Adventure

One Against All is an adventure game, indeed. If you like deep storylines, strong characters and fierce dialogue, then you should give it a try. In One Against All, you will discover a world in which everything is dark, even humor. This time, Red will have to try and save his kidnapped brother and won’t let anyone stop him — not even tough guys like Duncan the bartender or seductive girls like Abbie, the mysterious waitress. In addition to the main storyline, you can also take on missions proposed by a very special maid…

Puzzles

One Against All is also a puzzle game, so if you’re into original puzzles you should give it a try. To move on in the adventure, you’ll have to solve many taxing puzzles. They are very diverse and fit the scenario of the adventure itself. With the game’s contextual help system, you can choose your level of difficulty: you can buy clues, or just try to find the solution by yourself.

Investigation

Questioning witnesses, pushing them over the edge, showing them pieces of evidence that prove they are lying: we expect all of this from you, and much more. You can use your tools, find fingerprints and compare them to your data. You can even search for hidden clues with your UV light. And once you’re done, don’t forget to properly file your report for the judge to convict the one you stopped.

Improvements

In this new installment, the whole team worked really hard to keep all the features that worked (the gameplay system, the environments, the dialogue…) and spent yet more time to enhance the overall experience. We really hope you’ll find the scenario deep and full of surprises. We did our best to bring facial animations, motion captures and the overall graphics to a new level for this game. And once again, we want you to have real value for the money. The game is just $10, and will boast six to eight hours of gameplay — and it will be available tomorrow.

In the meantime, please check out our fanpage for more information. Thanks!

To answer those questions and more, we created the following video just for you:

As you can see, Amy is not about giving you huge power against enemies and giving players an action-oriented experience. Amy goes back to the roots of the survival-horror genre, and provides edge-of-your-seat suspense that will keep you wondering what’s around the next corner.

While most games in the genre choose to either be action- or combat-based, or instill fear by making players feel vastly less powerful than their enemies, Amy combines the best of both worlds. Paul Cuisset, the man behind Amy (and classic games such as Flashback), wanted to a new dimension, which is the cooperation between Amy and Lana.

Playing as Lana, you will have to decide whether you want to hide and avoid combat, or fight by using whatever weapons you can find. As highlighted in the last video, you can use Lana’s vulnerability to the infection to walk amongst enemies undetected, or use Amy’s special abilities, which you can see a glimpse of at the end of this video.

This makes you consider many options before trying to fight: hiding, asking Amy to go away, or using her special powers to defeat your opponents. But as we like to encourage players to exercise their right to choose, if you want to fight, go ahead and try. You won’t always be able to win, but those who don’t try will never know…

If you want to be get all the news about Amy, videos and goodies, please follow us on Facebook and click on Like. Thank you.

When you mention ‘a very unique relationship’ in a video game, it may bring to mind ICO, a game that many of us consider a milestone in video game history. The recent re-release of the HD version by PlayStation brought back many memories for us. The first time you finished ICO, what remained was great emotional depth and a rare feeling of empathy for Yorda, the young woman you try to protect. Before playing ICO, the simple idea of protecting a non-playable character seemed tedious and dull. And yet, in ICO, you never had the feeling of doing a long escort mission. You really wanted to protect her.

In Amy, we didn’t try to ape ICO and the two games are quite different; each developer has its own references, world, and vision. But one thing is the same: the constant effort to create empathy for the secondary character. As Lana, a young woman in a city infested by zombies and monstrous creatures, you try to protect Amy, an 8-year old girl that doesn’t seem to talk. Lana is infected and fights against a virus that threatens to transform her into a mindless beast. Only Amy, unexpectedly, can temporary heal her so that they have to stand by each other.

The bond between the two characters is made visible by the way they look at each other, by the way one can protect the other, but also by the way they hold each other’s hand.

The hand that you take when you want Amy to follow you is at the heart of the game. In many occasions, it even means salvation in your extremely hostile environment: when holding Amy’s hand, you can hear her heart beat and you can even feel it (with a rumble controller). When she feels a close danger, you can be sure that fear is conveyed directly into your hand, especially when you know you’re about to fight a fierce enemy.

