A few people have asked me if there will be deaths in STASIS. The answer is a very definiate yes! LUCASARTS games avoideded death in their games, as they felt that it hindered the gamer from exploring the world. Sierra had a different approach

Holding the flame for the indie adventure game! The demo of GENIMI RUE has been released, aswell as the game. Head on over HERE to get it! Azriel Odin, ex-assassin, arrives on the rain-drenched planet of Barracus to find someone.  When things go horribly wrong, he can only seek help from the very criminals he used to work for. Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a man called Delta-Six wakes up in a hospital with no memory.  Without knowing where to turn or who to trust, he vows to escape before he loses his identity completely. As fate brings these two men closer together, we discover a world where life is cheap, identities are bought and sold, and a simple quest for redemption can change the fate of a whole galaxy. The game looks beautiful, and as a MASSIVE Blade Runner fan, Im really digging the sci-fi noir feel. Have a look, download the demo, and if it tickles your fancy, at only $14,99 you cant go wrong! Well done guys. Its a monumental effort to get an adventure game out! Congratulations! -Chris

Rapid Transport System

The Groomlakes RTS is a series of trams that link areas of the several kilometer long space ship together. Throughout the chapters, Maracheck will be able to explore the ship in any way he wants, using the RTS. Certain areas will not be available immediately, either requiring security clearance, or some other way of bypassing it. This is a Work In Progress shot of a standard boarding platform. The map on the right will show all the terminals that this specific tram can travel to. A 'YOU ARE HERE' board. The location board will be the way you navigate around the ship. Look at the board, pick an area to go to, and the RTS will take you to the nearest platform. The distances will be time related, so pick a station far from you, and it will take some time to get there. Comments always welcome. ;) -Chris

There has been quite a few discussions on various adventure game forums about multiple solves to puzzles. Now while I can see the appeal from a gamers point of view, from a design standpoint they are almost impossible to effectively implement. Now, these are really only issues I have discovered when designing my own game. Some of the things you may disagree with, and even find some ways around. If you have solutions to these issues, please let me know! INVENTORY PUZZLES. The big issue with having multiple puzzle options for inventory puzzles is that you end up with useless inventory items. Lets say that the obstacle to pass is a door. One solution involves picking the lock using a metal toothpick. Another solve is finding an axe and simply bashing through the door. the final solve is to use a blowtorch to cut off the hinges. Now each of these puzzles, on their own, are pretty simple to impliment from a design point of view. HOWEVER, each one requires a different item. A toothpick, an axe, and a blowtorch. Lets say that in the game, I pick up the blowtorch, and the axe, but skip over the toothpick. Now that is cool-but what happens

A really interesting article on Adventure Games. " Space Quest. Day of the Tentacle. Gabriel Knight. Monkey Island. To gamers of a certain age, the mere names evoke an entire world of gaming, now largely lost. Graphic adventure games struggle to find success in today's market, but once upon a time they topped sales charts year after year. The genre shot to the top of computer gaming in the latter half of the 1980s, then suffered an equally precipitous fall a decade later. It shaped the fate of the largest companies in the gaming industry even as the games' crude color graphics served as the background for millions of childhood memories. It gave us Roger Wilco, Sam & Max, and the world of Myst. But few gamers today know the complete history of the genre, or how the classic Sierra and LucasArts titles of the late 1980s and early 1990s largely disappeared beneath the assault of first-person shooters. Here's how we got from King's Quest to The Longest Journey and why it matters—and getting to the end of this particular story won't require the use of a text parser, demand that you combine two inscrutable inventory objects to solve a demented puzzle, or send you pixel-hunting across the screen." http://arstechnica.com/gaming/reviews/2011/01/history-of-graphic-adventures.ars

The main idea behind the XRay goggles was to have an element that could be repeated over multiple puzzles. I really want to give he character a 'tool box' that he can use certain items multiple times. It just makes sense, that he would go over to the ship prepared