Boyz Dont Cry – Preview

From Poland, the country that gave us Detalion’s Schizm games, Pope John Paul and my grandparents, we are proud to announce yet another comedic, cartoon adventure – Boyz Don’t Cry.

Boyz Don’t Cry is an old school, 2D comedy adventure. The game is based on the Polish crime/comedy cult movie Guys Don’t Cry (sort of a Polish version of Pulp Fiction) directed by Olaf Lubaszenko and is scheduled for completion sometime in September.

The developers – L’Art – are very popular in parts of Europe and now hope to attract a North American publisher. This talented team comprised of 25 people, previously did localizations for such games as Myst III, Nocturne, Hopkins FBI and numerous others. Recently, they have become known for such games as Ski Jumping 2004: Polish Eagle which has sold over 200,000 units. Now they are channeling their talents into an adventure game that is, to put it mildly, offbeat.

While Boyz Don’t Cry is movie-based, the game occur after the events of the movie, so don’t be surprised if some of your favorite characters thought to be dead are resurrected. The heroes of Boyz Don’t Cry are actually two gangsters – Fred and SuPearMan. Though Fred died in the film, God has seen fit to give him a second chance to live a new life based on love and respect, but it seems Fred has other ideas about his resurrection. Now, this dastardly duo are involved in a secret mission that will soon find them involved with drug dealers, beautiful women and the leader of the underbelly of the underworld, The Guy With the Beard.

In all, the game will feature 50 different speaking characters, each one fully animated with over five hours of recorded dialogue; almost 50 hand-drawn locations and a full musical score. The interface will employ familiar time-honored icons: the ‘eye’ to look at objects, a ‘mouth’ to speak to other characters, an ‘arm’ to take inventory items and ‘boots’ to walk to other locations. The inventory will allow the player to combine items or use them individually to solve puzzles and the game has been created from scratch especially for this game.

One interesting innovation is that instead of cut-scenes, colorful comic-book pages will be used as transitions between levels. The artwork is stunning and perfectly conveys the whimsical, criminal atmosphere.

If the developer’s website is any indication, this is truly one game with an off-kilter, eccentric sense of humor and should be embraced by fans of Monkey Island and similar games. But it may be a different matter to convince a North American publisher that there is still a viable market for a 2D comedy, adventure game.

We’ll have more on Boyz Don’t Cry soon, but in the meantime visit the official game site for some fun reading and game related screensavers and wallpaper. This is definitely a game that would be a perfect fit for a company like GotGame Entertainment or Tri-Synergy.