The 42 of all Answers

Maybe you have played the 1991 platformer ‘Another World‘ back in the Amiga or in my case Atari times. I remember the very smooth animations which in those days were just awesome compared to the frame-by-frame pixel animation most of the games had. Without any textures however the game got a certain minimalistic feel. This is what Limbo (Latin limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the “edge” of Hell) reminds me of. But I am not comparing. It is fresh. It is more creepy. And this is due to two simple design decisions: first of all it is all black and white, with an old flickering camera effect and all shapes are drawn as silhouettes only. Second, there is no music whatsoever. Just sounds and some ambient noise. And those are just awesome! Footsteps, flies and… what is that noise coming from the bushes over there?

Creepy visual art, perfect atmosphere. My new favorite parallax-scrolling puzzle platformer is called... Limbo! (sorry, Braid)

Continue reading

Scarlett has some nice combo combat moves - some of them are realized in bullet time.

I would like to present to you a nice find of the german game kitchen. The first time I discovered some information about it was quite a while ago in a game developers magazine called Making Games. They presented Deck13 from Frankfurt/Main who was working at that point on an action role playing game called ‘Venetica’ and has received already a few national developer prices for its series of ‘Ankh‘. What immediately caught my eye was the level of detail they put into the animation, facial expression and clothing of the female protagonist character ‘Scarlett’. I knew at that point that i had to play this game, but by its release on 4. September 2009 it went somehow forgotten to me again.

When I actually got my hands on it one year after (it was winter by that time), I really felt like diving into a fantastic story that reveals the potential to take me away from the gray, cold days. Now that i finished it a few weeks a go, here is what i liked and disliked about the game… Continue reading