In the exclusive video we’ve just made, you can see how the two behave and cooperate with each other. Our core focus was to try to make you want to keep Amy safe. If you want to learn more about Amy, you can see our previous video about Lana’s infection here. Please check out our official site for more details and support us on Facebook. Thanks for reading!

If you’ve been following the development of Amy, you probably know that we’re trying to make a unique survival-horror game for PSN. As explained in my previous post, we’re working hard to bring a different gameplay based on a deep interaction between Lana, a young woman who is the lead character, and Amy, an eight year-old child, set in a horrific environment. Soon, we’ll give you many more details on some of the key elements of the gameplay.

But for now, we wanted to show you that, even for a downloadable game, we’re trying our best to bring you real flesh-and-blood characters. You can meet two of them in the new videos below.

First, a quick primer on the world of Amy. It’s 2035, and global warming has intensified beyond mankind’s control. Floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are claiming lives with increasing regularity. And in Silver City, the site of a recent comet impact, a mysterious viral outbreak has begun transforming a large percentage of the populace into horrific monstrosities. This is the final straw for Father John, a priest in Silver City: He’s convinced that the outbrerak is final proof that Armageddon is near. From his shelter-church, he tries to organize the human survivors to resist what he sees as a demonic invasion. The second character, Professor Raymond, is much more mysterious. Lana, the lead character of Amy, often refers to Raymond when speaking on the phone with another mysterious character, Lavigna – a woman she seems to rely on.

As you can see in the videos above, our goal is to create characters that convey emotions and that show their feelings physically, not just through dialogue or scenarios. Moreso than any other genre, horror games are based on what characters want – not just what they are doing.

For secondary characters, it might be ok to take a more traditional approach, to make them what you’d expect. But for the primary characters, facial features, expressions and the way they move are things we spent a lot of time on. Above all else, one of the most important aspects lies in their eyes. As you can see from the video, Father John’s eyes are not only highly detailed, but appear very human – at least, as close as we could get! And this is not just a technical and artistic challenge; the subtlety of human expression has a real impact in the game, especially for Amy and Lana.

As you probably already know, Amy is impaired – she doesn’t speak. Hence, in order for Amy to communicate with the player, her body language and facial expressions are of critical importance. If Amy sees a gruesome creature behind you, she won’t have to yell: you will know, just by looking at her face and body language, that she’s terrified.

Stay tuned for more details on Amy. In the meantime, support us on Facebook and check out the official website. See you soon!

If you’re into new survival-horror experiences, this post is for you! After recently releasing Red Johnson’s Chronicles on PSN, we’re excited to be publishing Amy on PSN later in 2011. Amy is the upcoming game from Paul Cuisset, who may be a familiar name for some of you; In the early 90s Paul created Flashback, a classic game that is credited today as a great source of inspiration by respected game designers.

With Amy, we’re now bringing Paul’s innovative concepts to PS3 owners with a new development philosophy that bridges the gap between innovative indie PSN games and very ambitious Blu-ray titles.

Dark Days

The story begins on a rainy December day in 2034. Global warming is in full swing, spreading diseases and natural disasters all around the world. You play as Lana, a character who regains consciousness following a comet impact in the small town of Silver City. Upon awakening, you discover that Silver City has descended into chaos. Violence, fury, rage, wreckage and death: the world you knew has been torn to Hell.

Struck by a mysterious virus, most of the townspeople have transformed into gruesome creatures and now prowl the streets as a wild horde. You’re wounded and you know you must escape, but you’re infected and the viral process has already begun: Hell is now pumping through your veins. There are only two ways to survive the infection. One is by locating special medical equipment found on the corpses of soldiers who have invaded Silver City. The other lies with Amy.

Unlikely Alliance

By your side is a strange little girl named Amy, who can’t speak but whose face expresses both fear and sadness. While you’re fleeing and trying to protect her, you realize that being close to her stops the contamination and even temporarily heals you. That might be the reason why infected humans, grisly creatures, Special Forces combatants and even other survivors are after the two of you. To stay alive, you will have to help each other.

