Jolly Rover struck the adventure game scene with appealing characters, funny writing, and a helpful interface that allowed players of all ages to take on its challenges. Brawsome, the Australian company behind the experience is on to their next project and taking things in a completely different direction. Their new game is called MacGuffin’s Curse and will be hitting PC, Mac, iPhone and iPad this fall.

The game focuses on the main character Lucas MacGuffin who’s resume calls him a magician and a thief. During his adventures, he steals a mystical amulet that changes him into a werewolf. Where the game comes in is on the period in his life where he’s forced to utilize both human and wolf form to solve puzzles and steal more treasure.

From the pre-alpha build we saw using placeholder artwork (mainly from Jolly Rover), the game is a series of push-puzzles where MacGuffin must move batteries into power outlets to open doors and reveal treasure. MacGuffin will be sent on missions by his landlord and battle the puzzles set forth by the main villain who has locked down the city.

The most striking aspect of this new game from Brawsome is the fantastic comic-style. Their artist has created wonderful characters that feel unique and interesting from all sides. The game’s story is told through portrait cut-scenes that are beautifully hand-painted. The game’s developers claim the style is so unique because they pulled the artist from outside of the games industry, thus bringing in a fresh perspective. From the early portrait work and concepts, they’re absolutely right. The new style in the game is great.

Once the full game is pieced together, this puzzle title will clock in at around 8 hours to complete. The experience will be chock-full of unlockables like developer commentary, collectible items and more.

Keep an eye out for this puzzling title later this year.

Indie adventure game Jolly Rover has been listed on Steam as available for purchase and download.

The 2D point-and-click throwback title has players entering a crazy world full of dog pirates, you play as the swashbuckler Gaius James Rover, son of the famous, and now deceased, clown Jolly Rover; who died in a tragically comedic death involving an improperly loaded joke cannon that mortally struck him in the groin. As Gaius, you set out for adventure to continue in your father’s footsteps of being a famous circus performer, but along the way you’ll get swept up in plots involving pirates, voodoo, lovers, haters and more.

Unlike many of its adventure genre predecessors, Jolly Rover also brings a fully integrated hint and task tracking system that can be used for those befuddled and can be ignored by those who wish to figure it out without help. The title runs $19.99 and is available for both PC and Mac on Valve’s digital distributon hub. Peter got to hang with Aussie developer Brawsome Games at this year’s GDC, if you’re looking for some hands-on impressions of the title. From the description:

About the Game

It be the golden age of pirates! Dogs of the sea! Quite literally.

Our swashbuckling sausage-dog star is Gaius James Rover, son of the famous clown Jolly Rover, who died from a blow to the groin from an improperly loaded joke cannon.

Following the tragically comedic death of his father, young Gaius, who insists on using his middle name James, goes to live with his uncle, a wealthy plantation owner on a small Caribbean island. While practising a particularly tricky juggling move, he accidentally taints a barrel of rum with tobacco, creating a potent and addictive brew which he coins ‘Jolly Rover’, one of the most prized substances in the Caribbean.

Alas, the wealth of Jolly Rover sales only manages to fill the pockets of his uncle, and Gaius longs for action and adventure and, more importantly, the opportunity to start his own circus and follow in the footsteps of his father.

It is not long before the fumbled juggling ball of opportunity raps Gaius smartly on the head yet again. While his uncle is away, a large contract for Jolly Rover arrives from Guy DeSilver, Governor of the notorious Groggy Island, with payment upfront!

In a blinding flurry of optimism, Gaius pools his meagre savings with this advance and charters a ship and crew to take him to Groggy Island. Along the way he meets a colourful band of seafaring cutthroats, scallywags and rogues otherwise known as pirates.

It is here we begin to follow the short and stubby tail of Gaius across three wild and untamed tropical islands, as he attempts to fulfil his dream of starting a circus, hampered only by pirates, villains, voodoo, love and considerable lack of loot.

Jolly Rover is a traditional 2D point and click adventure, including casual elements, such as an integrated hint system, and task bar. Bonus elements include unlockable Captain Bio’s, music, concept art and developer commentary!

Key features:

Over 60 beautifully rendered scenes to explore

25 colourful, fully animated and voiced characters

Traditional point and click adventure with simple one-click interface

Organic and fully integrated hint and task tracking system

Unlockable extras include Captain Bio’s, concept art, music tracks and directors commentary

You may recall my visit with the contingent from the Game Developer’s Association of Australia from this year’s GDC.

The adventure title from the experience, Jolly Rover, looked cartoony and great at the time, and Andrew Goulding has just released a new gameplay video on YouTube showcasing a few screens of the game. He also talks through the demonstration giving some insight into the design and development, like a commentary track.

The game is coming along nicely, with 25% of the voices recorded, most of the animations done, and about half of the backgrounds implemented.

Here’s the video:

At GDC last week, a scheduled meeting with a single iPhone game spawned a crash course in the world of independent Australian game development. In a short span of time, I got my hands on a selection of choice titles that are in different stages of development arising from the land down under. Some projects spawned from government grants, others from their past successes, and all with bright ideas from this unique country.

Jolly Rover

First up was the adventure game Jolly Rover from Brawsome Games. Andrew Goulding, Brawsome Game’s director, gave me a glimpse of the current build of the game. It’s a pirate themed adventure game that uses dogs as the main characters. It’s a four to eight hour experiences with around sixty scenes and twenty five characters. The art is cartoony and enjoyable and a callback to the adventure games of yore.

It’s got a great visual story with interesting characters, and Andrew played some audition clips from the voice actor’s submissions. The actors they’ve picked to voice the adventure are fantastic choices, and should add a lot to the story and it’s world.

