Our Grubby New Game for [adult swim]
Posted on December 12th, 2011 by John
Christmas has come early for the team as our tribute to point and click style adventure games (and silly humour) comes alive and goes live through our collaboration with [adult swim]. After all our cryptic hinting and code names like “Project: Geoff”, it feels great to finally be able to talk about ‘Nurse Quest: Love Hurts‘.
As a new recruit, the game was 99.9% finished by the time I joined the company in October so I was given the arduous task of ‘here, play this’ and playing at my desk, slightly paranoid at the knowledge that how many times I laughed out loud was being monitored. Knowing the others were heavily inspired by LucasArts’ Escape From Monkey Island games, I had to confess (to my shame) I’d never played any of the series, but I have extremely fond memories of Day of The Tentacle (also by LucasArts) and several Discworld adventure games. So my chuckles were both natural and plentiful as my old love of adventure games came flooding back – not just how to play them, but also the endless potential for comedy the gameplay style creates.
Before I joined the team, I’d attended a talk by our lead developer Russell about agency in games using ‘Nurse Quest’ as one of his examples. I’d greatly appreciated the comparison to sitcom in terms of story design: how each level was like an episode with the hero in pursuit of the same goal but sewing the seeds of their own downfall en route. And, as with most comedies, it’s ‘downfall’ that leads to the humour (…especially if baggy trousers are worn without a belt) and where an ambulance speeding you to a hospital becomes a recurring comedy catchphrase.
But this is all getting a bit philosophical. The point is, Nurse Quest: Love Hurts is now live on the [adult swim] site. I know the team are really proud of this game. and I can see why. So join Geoff in trying to achieve that impressive injury that will win the Nurse of his dreams.