We’ve talked about it before, but I think it’s important to go places to experience what they are really like. Whenever I take a roadtrip, I try to stop at interesting places to draw inspiration from. The caves were not the only place I stopped this time, so expect more real-life-inspired assets in the future.

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Tiny & Big: Grandpa’s Leftover is a physics based third person platformer with a sandbox attitude. Make use of your ray cutter to slice rocks like butter and then pull them around with your grappling hook.

The game will be released on June 19th 2012… in the meantime you can check out the demo which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

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Tim Schafer would be proud – the point & click adventure has been making a sterling comeback, but so far not too many of the major releases of the past few years have come close to reaching the heights flown by Lucasarts’ finest. As with so many things these days, it’s down to the indies to recapture that old magic, and The Journey Down: Chapter One (the first part in an episodic series by small indie outfit Skygoblin) comes closer than most.

The Journey Down is set in a refreshingly creative world which blends near-future dystopia with a dash of Discworld (a flat-topped world with a mysterious ‘underside’), plenty of African and Jamaican influences and a mostly black cast. It’s a heady mix, and not like anything I’ve seen before. The gameplay, however, is pure old-school Lucasarts; in the style of Monkey Island or Day of The Tentacle. TJD tells the story of Bwana (the player character) and his buddy Kito, two flat-broke goof-offs who run a portside gas station and charter plane service. Neither side of the business seems to be going anywhere, least of all the flying side, on account of their old sea-plane missing a propeller, both engines and a yoke.

The puzzles are clearly inspired by Lucasarts’ greatest. Mostly revolving around using unusual items in silly ways to achieve otherwise mundane goals. They mostly hit that rare balance of being ridiculous enough to make you stop, think and question your own sanity for a moment, but intuitive enough to not require a walkthrough or too much pixel-hunting. Only an early puzzle involving a buoy floating in the harbour (which looked very much part of the background) had me stuck, and only then because the buoy in question didn’t really seem to be part of the interactive foreground layer. The game even subtly drops some hints if you seem stuck for a while on a particular puzzle, and repeatedly examining inventory items can spark these gems of advice sooner.

Now, the eagle-eyed among you might notice that The Journey Down has been available as freeware for quite some time. Well, this is true! What we’re talking about here is the HD, fully-voiced remake, switching pixellated sprites for smooth (and oddly claymation-ish) 3D models, and adding a few more layers of puzzles to bulk out the experience and make it worth the new asking price. The backdrops in particular are very pleasant to look at, blending hand-drawn pieces with 3D rendered elements. It’s still a fairly short experience even with the new content – only a couple of hours long – but it isn’t asking anywhere near full price, so it balances out fairly well, and leaves plenty of room for growth in the next chapter.

The move from freeware experiment to commercial product has gone surprisingly smoothly here. Sprites have made the move to 3D without losing much of their charm, and aside from some slightly stiff movement during cutscenes and bizarrely Lego-like hands, animate well, too. The voicework is probably the biggest strength of this update though, with the lead duo of Bwana & Kito being pitch-perfect performances, Jamaican-tinged voices matching up with the characters perfectly. The supporting cast are a bit more of a mixed bag, with some slight overacting in places, and a little bit of under-acting coming from Lina during stressed moments, but it’s a very impressive show on the whole.

All in all, The Journey Down is a fine bit of point and clickery, with a good script, solid puzzles and a fantastic sense of style. Great for old-school fans and newcomers alike, as the puzzles aren’t too wildly challenging (or unfair) but not a cakewalk either, and there’s no potential for death or time-pressure failure to worry about, so you can enjoy the comical dialogue and vividly designed world at your own pace. The Journey Down HD will be available to buy on PC and Mac from May 18th from Desura, Mac Game Store, Gamersgate and more.

This is where Saboteur 2 shines. Saboteur 2 has three intense 20 minute rounds with no player elimination. Three rounds means that lots of players get to play traitors. Saboteur 2 is an expansion to Saboteur, thus you need Saboteur to play Saboteur 2. Saboteur 2 fixes the game balance issues of the Saboteur(s) losing more often.

The original Saboteur is a game about a happy dwarven mining camp infested with Saboteurs, the traitors. The goal of the team is to mine and find gold while the goal of the Saboteurs is to deceive the team and delay until time runs out, allowing the Saboteurs to get the gold. Each player receives a role card: Gold-Digger or Saboteur. The number of Saboteurs is random, ranging from one to half the team, depending the number of players. You can make any claim of identity but you never reveal your role card. Each turn, you play or discard a mining card then pick one up. A majority of the mining cards are tunnels that are played on the table to build a path to the gold, like Carcassonne. Some cards break or fix equipment. If you have broken equipment, you cannot play mining cards. If people think you are a Saboteur, your equipment will constantly break, faster than you can repair it. As a Saboteur, you want to collude with other Saboteurs to misdirect accusation to innocent dwarves.

Saboteur 2 adds new roles and competition within the dwarves, restoring the game balance. Since the number of saboteurs varies from round to round, Saboteurs can be greatly outnumbered. Saboteur 2 add new roles that create Gold-Digger sub-teams as well as roles with hidden agendas that cause conflicts or even indifference with the team’s goal. For instance, the Geologists do not care who get the gold; their share of the gold is determined by tunnel cards on the table with crystals on them. The internal conflicts among the Gold-Diggers ensure that the Saboteurs have a fighting chance each round.

You will lie, you will be lied to, and yet it is all in jest, and no feelings will be hurt. Only a handful of games can have this much betrayal without building spite or hurt feelings. Saboteur 2 is an excellent social game for up to twelve players and will provide you with an hour of great memories.

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