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GDC 2011: ‘MacGuffin’s Curse’ Sounds Cool, At Least

I’m not a huge fan of posting about proof of concept demos. Games evolve during the design phase, and mechanics, whether promising or not, tend to disappear. But I have to share what I saw earlier last afternoon, an ambitious puzzle / adventure game dubbed MacGuffin’s Curse. It smells like the kind of game I’ll be able to dig for long stretches, and it definitely has a fun art style.

The concept art I’ll share below, unfortunately, won’t give you a taste of the action. But in a nutshell, MacGuffin’s Curse is a top-down puzzle game in which you’ll be tasked with moving a special object within the confines of a singular, locked room. Think: older puzzle games. In this specific case, though, you’ll be moving around batteries as one of two different characters: a man and his werewolf alter ego — the dynamic here is a weak, cunning character versus a strength-based avatar. You’ll be able to switch to the wolf when the sun goes down.

What I saw this afternoon was early, so nothing really feels “confirmed” to me, but the devs, Brawsome, told me that the game would support a rich hint system and over 150 rooms to figure out, and that includes side-missions. Look for the game later this October at a premium-ish price point on the iPad.