Articles

Creative studio House of Dragonflies, in co-operation with Cinemax,
Ltd., is developing a sequel of a successful adventure game
In the Shadow of the Raven (1998), the most widespread and
the most successful game in our region. It has an artistically
conceived noir-cyberpunk stylization, derived from tradition
of books of P. K. Dick, W. Gibson or movies of T. Gilliam.

The story takes place between two worlds – the medieval Europe
(these motives were used also in the first Raven game) and
a futuristic world that is ruled by a galactic government,
based on principles of the Plato’s ideal state. Main character,
an unconventional monk Severin, will try to uncover the mystery
of a man, called Kadmon, who is looking for his lost sons.
There is also certain Major Gletch chasing dangerous interstellar
pirate Buxtrod. And our hero may find mysterious connections
with the journey made by Joseph of Arimathea, who brought from
the Holy Land something that should have never fallen into wrong
hands. Severin again starts to think about the nature of his dreams,
of his origin, and it wouldn’t be him, if it didn’t get to discussions
about the meaning of life, universe and all the related staff.

Concerning the genre, it is a 3D point-and-click adventure game with
nonlinear storyline. Erik Šille and Boris
Sirka, two talented Slovak
painters, devised a unique look of the game. Together they have created
an artistic concept exceeding classical compositions, which is in contrast
to usual approach to adventure games as clones of pathetic detective stories.
Regarding musical aspect of the game, the developers try to preserve
extraordinary
stylization, too. Apart from incidental music, they plan to incorporate also
songs of various European underground bands. Among the innovations is
a system of non-obligatory education, which enables player not only
to find historical connections, but also to uncover interesting topics
from philosophy, religious studies, math or cybernetics. System of
personal profiles that is based on application of certain “secondary skills”
and karma (as it was used in Fallout for example) will guarantee nonlinearity
of the storyline. Contrary to the common RPGs, these secondary skills will
not appear in any statistics, but they will affect the possibilities of
solving a certain problem, or in the beha vior of the NPC.

Since the second part is only slightly connected to the first part,
the player may immediately start playing even without knowing the
details of situation, to which Severin got himself. Players that
have successfully finished the first game can, of course, understand
some aspects in wider context. The system of non-obligatory education
that was already mentioned works completely on a voluntary basis. Various
comments of the characters or the documents found during the game refer to
additional literature, various short stories, or comics from the Raven world.
Some of them refer to external resources (scientific literature, movies or
musical
compositions) that may provide player with clues to understanding of less
obvious
parts. This method, often used in the literature of J.L. Borges or U. Eco, is
reinforced by the nonlinearity of the game that widens scope for various
interpretations of the story. All the NPCs are created with an emphasis
on development of their own personality. The aim is to create the world
of believable characters that have their own simple joys of life, weaknesses,
fears or specific relationships towards the rest of the characters and the
environment they live in.

On the other hand, it is not the intention of the authors to bore players
to death and overload them with lot of useless information. Therefore there
is always a possibility to ignore these clues and finish the journey as
an entertaining adventure game with funny dialogues or hilarious looking
characters, having witty comments. Despite all of the mentioned changes,
the authors emphasize that they want to preserve the distinctive atmosphere
of the first part, together with Severin’s gallows humor. Crucial part of
the game is to establish an intimate relationship not only with the main
character,
but also deeply emotional communication with NPC that enables player to believe
in decisions he makes during the game. Nonlinearity of the story should not
function as a simple autotelic decoration, but it should create an authentic
personal testimony. Juraj Podroužek, the author of the first story, will
take part in the creation of the storyline and dialogues. Miroslav Adamus,
one of the members of the original studio Rainbow Rhino, who engaged in the
development of Necromania and highly awarded indie game Gumboy, will participate
on this ambitious project, too. The vision of the developers from the House of
Dragonflies is according to their words to: “Bring an invention and individual
expression to the video games. We think that there have come the time, when
the medium of the video games should join theater and movie, which apart from
mainstream have also strong artistic alternatives. We want to set a higher
level of playing video games from the passive consumption towards th e active
approach and full-value experience.”

Special homepage shall appear during next few weeks. Release date has been
preliminary set on the second quarter of the year 2008.