But contrary to many games with a secondary character, Amy is neither a super warrior nor a docile character that follows you. You can use her small size and weight to reach inaccessible areas and ask her to do specific actions. Being a child, Amy is also naturally curious and will explore the environment with you – sometimes she might even draw your attention to something you would have missed.

More importantly, Amy possesses several special abilities. By pressing R1, you can hold her hand. This enables you to heal, but also lets you feel Amy’s heartbeat through the rumble of the DualShock 3, which lets you feel her stress level while you explore dangerous locations. This might be very useful, even if holding her hand slows you down. Amy also has several other special abilities that I’m not going to detail now…but trust me, you will like them.

Survival Stealth

Your overall goal is to escape with Amy, and find a safe shelter to save her (we call this mechanic “exfiltration”). You’ll hide, run, fight, solve puzzles and use cunning, and you will often be free to choose your tactics. In addition, while you progress, you will meet different characters and explore the special bond between Amy and Lana.

One of our goals is to make you feel the fragility of Lana and Amy. Lana is not trained to fight; Amy is just a kid. But you can try to avoid your enemies, for example, by hiding in a closet or under a table. While hiding, you can spy on your pursuers…but be careful!

Another option is to use your infection to your advantage. When you show signs of infection, most of the enemies won’t attack you if you move slowly. But you will have to avoid the soldiers, who will shoot you on sight, and you’ll need to stop the infection before it‘s too late. Most of the enemies are able to communicate with each other so if one spots you, the others will rush in to attack. If you’re clever, you can exploit their intelligence to deceive them and trigger a fight between soldiers and infected humans.

But being smart won’t be enough. When cornered, you’ll need to gather your courage and fight back tooth and nail because your enemies are fierce. Although you have an inventory, you won’t be choosing between tons of items: You will have to make do with small weapons: clubs, crowbars and the like. Lana only carries light items with her and uses only one weapon at a time. In a pinch, you can sometimes use the environment to your advantage, for instance by attracting an enemy into a water puddle and electrifying it.

Amy’s Atmosphere

We’ve also worked hard on the script to provide you with a fully coherent experience. From a train station, to a hospital, going through a subway or the dark streets of Silver City, you will discover a unique atmosphere with Amy.

Finally, I’d like to share a worldwide exclusive video with you, a video we’ve just made to show off the game’s visuals and atmosphere. We will soon be releasing a new video demonstrating certain gameplay moments, so stay tuned! You can watch the video at the top of this blog post.

If you want to follow us, check out our Facebook page. See you soon!

Red Johnson’s Chronicles is the most recent addition to PlayStation Store from French indie studio Lexis Numerique.

PSB: Where do adventure games stand in the modern gaming world?

Djamil Kemal, Lexis Numérique: Adventure games seem to have suffered in the past few years. This can be partly explained by the fact that adventure games were mainly PC focused and that most of the non-core gaming market has moved toward home consoles.

Contrary to what it seems at first sight, we think that adventure has not disappeared but has spread. During the past years, many of the best-selling games have worked because they have a very strong scenario and a deep background. No one would say that Mafia, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption or Black Ops are adventure games, and yet everyone praises the script writers. Hence, going back to the roots and creating adventure games today for gamers that are not into action makes sense.

PSB: What are the inspirations behind Red Johnson`s Chronicles?

DK: Obviously, we were really inspired by classic 50′ and 60′ Noir movies for the scenario. But movies like Pulp Fiction also have their part, as dark humour is an important part of the game. For the environments, we were impressed by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s (Alien Resurrection) more personal movies like Delicatessen (anachronisms, packed city) or the vision of Arkham City in Batman (huge city with small streets). Metropolis City, in which the game takes place, is a mix of America, Europe and Asia.

Red Johnson’s Chronicles’ innovation lies in two elements: the mix of existing genres (adventure, investigation, puzzle games) and also in its large ambition for a downloadable title. As in classic adventure games, you’ll explore different environments, talk with different characters and unlock situations. But in addition to that, you will also have to carry a real investigation: search for evidence, analyze your clues, compare them with each other to find a match, and confront your witness to put them over the edge. And last but not least, you’ll have to use both your brain and your fists. To achieve your goal, you’ll have to crack puzzles that are original and that perfectly fit the script. You will also have to fight sometimes. The action sequences are based on Quick Time Events: you don’t need dexterity, but you have to quickly press the right button at the right time to give a jab, a little bit like in Heavy Rain, for instance.

