I was pretty intrigued by the concept of FREEQ when I first had a chance to preview the audio adventure game for Gamezebo last week, and I loved the emphasis that Psychic Bunny put on the mysteriousness of those old radio detective shows from the early twentieth century. But how does the ambitious radio frequency storytelling hold up now that I've had a chance to listen in on the future for myself?
Describing the indie creation of two-man team Sean Hogan and Jon Kittaka requires more than a single comparative line, and much more to understand it. I'm still working on understanding it. But the experience of Anodyne is The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening set inside a Hieronymus Bosch triptych. While much of the adventure is surreal and abstract self-reflection, just as much is cemented in the concrete gaming mainstays of monster slaying, item collection, and puzzle solving.
I stopped listening to the radio a long time ago, because whenever I tried to find a clear station and frequency signal, my ears tended to only be met with disruptive static instead. But then today I got to thinking: what kinds of fascinating words and stories were actually being told under all that noise? What if they were being sent from another place, or even another time? FREEQ is a unique audio adventure game from Psychic Bunny, where players learn that the radio frequencies we pick up here in 2013 are really cries for help from the inhabitants of a distant world in the future.
Papo & Yo is beautiful, heartbreaking, moving, upsetting, powerful, and plenty of other conflicting emotions all rolled into one. It's a magical experience that captivates throughout, with puzzles that will have you genuinely smiling along, to scenes that will stir up something inside you that video games don't often touch.
An ancient house and a group of strangers brought together under mysterious circumstances: that's the set-up for any number of horror movies, but it's also the backdrop for something less sinister and more intellectually stimulating in The Time Tribe. This free-to-play, point-and-click adventure is suitable for all but the youngest gamers, and it uses a variety of means to tell a pretty engrossing story.
Graphics never trump tight gameplay as far as video games are concerned, but that's not to say careful art direction can't go a long way towards branding a game with an unforgettable atmosphere. Canadian digital artist Aliceffekt is currently at work on an iOS adventure game that slips the player into a haunting world courtesy of its stark black-and-white visuals.
Have you ever been hypnotized before? It seems a little scary at first, but it's also a proven psychiatric method of bringing all those inner demons to light, and working through any hidden issues you may have. Well Maya, the psychiatrist heroine of Hypnosis, swears by this method, and she's prepared to use it every chance that she gets to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her colleague and ex-boyfriend, Dr. Blanche, in this dreamy and hypnotic point-and-click adventure.
If there's one developer that really brought their A-game to GDC this year, I think the award might go to Daedalic Entertainment. We've already seen some awesome previews from the show for The Night of the Rabbit and the dark and grisly RPG Blackguards, and now I'm starting to lose count of all the great new games that Daedalic has on the horizon! Next up from the adventure game connoisseur is a new prison break-themed adventure called 1954 Alcatraz.