Penny Arcade Game
Posted by ushimitsudoki on June 10, 2008
From time to time I will check out Penny Arcade, and I remembered that they had a video game coming out.
Today, I was pleased to find out they have a native linux version of On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One! There is a demo available, so I gave it a download to try it out.
Install
Very simple to install (just unzip it), the only twiddling I had to do was change the sound driver to ALSA (as talked about in this support thread).
You can set up a menu entry yourself if you like; an icon is included.
Resolution was no problem, I could select 1920×1200 fullscreen from the menu and it worked just fine.
The demo contains the full game – if you like the demo you can just buy a key online and then enter it, there is a second of activation and then the demo becomes the full game.
Gameplay
The game runs very smooth on my box and has a cartoon feel that matches the graphics and tone of the overall game.
It’s a click-and-move-to-the-spot adventure with a combat system that reminds me of PS2 games I used to play; you know, click on the attack you want to use, then click on the enemy type of deal.
I haven’t played through much of the game, but I’ve already had some laughs over some of the little bits – I don’t want to give them away. Obviously someone spent some time in crafting a world and spend a lot of time in the writing.
Value
Well, it’s an “episodic” adventure, which I am slightly wary of – those sort of things can go either way. What I’ve seen so far is high quality, so I have correspondingly high hopes.
The price ($20) is not too bad – I’ve heard reports of about 8 hours of gameplay, which seems decent enough. The linear nature of the game doesn’t offer much reason for replays, I should think. I’m expecting once through the thing.
In any case, I’m glad to see another nice game coming native to Linux.
