That would be awesome, but it's a bit too much work for a free game. It would have to be built from the ground up. I'm remaking Infested in 16-bit, and if it comes out on Steam, and I can make money off of it, then Mac-style B&W filter w/visible item menu is definitely an option I'd like to impliment. If InferstedX does well on Steam, then a Spectacle remake would be next.
1: That is correct. Zojoi played Infested and Spectacle and messaged me about us working on Beyond Shadowgate.
2: That is also correct. The design notes for Beyond Shadowgate had a blank area between the river and the desert, simply labeled "Ruins, maybe?!?", so I used the mansion found in Themeire, and reworked it to fit into Shadowgate lore. So the swamp and mansion were lifted directly from our defunct game.
3: We're working up post-production on Beyond Shadowgate (patches, feedback changes, additional options, possible console porting, etc.) and then we'll be beginning work on another project with Zojoi, that will be announced in a couple months :D
Just a reminder that Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequal to NES Shadowgate, is now available on Steam and GOG. I really hope you enjoy this love letter to the franchise and hopefully a console port is on the horizon.
Just a reminder that Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequal to NES Shadowgate, is now available on Steam and GOG. I really hope you enjoy this love letter to the franchise and hopefully a console port is on the horizon.
No, unfortunately, but when I complete the remake soon, I'll be making a Nintendo Power-style walkthrough. In the meantime, YouTuber Cranky Templar did a detailed step-by-step walkthrough on his channel
Another world entirely. A fantasy land inspired by Arabian and Greek mythology. I made it an unofficial prequal to The Uninvited, where the origins of the supernatural creatures and events that occur in the Uninvited mansion originated in the magical kingdom. The unknown sorcerer who owned the house and trained apprentices, including that games antagonist, was the same sorcerer from Spectacle. Of course I added around 10 other direct references and links to The Uninvited.
I came up with everything myself.
Probably the Hyleg Well puzzle, in the Azure palace, where you have to line up the moon and throw in a coin to make the gust of wind destroy the Yajna upstairs. A LOT of people wanted to go down that well. I'm like "Oh yeah, you go down a well in Shadowgate. That's why they're so determined to try and go down there", lol
Oh, Themeire. I cancelled that because I had 2 other games to work on, in an official capacity, including Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequel to NES Shadowgate, due out in a few months. The other game is still secret. The reason I cancelled Themeire, and not just put it off, was because a lot of the assets, ideas and puzzled for the game were used in making one of the sections in Beyond Shadowgate, aptly named Themire (spelled slightly differently)
To be 100% honest with you, I have no idea how to gauge the difficulty, even compared to those adventure games that inspired me, because it seems like 1/2 the feedback that I receive is that it's too hard and the other 1/2 say it's too easy.
If it helps, I don't have any moon logic or overly obtuse puzzles and I designed this game as someone who isn't particularly good at these kinds of games. Worst case scenario I do have a step-by-step walkthrough [link below].
I hope you try it anyway and let me know what you think. I'm always happy to hear feedback, even if it's negative.
Thank you very much. I 100% agree with you about the Deaths being boring. I wrote the game and I am NOT a writer, lol. I admittedly was a tad hasty in my descriptions because at the time I underestimated both the importance of the deaths and the amount of people who would actually play the game.
The InfestedX remake has a professional writer/Shadowgate fan on board (Chris M. from our Beyond Shadowgate team), so he will definitely understand the assignment and make the deaths MUCH more colorful :D
Also, the stranger is a she. It's actually an astral projection of the Ringmaster's assistant at the circus in your world. She uses the cloaked avatar to help guide you so that you bring the magic instrument back to her, so she can use it on the evil wizard/demon. She was the Princess of that land, hence why her father (the Shah/King) appears beside her as a ghost at the end :D
- We were not aware of that bug, but I'll take note of it
- We decided to make the player read the book/floor first in order to navigate the deserts cause otherwise there was sequence breaks that cause issues in the game, but I understand where you're coming from. Good point
- I don't remember the Cicada freeze time one, I'll have to look into that
Glad you enjoyed it and I'm always happy to receive notes like this, so thank you very much :)
Thank you very much. That means the world to us. I'm really glad you love the games. I actually designed Infested in the mid-90s and never did anything with it until I was on sabbatical in 2015, when I decided that there was a serious lack of Shadowgate-inpired Indie games (read; none). As for Spectacle, I actually originally wrote it as a short story called The Great Spectacular. On top of what you see in the game, It also involved a village being turned to stone and a hunter that turned out to be the evil Wizard's emotions run amuck without the presence of the Wizard. When I turned it into a game I removed some of those plot points and replaced them with direct references to Uninvited in order to make it an unofficial prequel.
Oh, thank you. They're free simply because I really wanted to get these out there for people to enjoy. We made them on our free time for fun and thought that Shadowgate-style games are a bit too niche right now and what better way to help rekindle the subgenre than to get as many people as possible to play and [hopefully] enjoy them
Thank you for the heads-up. We may update Infested, but we're currently remaking Infested from the ground up at the same time as Beyond Shadowgate, so we may just focus on that release. We'll try our best to get a Mac version, but the problem is that the neither of us own a Mac and analytics for Infested's Download numbers show that approx. 4% of DLs were on Mac, so that's why we didn't bother with Mac for Spectacle. Either way, we DO want to have as many people as possible play these games, so we're definitely looking into Mac, but it's sadly not a priority right now. We'll let you know if we need anything. Thanks again
I can FINALLY announce the project I've been secretly working on: Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequel to Shadowgate on NES. We'll be launching a KickStarter soon, so stay tuned!
I can FINALLY announce the project I've been secretly working on: Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequel to Shadowgate on NES. We'll be launching a KickStarter soon, so stay tuned!
I'm sorry to hear about that happening, but thanks for letting me know about that. Not sure what could be causing that, but I'm sure that won't be an issue in my remake of Infested coming out next year
Thank you so much for the kind words and I'm very glad you enjoyed the two games. Those criticisms were most definitely constructive and helpful. Very good point about the fruit. I can 100% understand thinking you needed to find a different fruit somewhere else. The Cicada puzzle could have used a hint somewhere, for sure. I'm currently working on several projects at the same time, but one of them is another Macventure, so I hope to get even more balance in the puzzles and gameplay, so thanks for the insight into your playthrough.
UPDATE: For anyone curious about our 3rd MacVenture game, Themeire, we've actually cancelled the game indefinitely, BUT that is ultimately for the better because we are working on 2 bigger and better games. One is a top secret project that is an official game that will have a KickStarter launching soon and the other game will be announced this Saturday on my Twitter @GrahfMetal
UPDATE: For anyone curious about our 3rd MacVenture game, Themeire, we've actually cancelled the game indefinitely, BUT that is ultimately for the better because we are working on 2 bigger and better games. One is a top secret project that is an official game that will have a KickStarter launching soon and the other game will be announced this Saturday on my Twitter @GrahfMetal
