The week is coming to an end, so let me remind you of these noteworthy updates. First we had a very important movie covered in the blog, the seminal El Topo. It truly is the definition of “cult” (I wonder how many times I said that) and a landmark achievement of underground cinema, so you already know what to watch this weekend. Next, I had a fond look back at Isle Of The Dead, a creative Wolfenstein 3D clone from the early 90′s. However, I realized that the only fond thing about this game were just my memories…
Finally, there’s a lengthy ongoing interview at Adventure-Treff, the great German site about adventures games, that covers past, present and future of Senscape, including revealing new details of Asylum. I did warn those guys that I can get very chatty, but they didn’t listen so the result is a whooping 15-pages article that will be delivered in three parts. You can read the first one right here, and don’t worry because that link is in English. Be sure to read them all!
That’s it for now, hope you have a great weekend and may you watch many horror movies. Take care now, bye bye then!
Curses! I had forgotten about the GDC and Gamescom in Europe this month. Those bloody expos have foiled my plans to deliver more regular updates during August… In case you haven’t heard the news, a man called Daniel Pharos has managed to infiltrate with a powerful computer loaded with a vast selection of Top Secret materials from Asylum, and he’s right now showing these to a legion of publishers craving for a hot new product to license, including major players in the industry. I understand there already talks about movie rights even.
If you apply the reality check to the paragraph before, I’m basically saying that Daniel was very kind to carry a netbook with a bunch of videos from Asylum and he’s introducing the game to maybe a dozen publishers. But the outlook is quite positive and we hope to share more news very soon!
Anyway, back to Slightly Deranged: this one of those major updates that I’ve been meaning to deliver for the past few weeks. Most importantly, we have a feature article about Boxer, the very best front-end I’ve ever got the pleasure to use. It really adds a whole new dimension to DOS emulation. I’m also throwing into the mix the mandatory game and movie. First, The Secret Island Of Dr. Quandary, a very particular educational adventure from the early 90′s, and second, The Toxic Avenger which I’m ashamed to say that I’ve only seen it for the first time very recently. It’s really awesome though and a worthy, suitably deranged entry for this blog!
That’s it for today, and please stop sending me emails every single day asking about the next update, I’m always working on stuff for the blog (that line needs some reality check as well). See you folks soon!
I’m not going to start another post by saying that we’re returning from a brief hiatus, but things are coming back to normal in Slightly Deranged, seriously. The last few weeks have been truly insane (in many senses) so the blog had to be put on hold until now. If you somehow missed the news, my company Senscape revealed last week the name and nature of our upcoming horror game – Asylum – and all Hell broke lose. This was announced along with a trailer that has been making the rounds pretty much around the entire web and thus Asylum instantly became an anticipated title.
Not much is known about the game and, of course, we will be keeping the mystery on for a while, at least until things cool down a bit and we return with another striking blow. I will keep you readers updated about Asylum from time to time and, yes, I am intending to partly use Slightly Deranged as a developer’s diary of sorts (don’t worry, you will be able to filter these updates if you couldn’t care less about Asylum and want to stick to the cult movies and retro games).
Now, as I said, this announcement was huge and carefully planned, and we honestly couldn’t have made it without the invaluable help of many, many people. You might have heard about the viral marketing campaign involving a fake institution named the Hanwell Mental Institute accusing a fake character called Leonard Huntings of fabricating videos with yet another fake character by the name of Bertrand Laroche. This sort of meta-narration, as have been put by some, kept many folks on the edge of their seats wondering about the outcome. This all went for exactly one month and culminated with the Asylum trailer, allowing everybody to catch a glimpse of the Hanwell institute for the first time. The impact was huge: nearly 10.000 views on YouTube in less than one week, 25.000 views at GameTrailers and hot discussions everywhere. Therefore, I’m going to mention and thank all the people who helped us in this long path towards the announcement, each one of them in their own way.
