GDC 2012: Seven from Ayopa - Some New, Some Updated
Monday, March 12th, 2012
Out at GDC 2012 I sat down with publisher Ayopa Games and, in the time of an hour, ran through seven different titles in a sort of marathon session. It was a lot to take in, but there are some real stand-outs here.
Some are new, some are updates. Let's have a look.
MacGuffin's Curse
Created by Brawsome and Green Stripe Snake, MacGuffin's Curse is a game that falls under the category of Werewolf Comedy Puzzle Adventures. It is the tale of out-of-work magician and (hence) not-so-cunning thief Lucas MacGuffin who attempts to rob a museum to pay the rent, and finds himself bound to a magical amulet with the power to turn him into a werewolf (and back again).
The game consists of 150 different rooms across 11 different environments, such as junkyards, parks, mansions, museums, etc. Each room is its own grid-based puzzle that must be solved using Lucas in either human or werewolf form -- or both (walking into a beam of moonlight triggers the transformation). In addition to the 150 core puzzles are around 100 secondary features / quests that serve to add variety and keep Lucas especially busy at all times. In the end, the ultimate goal is just to get the cursed amulet off of poor Lucas.
In a nice touch that retro gamers will enjoy, the soundtrack is available in chiptune format, sampled from a real SID-based C64, and can be accessed via an in-game home computer setup.
MacGuffin's Curse won the Best Writing award at the 2012 Freeplay Independent Games Festival and will be available on April 19th as a universal iOS app as well as on Mac and PC.
