I’ve always been convinced that you don’t need big bucks to create masterpieces. Masterpieces are masterpieces regardless of the technology, the cast, the equipment, and the AAA team. Masterpiece is when you’ve got great inspiration and great capabilities. Technology is just something that is in your way. Recently I played two games that prove this theorem.
Blackwell Deception is an old-style point-n-click adventure. Do you remember the good ol’ Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders? Or the more recent Monkey Island series? Well, that’s the genre. But that’s just the technology. There’s a great story, greatly narrated through the pixellated characters. There’s this strange pair – a young woman and the ghost of her uncle. They help just passed away people to understand their new condition and leave this world. While you play you discover both the current story and the characters’ background – their lives. There are 3 (at least) titles in this series, I played some, and I’d like to play more, but I have a life. Nonetheless, if you like either adventures or stories, give this a try, money will be worth spending.
To The Moon is a narrative RPG, really there is little G and not much RP, but there is playable poetry. Besides if you are a bit clumsy – as I am – in adventures, and sometimes it happens to get stuck, this is the game for you. I never doubted what to do or where to go.
The graphics is pixel art, classic RPG pixel art. But the story is light years ahead of everything I played. This is so gentle, so touching… I am just sad it is over.
There are two agents/scientists that help people in realizing their wish. When someone is about to die, they can help him (or her) in achieving the strongest wish they had in life.
So the scientists are called to help a dying men in realizing his wish – going to the moon. They travel back in memories, with the help of virtual reality machinery, in search of the proper spot to insert new memories of their travel to the moon. The mission wouldn’t turn out so simple, but the story of the man, his infancy, his love, his passion, lived in a great flash-back, is something that ties you to the PC and won’t let you go. Here, too, your money will be well spent.
So I’d say, you’ve got no excuses, pick the technology you can afford and create your masterpiece.