(brace yourselves)
First of all, of course, the incredible team at Senscape who have been working non-stop on Asylum for countless months: Pablo Forsolloza, Juan Caratino and Pablo Palomeque, each taking care of the sinister and detailed environments of the Hanwell institute, the striking characters and the concept artwork that has held all of this together from the early stages.
Next is Daniel Pharos, our newcomer to the team that delivered an impressive soundtrack in record time and became the crowning jewel of this trailer. We can expect much more scary sounds from Daniel and in the meantime be sure to check out the incredible work at his homepage.
The omnipresent entity known as Vlad K. who has always been with us (you may remember him as Cellar Of Rats, who did the soundtrack for Scratches). Vlad assisted me in creating all these websites (the new www.Senscape.net, the fake www.Hanwell.org and the promotional www.FaceTheHorror.com) and I can’t thank him enough for that. There’s a reason why he got into web development with his new company, Haron Media.
And of course, all the people that helped to distribute the Subject E14 aka Bertrand viral videos and promote the game:
And last, but not at all least, our dedicated group of beta testers, and they know that Senscape wouldn’t be the same without them:
Alkis Polyrakis, Andis Anastasis, Astrid Beulink, Eric Arevalo, Eva Forsom, Eric McConnell, Jeko-Bogoslov Bogoslovov, Michal Necasek, Panayotis Pantazis, Scott Clark, Susan Eder, Santiago De Matos Lima, Terje Kjensli, Tommy Joulin and Valerie Davis
I’m sorry I forgot anyone, but please do let me know if you believe your name should be here!
This is it for todays long post and remember that we will come back to normal next week with more movies, games and just plain deranged stuff as usual!
UPDATE: As it turns out, Asylum is enjoying over 35.000 views in YouTube thanks to an upload by IGN. Groovy!
We’re finally back today from a brief hiatus. I’m sorry that I took so long to deliver a new update but I’ve been working on stuff – very secretive and mysterious stuff – so you’ll have to bear with me until everything is back to normal. This should happen sometime in July when we announce the Unnamable Project at Senscape, that is, reveal its actual name and nature, and unleash unspeakable horrors into the highway of bits. It’s going to be so horrific that your monitor will tremble. And you’re possibly going to cry, so don’t say you haven’t been warned. Besides, we’re still coping with the notion of naming the unnamable… I still can’t get that concept into my head.
Anyway…
Interesting stuff happened recently which I couldn’t share with you before. A couple of weeks ago I was invited (read: I shamelessly invited myself) to the official presentation of Blizzard in Buenos Aires. You know, the makers of Blackthorne. Well, apparently they’re looking to market their new titles locally so they’re setting up an office and doing PR like most evil corporations do (note: the paragraph above this one does not qualify as PR). Obviously, the focus of the presentation was the upcoming Starcraft game which has been under development for… I don’t know, maybe centuries. Now, attending this event was a real challenge for me since it forced me to socialize, which means acting like a normal human being and talking to other people. There were lots of people in fact, and the place was big and there were shiny lights and, oh yeah, food. The whole joint felt like a night club, actually. This all made me feel very nervous but I switched to my cool blogger self and attempted to look friendly and un-nerd-like. So there was this odd-looking guy with curly hair nearby ravaging the bar and I thought like he was the perfect specimen to socialize. As a result, I spent most of the night at the side of the bar eating more than I care to remember while this guy spoke me in tongues. In the meantime, I believe I drank two glasses of wine, one double whisky, champagne and two screwdrivers. And I somehow lived to tell the rest…
Next thing I remember I was talking to a PR chick very cheerfully who fortunately didn’t notice my breath (at least I don’t think she did because she was smiling all the time) while an American dude from Blizzard was bumbling some Spanish on stage. They eventually said something about a game called Starcraft 2 and showed some videos and screens. The videos were very loud and showed big things moving on screen. Then they showed us gameplay which consisted in small things constantly moving on screen (“Zergs”, I believe) and some more stuff. Finally, they gave us a Press Kit and I was annoyed to find out that it didn’t include a playable beta. My mind may be playing tricks on me now but I believe that I punched someone next and they had to drag me outside as I was screaming like all Hell broke lose.
