Once you assume “point-and-click journey” you most likely consider one thing a bit sedate, one thing you play with a sizzling drink close to at hand whereas taking loads of pauses to mull over what you are going to do subsequent. The Drifter will not be that type of journey recreation.
Inside minutes of beginning the demo I used to be trapped in a boxcar being shot at, and shortly after escaping that I used to be dumped in a reservoir with a weight spherical my ankles. Having to flee these conditions with no matter instruments are at hand makes The Drifter really feel much less like a mug-of-tea type of recreation, and extra like a near-death expertise.
It is the work of Powerhoof, an Australia studio you could know from native multiplayer video games like Crawl or Common Human Basketball, however who’ve quietly been releasing classic-style journey video games on the facet without spending a dime, together with Sierra-esque quest fantasy The Telwynium and Antarctic research-base horror recreation Peridium.
“I’ve at all times carried out journey video games,” says Dave Lloyd, the programmer/designer half of Powerhoof. “The primary recreation I ever did was an journey recreation, like 20 years in the past when I discovered Journey Sport Studio, which is actually what received me into making video games.” Peridium, made for a recreation jam, featured a sequence the place the protagonist was being hanged by the neck from an extension lead, and had to make use of a pair of wirecutters to chop themselves free. Lloyd watched gamers frantically fumble by means of the straightforward motion of clicking one factor after which one other, panicking the entire time, and had an thought.
“That was the primary inkling I received that you possibly can make a point-and-click journey that is a bit fast-paced and has that heart-thumping type of feeling such as you’re as much as section three of a boss battle, which you do not anticipate to have in an journey recreation,” he says. “That grew to become one of many core pillars of The Drifter: how can we get these actually fast-paced-feeling components into what’s normally a slow-paced style?”
That is not all there’s to The Drifter, although. In between the demo’s pulse-pounders you’ll be able to have an extended dialog with a pleasant man by a burning bin, and stroll backwards and forwards between a number of screens as you acquire the data and instruments it is advisable to remedy a basic multi-step ‘restore the factor’ puzzle. “There’s some sections within the recreation the place there’s much more areas you may be wandering round as you attempt to piece issues collectively,” Lloyd says, “however then it goes again to actually fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat type of stuff. Making an attempt to stability that may be a large a part of it.”
Lloyd discovered inspiration within the motion pictures of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg in addition to books by Michael Crichton and Stephen King. As Mick Carter, the drifter of the title, you have returned to your private home city for a funeral and instantly received your self caught up in one thing unexplainable. There is a homicide to unravel, however there is a deeper thriller than that. As you’d anticipate for a recreation that attracts from Stephen King there is a spooky facet to The Drifter, with Carter seemingly in a position to come again from the lifeless—however not with out bringing one thing over from the opposite facet when he does.
You’ll be able to play a demo of The Drifter on Steam, and Powerhoof will probably be exhibiting it at PAX Australia within the Indie Showcase space from October 6–8.
