Saturday, August 29, 2009

Adventure Web

Adventure Web

Back in the early to mid 90's I was heavily involved in making adventure games.

Despite only releasing Flight of the Amazon Queen for Amiga and PC, I had worked on a number of prototypes and near completed games including Stereo Jack (a brightly colored and humorous cyber-punk adventure that we called "cyber-clunk"), Gruesome Castle (a kids adventure game in full 3D that was almost completed but we had to move on to other projects when our publisher pulled out) and Monsters of Airie Deep (a sort of 3D adventure RPG)... and the list goes on.

But one idea I recently found stashed away on my hard drive caught my attention. This was Adventure Web. Conceived in 1995, the concept was a user created universe of small adventure worlds that connect together much like web pages do, with items and puzzles spanning the web in an ever expanding open ended game. The game was based on the Amazon Queen JASPAR engine, but modified for the web.

It was a nice idea, but like some things I do, it was a little too ambitious and a little ahead of the curve. Anyway, I've uploaded the document for you to peruse.

Click here to download and read Adventure Web in PDF format

I wrote the doc almost 15 years ago and it's an interesting insight into what I was thinking back then. It's also a fascinating reflection on how things have progressed as the internet has evolved - read the How Is Money Generated? section for a good example.

Ultimately I never developed the project and moved on to other things, like founding Krome Studios and creating TY the Tasmanian Tiger... but since then it's great to see that Facebook has made the creation of similar persistent game worlds a piece of cake.

www.passfieldgames.com

Monday, August 10, 2009

Flight of the Amazon new interface video

The new improved interface for Amazon Queen is getting great reviews. John Davison of What They Play had this to say:
We've tried out the new system and it works very well. So much so, that returning to the drag-based interface of Monkey Island now seems remarkably sluggish.

So rather than trying to explain how the cool the new interface works on the iPhone you should watch this video instead:




Click here to get Flight of the Amazon Queen now.

In related news, iPhSoft, the publishers of Amazon Queen have just released Simon the Sorcerer, another classic point and click adventure game from the nineties - and it also sports the brand new touch interface.

And it doesn't end there, Charles Cecil is bringing Beneath a Steel Sky to iPhone soon - sporting some design tweaks as well as a new intro by Dave (Watchmen) Gibbons. You can read more about that game here.

It's shaping up to be a great year for adventure game fans - all thanks to the iPhone.


www.passfieldgames.com