In addition to the gameplay, we hope that the overall game will prove to be very ambitious for a downloadable game. This 8-to-10-hours-long investigation/adventure is set to highly detailed backdrops and we gave a lot of attention to the soundtrack and voice acting.

PSB: Why did you leave PC development and start PS3 development?

DK: The reason we decided to go for home consoles is the amazing emergence of downloadable content. We strongly believe we are living a golden period in the video game industry where we can propose innovating games to a very large audience, try new things and take risks. When you develop a Blu-ray Disc game, the cost is so high that you have to limit your risks by limiting your creativity. The marketing often comes before the creative teams. With PSN, we can act differently.

In addition, this period is really important for us at Lexis as, for the first time in our history, we can discuss directly with our players, without going through a publisher. This changes a lot of things. We’re currently working on several other downloadable games (not all announced) and we can guarantee you that they will be part of the most ambitious titles available on the PSN.

PSB: Can you tell us a little bit more about your previous games portfolio?

DK: Lexis Numérique is now one of the largest European game design studios, but we’re still a small company compared to the huge US teams. Hence, we decided, since the beginning, to work on two major elements: innovation and top quality.

As mentioned above, we created several innovative adventure games, including In Memoriam (aka Missing: since January) and Experience112 (aka The Experiment). But we also brought innovating titles in a field that was, back then, totally ignored by game studios: kids’ games. We created many kid games, including the Uncle Albert series, the Imagine: Fashion Designer series and the Horsez series.

We’re currently working on three PSN games:

Amy: It’s a very ambitious and original survival horror game created by Paul Cuisset, the author of Flashback and the Motor Racer series. We’re going to release new information soon but you can already check out the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/AMY.thegame. The feedback so far is really good.

The Pooyoos: If you look at the stats, the PlayStation Network has more than 65 million users. Many of them have kids from 3 to 5. And yet, there is almost nothing for them. Hence, we decided to create a very original and high quality game for kids in which they can learn many things in a very funny way (shapes, colours, music, dance…) and also play with their parent. They don’t need to read anything on the screen once the game is launched.

We are also working on Brooklyn Stories a third game which is probably one of our biggest games so far. We will be releasing more information very soon…

For those of you who are into investigation games and who like noir crime movies, Red Johnson’s Chronicles is for you. We really tried to create a new genre with a mix of classic adventure and innovating gameplay. In this 8 to 10 hour long adventure, you’ll have to solve the murder of one of most hated men in town. Explore dark worlds, find, analyze and use clues that will lead you to the truth. Question suspects, spot their lies, push them over the edge and, when necessary confront them in quick fire action scenes.

If you’re only into first person shooters, Red Johnson’s Chronicles is not for you. But at Lexis Numérique, we believe there is a real opportunity for bringing puzzles to the PlayStation in a very smooth way. In Red Johnson’s Chronicles, you’ll have to crack many different puzzles during the course of your investigation. We worked really hard to make sure they perfectly fit the script so that you always feel immersed. To add this feeling of immersion, we also tried our best to do a “tactile” game. At many occasions, you’ll have to move objects in 3D and, handle them and see how to use them.

Red Johnson’s Chronicles is set in a very unique atmosphere with a quality of 3D environments rarely seen before on PlayStation Network. In Metropolis City, capital of crime, you’ll discover a world in which everything is dark, sharp and deadly. Even humor.

And last but not least: at Lexis Numérique, we decided to make a bet. We believe that price is always an issue but we also think that downloadable content doesn’t mean cheap content. Hence we decided to offer you 8 to 10 hours of unique and immersive gameplay at only $12.99. We worked more than a year to achieve it, spent more than 3 additional months to tune it. And as an independent developer, we preferred spending as much as possible in the game development than in marketing. Hence, if you like the game, please tell your friends :)