Gamescom 2015 round-up: Part 2

Dropsy

Publisher Devolver Digital let us take a look at the current state of the Kickstarter-funded adventure Dropsy. This roughly pixeled game about a sad clown who wants to be happy again and needs to make other people happy for that, feels rather odd to play and is a bit slow. The game is not convincing on the visual side either except for a couple of well-made animations. The length is about 5-6 hours, during which you can switch back and forth between playing Dropsy and his dog. The game will come out in September for PC, iOS, Android, Mac and Linux.

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Kathy Rain

Kathy Rain, which was begun in the AGS community by Joel “JSH” Staaf Hästö, is inspired by classics like Gabriel Knight. Another oft-made comparison is with the 2012 title Resonance, which makes sense since the highly consistent pixel art used throughout the game is by the same artist. Unfortunately the backgrounds are displayed in a 4:3 aspect ratio, so that most players will see black bars along the side of their screen.

The main character Kathy returns to her home city after many years and wants to solve the mystery surrounding her recently deceased grandfather, as a number of questions remain unsolved and she doesn’t believe the official account of what happened. The game is played in point-and-click style with a coin interface offering a couple of standard verbs. In dialogs, Kathy can discuss both inventory items and topics she overheard previously. The potentially dark investigation game should be finished in the first quarter of 2016.

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The Journey Down

This crazy reggae adventure is finally moving into its third round, and the no-less-crazy developer announced it will be an uncompromisingly bombastic finale in the vein of a ‘90s action movie. This will tie up the many loose ends left by the predecessors. Some of the previous characters will be there once again for the third part. For example, Lina returns as a playable character and there is a bigger role for Professor Moorhead, who for a long time was only mentioned. On the side of the villains, Morobo from parts 1 and 2 brings along a new female antagonist, whose resemblance to Angela Merkel is mere coincidence. Another new character is Sergeant Waasi, who uses his guitar to inspire an underground revolution.

In the story, players will have to concern themselves with the citizens who were driven from their homes by bulldozers. This involves traveling to many distinct places. Besides the city, we were shown sketches and early graphics of islands, ice worlds and lava lakes, covering just about every imaginable location.

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SkyGoblin’s self-described “wonky setup” for The Journey Down at gamescom

The entire game is done as far as the story and puzzles go, and there is a very early playable version. Production of text, sound, cutscenes and graphics is now starting, we’ve been told. A Kickstarter campaign in October should bring in the necessary financial support for these elements. The team is also looking for a partner to publish a boxed version when The Journey Down wraps up with the last episode. The release date for Episode 3 will be sometime in 2016.

Pollen

Virtual Reality is everywhere: With Pollen, Finnish developer Mindfield Games has a VR title in the pipeline as well, set to arrive in the first quarter of 2016. This first-person exploration adventure is designated as a mix of Gone Home and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The player takes the role of a worker on the 13th moonbase on Titan. But on the first day of work, nobody else can be seen. Now you have to find and investigate clues to reconstruct what led to this curious situation.

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Sound plays an important part in this. Every sound effect will have a natural origin somewhere in the environment. Side comments are dispensed with. Binaural recording techniques give the stereo sound a sense of space. Music will be used sparingly and discreetly. Every aspect is designed to create an immersive experience in a coherent world, and none of the game mechanics are allowed to go against this. Thus there is no classic point-and-click here. Instead, objects like doors and clues are interacted with through gestures, for which the VR experience is enhanced further if you use a hand controller. Highly detailed and crisp textures also support the immersion, though the graphic style is a bit plain and sterile.

The game has been announced for GOG, Steam and Oculus Home. Almost all major VR goggles will be supported. Besides Oculus, the game is also compatible with HTC Vive and OSVR. Support for Sony’s Project Morpheus will follow sometime after release. A VR set and hand controller are not absolutely necessary, but there will be some scenes that can only be experienced through VR. The developers also mentioned an Easter egg or two as goodies.

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Soul Axiom

The first-person puzzler Soul Axiom is much like Kairo and the movie Cube. The player has a number of skills with which to manipulate the environment. For instance, blockades can be removed or added and objects can be taken apart, destroyed or put together. While doing this, the protagonist moves through a digital world whose purpose becomes clearer through the course of the game. Eventually you will also figure out how you came to be in this world and what options there are to escape. Many environmental puzzles will have to be solved before reaching that point. The game is played using keyboard or gamepad. The PC version will be released first, in the first half of 2016, with console versions following later. An Early Access version is already available on Steam.

Daedalic Entertainment – Silence: The Whispered World 2, AER

Daedalic discussed only a few adventures with the press at this gamescom. During our visit we were especially excited about Silence: The Whispered World 2, which was presented in a rather different way than last year. This time the focus was on the excellent-looking cinematics, with frequent cutscenes and laboriously crafted animations. The cute animations for companion Spot were especially convincing.

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Daedalic’s Steffen Roche discussed puzzle design with us. He confirmed that Silence will not emphasize puzzles much and will tell a continuing story over the course of 10 hours. Rather than the old trial-and-error approach, what we get here is trial-without-error. While they can see that this will make puzzle enthusiasts who don’t like games without them unhappy, they are also confident that this move will let them deliver a very strong story in a powerful form. Looking at the excellent production values throughout the game, we can see no reason to doubt that at the moment.

The second game to be presented was AER, in which you can freely switch between human and bird shape to make your way to a variety of floating islands. AER is heavily exploration-based and may be worth keeping an eye on.

This article originally appeared on the German website Adventure-Treff. It has been translated and reprinted with permission.

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