the cave

“Ransom is probably the worst part of the game. He’s like a total a**hole, right?”

That’s Ron Gilbert, co-creator of Thimbleweed Park on Ransom, a dirty-joke-telling clown you’ll love to …
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We know you’ve been waiting for them, and here they are! Black Friday sales for Xbox Live Arcade start now, and, assuming you don’t already own them, you will definitely want to take advantage of this opportunity to pick up some of the best games of the outgoing console generation on the cheap. Notable XBLA games include Mark of the Ninja, Bit.trip Runner 2, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Battleblock Theater, most of which are at least 66 percent off! Some of these games will only be on sale for 24 hours, so check and double-check the tables below to plan your purchases. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Legendary video game designer Ron Gilbert announced yesterday via his blog that he has parted ways with Double Fine Productions. The news comes just shy of two months after …
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In a video interview posted over at the Sega blog, lead designer of The Cave, J.P. LeBreton, explains that devising the game’s puzzles presented a unique kind of challenge.

Double Fine’s LeBreton, who also worked on BioShock, explained that the trick is to find the good kind of “being stuck.” Providing just the right amount of information is paramount when designing any game’s puzzles. But he learned that a straight-up adventure game like The Cave presents additional hurdles at the user-testing stage.

“You don’t have clear metrics like you do with a game that’s based around combat, where you can say, ‘OK, they died this many times and they took this much damage, and we’d rather it be this way, so let’s put more health packs or whatever in the level,” he begins.

“With [The Cave], it was more just like, ‘Well, they were stuck in this area for a long time. A, are we OK with that? And B, what do we want to do about it? Do we want to give them a hint in this direction? No, that’s too much of a gimme; let’s figure out something else. Or let’s just leave it, because it’s actually good because it’s late in the game, or it’s the right kind of difficult puzzle for this kind of situation.'”

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The Cave will make you laugh. The Cave will make you curious. The Cave will make you confused. The Cave will make you think. Yes, The Cave will make you a lot of things as you solve puzzles that are only occasionally as frustratingly obtuse as they are clever. Unfortunately, one of those things Double Fine Production’s point-and-click-is-dead/long-live-point-and-click adventure game will make you is bored. Playing Double Fine’s adventure game will inspire in you feelings of pride and contentedness during your moments of puzzle-solving clarity, but it will also inspire you to go play something else when you’re (frequently) stuck shambling along its mostly lifeless halls for the umpteenth time.

You’ll uncover the shady pasts and green-eyed and avaricious desires of the game’s seven playable characters — if you’re willing to play through the game three separate times — as you explore ever deeper while the Cave itself plays the dual roles of court jester and adjudicator. These stories are intriguing despite their simplicity, and the game will have you smiling and chuckling a bit when the Cave is narrating proceedings or morbidly recounting a character’s past. The experience breaks down, however, when you’re hopelessly stuck on one of the more perplexing puzzles without the benefit of the titular narrator distracting you from the tedium of your aimless wandering.

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Here we are once again at the start of what’s sure to be another fantastic year of XBLA releases. Each day this week XBLAFans will be rolling out a list of eight of our most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade releases of 2013. While we can’t possibly cover every single XBLA game planned for this year, we’ll be giving you a varied list of 40 of the most promising titles we expect to release on XBLA in 2013. Once it’s all done, be sure to check back in next Monday when each staff member makes his/her picks for the game he/she is most looking forward to.

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The Cave

Developer: Double Fine

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An upcoming platform-adventure game, The Cave is the brainchild of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion creator Ron Gilbert. Channeling Gilbert’s earlier work, The Cave employs classic adventure-style gameplay within an action-platform framework. While we expect The Cave to release this month, an official release date has not yet been announced.

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Originally reported to be coming in January, Double Fine’s The Cave now has a solid release date. Announced today by publisher Sega, and by creator Ron Gilbert via …
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Weekly Roundup compiles all the biggest news stories, reviews and features from the week into one handy post on the weekends.

Another week of Xbox Live Arcade brought to a close. It’s been a relatively quiet one, compared to the mad dash of last week’s seasonal sales. Though there isn’t much to write home about in terms of marquee XBLA titles, there’s quite a bit to look forward to in the coming weeks and months on Xbox Live Arcade. With so many big games coming down the pipe, what are you looking forward to getting your hands on?

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If you aren’t excited for The Cave yet, now is the time to start. This adventure from Double Fine will be releasing in January of next year, and …
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Sega has announced it will bring nine titles to the Penny Arcade Expo (better known as PAX Prime) later this month – one of which has yet to be announced. All nine titles will be playable at the festival. Hit the jump for the games we know will be there, some of which include forthcoming XBLA titles.

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