and choices, allowing for multiple storylines, outcomes, and endings for each player.
In the scene I witnessed (taking place midway through the game), Emily snuck into a household, trailing a lead. Walking into the study, she found Adelaide peacefully sleeping on a (now) antique couch, surrounded by steampunk-styled adornments on the back walls. Mentz explained he could either awaken Adelaide, alert her of what was going on and then switch between the two characters on the fly, or he could continue as Emily and look around and examine the house without Adelaide’s awareness. Mentz chose the latter. While still in the study, he had Emily observe a portrait of a family which had a birthdate inscribed into it, suggesting it might play a significant role later in the game.
Walking back into the hallway, Mentz said Emily could go upstairs where she would run into the residents of the household, or she could go into the basement. Choosing the basement, a safe was discovered, requiring a code to crack. After unearthing the valuable contents of the safe, Mentz restarted the demo and decided not to be so cautious this time around. Immediately heading for the upstairs bedroom wakes Adelaide up, with Emily explaining there is something of value in the house that has to be found. The same information from the safe is discovered, only this time it’s unveiled by conversing with different characters around the house.
This was as much as Mentz had to show, which is understandable. Given the ambitious number of possibilities and branching storyline options with numerous routes of execution to any given situation, The Devil’s Men has a lot of content left to be designed and is still a long way from being finished. Daedalic is projecting the title to be released sometime in 2015. Although the wait will be a suspenseful one for this gripping mystery, The Devil’s Men’s strong stylistic design and significant player agency make it definitely a title to look forward to.
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