All in all, Starcraft 2 looks a bit boring and I still prefer Blackthorne which was like Prince Of Persia with guns. Now THAT is what I call a great concept!
Anyway, anyway…
To round up todays rather acid update, did you know that Slightly Deranged is becoming wildly popular in Croatia? Last time I checked it was one of the top 5000 sites in the country which, in world wide web terms, is really, really high. Either you people have very low standards or you’re obsessed with me and the blog — I still can’t figure out which one I prefer. Right, and don’t forget to check out my picks for this week: the grossly underappreciated and misunderstood 90’s movie Motorama, and a really cool and masochistic Amiga game called Risky Woods, just the way we like ‘em.
Gee, I must be the most irresponsible blogger ever. Another week passed by in the utmost silence here at Slightly Deranged but there is a pretty good excuse this time: my new company Senscape Interactive was officially announced last week after months of teasing. This meant deploying a whole new website with many sections and content to try and make it look professional. And a forum as well… I swear it’s the last time I ever skin one of those things. Trust me, I’ve been dreaming of terms such as CSS, PHP and FTP for the past two months. Fortunately, everything went smoothly and we could say that the launch has been a success. There’s a lot of interest about what we’re doing already – which is amazing considering that there’s practically nothing to show. I promise that faith in us will be greatly rewarded. You can have a look and be amazed, intrigued and maybe aroused right over here: www.senscape.net
The first major project that we’re presenting at Senscape is the so-called Unnamable Project because we’re not ready to tell you what it is about yet and, yes, the incredibly subtle Lovecraft reference was very intentional, so there’s some food for thought. The game is going to be a horror adventure alright and very, very large. Sometimes I sit back, look at all those blueprints and firmly believe that we have gone out of our minds. The scare factor is a whole other issue and I also think that we may have crossed the line there as well. But, we’ll have plenty of time to discuss about Unnamable and I expect to share further interesting tidbits about it within the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned! In the meantime, we have this lovely teaser online with all kinds of cryptic things: www.facethehorror.com
Of course, I haven’t forgot about my blogging weekly duties, so today I present to you The Deadly Spawn, a remarkable piece of indie filmmaking from our most favorite decade ever, the 80′s (I’m certain) and The Immortal, another arcade that made a few waves on our most favorite system ever, the Amiga (I’m positive). Hope you enjoy the write-ups and be ready for more and more. For real this time — I mean, the third or fourth time.
Folks, I won’t be updating the blog this week because I’m mutating into another creature. Next one we’ll be returning to our regular schedule with a bunch of surprises!
Another big write-up today, at least for what I had in mind for this feature, and this week is the turn of The Warriors… as if the weekly pick wasn’t already eclectic! Make no mistake however, just ignore the Rockstar game and be sure to see one of the greatest cult movies ever.
Also, I’ve been interviewed by Gnome’s Lair and they must have given me some strange beverages because I spilled the beans about a very secretive new adventure game. It’s right over here.
We had one of those rainy Mondays today that always tend to make you feel all sad and melancholic. I’m not sure what’s the deal with rainy Mondays really but they’re definitely more poetical than, say, rainy Wednesdays or Thursdays. Not to mention rainy Sundays which seems totally paradoxical. Is it because it rhymes better? Or maybe it’s that Carpenters song…
Anyway, I know you have already bookmarked Slightly Deranged as your homepage by now and you’re visiting it every hour, but you should go out there and meet other blogs too. You wouldn’t believe the incredible communities of such talented people that lurk behind the seemingly endless tides of nonsense that wash over the internet day by day. It almost makes me feel guilty.
First we have Gnome’s Lair, a sweet blog about gaming in general with a strong focus on retro and indie games. Heck, it has a tag for “ZX Spectrum” which makes it an instant bookmark in my book — I mean, my browser. The content is excellent and features posts that feel fresh and insightful. It’s well worth a visit and even a permanent stay!