To make the game unique, Andrew’s implemented some elements to add replayability and avoid the pixel hunt that ends up in a lot of adventure games. By tapping the space bar, the player is shown all the areas that the main character can interact with, and to further aid the quest, items are labelled in either blue or white text, depending on whether or not they have already been interacted with. It also includes a loot and achievement system, where the player collects crackers as they go. Once they start earning achievements for different actions in the games, they can unlock features such as a developer commentary to shed some light on the creation process.

The game is currently in an alpha state having started development in August 2009, with a beta scheduled for May and a release in June. All the elements I was shown indicate polish and a great-looking adventure, I’m looking forward to the completed product. We’ll be in touch with Andrew as the game nears release.

Train Conductor

Simon Joslin approached me with an iPhone in tow and and information on the game’s pending update. Arsen reviewed the original game extremely positively, even dubbing it his favorite iPhone game of 2009. Not being a mobile game myself, this was actually my first time playing Train Conductor.

For those not in the know like myself, the game is a puzzle game, involving directing trains across multiple tracks to reach their destination. For example, there are three tracks running horizontally across the playing field. A train will enter on the top track and have a number 3 posted, meaning you must drag your finger from the top track to the third track, creating a new path for the train to travel. Then multiple trains start arriving and you must direct each one to its destination without crashing into each other. Our review explains it in even more depth.

But after showing me the basics, Simon broke out the update. While the original game is set across three locations in Australia, the expansion is taking the title to the United States. There is now going to be a survival mode in which players need to last as long as possible, and there are two new playable levels: The Grand Canyon and the NYC Subway.

The Grand Canyon was a five track level split down the middle by the canyon itself with no tracks crossing over. It’s up to the player to connect the trains over the chasm while not crashing into each other and trying to wrack up the highest score for speed and efficiency. For a novice player like myself, this was no easy feat. Sure the trains stop at the gap on their own, but I was moving so slowly to get them to their proper exit point that I wasn’t scoring points successfully. Then moving on to NYC created a new game mechanic. The tracks weren’t broken in the middle, but cement columns blocked paths and tracks could only be crossed in between certain pillars which narrowed the window with which the game could be played. These levels are for a more advanced Train Conductor player and should make people very happy. Not only is the update due out next month, it’s going to be free.

While they weren’t being shown, the map of the USA had a few extra locations outside of Arizona and NY, but Simon indicated to me that these are still under construction. We’ll keep you posted as we find out more about the update and the game’s future.

Raskulls

Halfbrick Studios are no stranger to making games, as their main focus until this point has been working on licensed titles such as Sponge-Bob Squarepants and Avatar. But they have a new independently produced game coming to XBLA called Raskulls. While Halfbrick is much larger than the other developers I met with, I think they still have a place in this discussion of what’s coming out of Australia these days.

Phil Larsen showed off the game by taking me directly into the action. Raskulls is a well animated game in which all the characters have skulls for faces. It’s a racing platformer, in such that some levels you’re jumping and digging your way through the level and others you’re racing groups of NPC characters (or real players once it hits the marketplace). The action is quick and frantic, and you’ll find yourself digging through Tetris-like blocks and using items to boost your speed and efficiency through levels.

The game will feature over seventy levels across three chapters. This leaves a lot of variety for a simple XBLA game and with its fun factor and polish be quite a hit. The controls are tight, the characters memorable, and the action simply enjoyable. I played through the introductory story, the earliest platform levels, and my first race, getting a taste for the variety. You bust through multicolored blocks, you swim through floating chunks of water, and with power-ups you do everything it takes to win a race. All the elements that make a platform game fun, and then some. There’s no exact release date yet, but they’re hoping to launch it in early 2010. By my count…that’s soon.

Gamebook Adventures and Mole

Ben Britten, a figure from Escape Factory, partner at Tin Man Games and developer of the iPhone game Mole: Quest for the Terracore Gem showed me what he’s been working on.

Tin Man Games have created a series of Choose Your Own Adventure books for the iPhone. They’ve already released two titles An Assassin in Orlandes and The Siege of the Necromancer. They’re originally works written just for this series. The next book comes out in May and then they’re aiming to release new ones every four to six weeks. While you’re not directly flipping pages, the book leaves you choices just like the old fashioned books with a “If you want to Y turn to page X” choice structure. Conflicts and fights in the books actually turn into a minigame of dice rolls, which is a nice break from reading and should keep this new form of interactive fiction fresh. While the win or loss aspect doesn’t directly change things, just leave you another “turn to page x if you died” aspect, it does keep things interesting. The books are peppered with artwork and an interesting new application for the iPhone.

Then I got the game Mole in my hands, which is a fun digging game where you’re collecting precious gems and digging through different layers of earth on your quest to find the “Terracore Gem.” You must stay alive by finding pockets of air, and drills found throughout the playing field return you to the surface where you can purchase upgrades to help you on your journey of getting deeper and deeper. It’s a fun digging game that reminds me of a few different things I’ve played on Newgrounds, but fits in the palm of your hand.

Steam Pilot

Last up with a prototype build of a game John Lycette of the Lycette Bros. was working on. He’s a member of the Escape Factory, which is an indie game collective that help each other out on their projects.

Steam Pilot has you piloting a kind of blimp through the silhouetted skyline of an old-fashioned city. The whole game plays in black and white and you travel in a circular pattern around the city picking up pieces and putting them in their proper place, such as a weather vane or a missing ampersand.

The game had very little work put into it at this point, but it was just a glimpse at the art style the Lycette’s are capable of and what is to come. At this point there isn’t much to undertake, just floating up and down and positioning your blimp in the right place to grab things with your claw. There are also birds to avoid who will cause you to drop your cargo. There can never be too many stylish iPhone games, so I’m curious to see what this simple gameplay prototype evolves into.