Articles

Every year after the E3, while other sites are posting breathtaking
and up-to-the-moment updates, Just Adventure takes a week off to
recoup both physically and mentally from the noise and mayhem of
the E3 (okay, I admit it, this year it took me longer than a week
to recover!).

Unlike previous years
when I’ve bored you with my day-to-day
escapades at the E3, we’ve decided to instead focus on previews
of the numerous adventure games (and I’m sure you’ve
already read our previews of Dreamfall, Paradise, Tony
Tough 2, Runaway
2 and more on the way). But there were also numerous
side meetings, random encounters and surprises that can’t be
related in a preview.

HIGHLIGHTS

On
the flight to Los Angeles, sitting in the surrounding seats were
the developers
of Final Destination. They were a great
group and we had an interesting conversation about independent game
developers and the past and future of the adventure genre.

Charles Cecil, who is doing some work for 2K, told me of a new project that will excite adventure fans when it is announced. In the meantime, there is a possibility that some of the Broken Sword games may appear on the PSP.

Speaking
of the PSP, we found at least a half-dozen adventure games
for the PSP
and Nintendo DS. We’ll have a preview of
all of these games soon, but there seemed to be an undercurrent
of excitement at the E3 towards developing or porting adventure
games
to these new handhelds.

Meeting the staff of Himalaya Studios was a real thrill. What a talented, young group of developers and Al Emmo & The Lost Dutchman’s Mine looks great. They were visiting Lori Cole the next day to consult about their Quest for Glory remake and have promised to send us pictures for an article.

Always interesting to chat with, Djamil Kemal let slip that a Missing add-on will be published by Dreamcatcher and then invited me to a filming session for the sequel, Missing 2. Not content to rest on his laurels, he then demoed some screens from his next, unannounced project and swore me to secrecy, but I can tell you that it rocks!

The
staff of Dreamcatcher – a
warm, gregarious group of professionals who are sincerely
concerned about the adventure
genre and the adventure community. It was great to see them
actively pursuing adventure developers at the E3.

It’s
always a pleasure to hook-up with Megan Gaiser – CEO of Her Interactive
– and though her enthusiasm is always contagious,
she seemed especially excited about the new Nancy Drew game and
after seeing Secret
of the Old Clock. I can understand why.

Kudos to the staff of Funcom for forging ahead with their Dreamfall presentation even though electricity had just been restored and the air conditioning was still kaput. Who better to share a hot and sweaty room with than a bunch of guys from Norway?

Meeting Bill Tiller of Autumn Moon Entertainment. We spoke for over an hour about Vampyre Story, LucasArts and numerous other subjects and could easily have chatted for another hour.

Lowlifes