Next is A Hardy Developer’s Journal created by a guy that (surprisingly) is called Igor Hardy. This is an invaluable resource for developers and fans of indie games alike, although they do cover some well-known titles. It’s often updated with reviews, interviews and articles (really good articles) about game design. It focuses on adventure games so this is another one I keep close to my heart.
Finally, The Armchair Adventurer is a newcomer to the block and this is from a guy that is hopelessly enamored with the sounds of a PC speaker. I’m sure you must be familiar with this sentiment (I know I do). There’s not much content yet but the very first article features one heck of a rare text adventure which makes it an instant win in my browser — I mean, my book. Blocky screenshots included. Looks like there’s an upcoming interview with Al Lowe here, so you’ll want to keep an eye on this one too!
In other news, I should also mention while I have the opportunity that our movie of the week has been updated as usually with its share of screen captures and video clip, and today we got pirates… in space… among lots of other things. In fact, it basically feels like watching four movies in one. You name it, and I’m sure The Ice Pirates will have it!
Allow me to finish this update by bringing your attention to this incredible offer of indie games: Machinarium, And Yet It Moves, Auditorium, Aztaka, Eufloria and Osmos at $20. That’s six good games (at the very least) for twenty lousy bucks. Keep in mind that Machinarium alone usually costs that and is well worth every penny. While I still have to play Eufloria, all the other games are great, especially And Yet It Moves which is a surreal puzzle/action game of sorts with an amazing grunge presentation. I doubt I have to say anything about Machinarium itself other than it’s one of the most breathtaking games released in quite some time – you won’t be able to tell just how artful games can get (in the good way) until you have played Machinarium. The offer ends this Friday so if you’re even remotely interested be sure to check it out soon: The Indie Bundle.
Another week, another movie pick that nearly turns into a review. Today we have a lengthy look back at The Resurrected, an excellent film based on a H.P. Lovecraft story without Stuart Gordon. No mentioning of Cthulhu either. Heresy? More like a total win!
Also, you might want to pay a visit to the fancy YouTube channel in case you missed the latest updates. Some great clips have been uploaded there, if I may say so. Particularly, a snippet from Rituals (we’re still patiently awaiting the DVD release from Code Red) is eerie and unsettling, but there are many other gems as well such as our last movie pick, The Brain (you have to see it to believe it).
I would like to take the opportunity to mention some recent crappy news: the demise of Atropos Studios, an adventure game company founded by Alkis Polyrakis, a friend of mine. Alkis is one of the true gurus of the genre, one of those guys that has really been around and is extremely knowledgeable. He first developed one of the undisputed best freeware adventures ever (Other Worlds) and certainly the lengthiest. With Atropos Studios, Alkis produced Diamonds In The Rough which easily became the most unique adventure of recent times. It has to be played to understand why, something that may prove difficult now. Alkis is selling the remaining DITR copies through eBay himself, so you may probably want to have a look if you’re remotely interested.
It’s frankly appalling to see such a talented developer being forced to shut down like this, but we can only hope this is just brief pause and Alkis will be eventually back with more original adventures.
Well, my Movie Of The Week pick for today turned into a much longer article, which will be posted within the next few days. I should have known since it’s one of those great movies that has been criminally neglected for decades. I’m sure you’ll be surprised when you hear about it! So, I’m deciding a new pick at the very last minute… umm, let me see… I have a nostalgic vibe for the 80′s today…
In other news, I have compiled my top horror movies of 2009, which turned out being a great year for the genre. The list will get probably posted within this week as well. And last, but by no means least, there’s an upcoming review of a very rare and underrated adventure game. Oh yes, we’re off to a great 2010!
The week is coming to an end, so let me remind you of these noteworthy updates. First we had a very important movie covered in the blog, the seminal El Topo. It truly is the definition of “cult” (I wonder how many times I said that) and a landmark achievement of underground cinema, so you already know what to watch this weekend. Next, I had a fond look back at Isle Of The Dead, a creative Wolfenstein 3D clone from the early 90′s. However, I realized that the only fond thing about this game were just my memories…
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