Being children of the eighties, of course we believe that every adventure should culminate as it has here. Not that this adventure has been entirely culminated, of course. We reserve the right to explore the Earth's hidden mysteries anytime Gabriel goes to France.

I'm working my way through Haze, and it mostly feels like work. The game we saw years ago was artful, penetrating, and high-concept. The bones of the experience they proposed in the ancient demo we saw are littered here and there, recognizable, but still grim. They're like the riddles a cocky psychopath would leave at a crime scene, or gleaming copper hair - still papaya scented - tangled in a dead girl's brush.

You may derive from that imagery that I am disappointed. I'm not entirely certain what happened here, though there are some clues in this interview with writer Rob Yescombe. It sounds as though there were disparities between the product they were creating conceptually and how many hours of prim lectures on military force your average consumer wants to endure. I was surprised to hear him describe the caliber of the voice acting, because the work in the actual game is almost universally nasty - they simply don't believe the things they are saying, which made it difficult for me to believe it. Some of this writing is radically unlike any game writing to date, fascinating, and the rest of it is a bizarre pastiche of "urban" slang and snooty assaults leveled at the vile American strawmen the author cooked up expressly to vilify.

The fire effect from the game's flamethrower warrants its own paragraph. I haven't seen a fire effect like this since Team Fortress, and I need to make it perfectly clear that I am talking about Team Fortress The Fucking Quake Mod From 1996 and not the brand new Team Fortress. It is the opinion of myself and his website that the person responsible for this effect should go to jail, or gaol, or whatever the British call the place where you store your evil men.

I haven't been able to find a single person with whom to play the game online, either in co-op or multiplayer, and so I'm not comfortable dismissing the entire product. We hated Halo's single player, actually and completely, but the social capacity of the game soothed like a poultice. This is Free Radical's forte, so hopefully I'll discover something to vindicate our support of the game.

(CW)TB out.

I understand now why he left me these posts: he wanted to be here for the launch, in spirit at least. I'm sure he's eating savory street crepes, or arguing with a waiter about Descartes or whatever. But I appreciate it.

The last page of our RSPD comic is up on the Greenhouse site now. I think it's a fun intro to the world and now when you meet up with Gabe and Tycho in the game you'll have a better idea of what Startling Developments is all about. I'm extremely proud of the game and I'm excited for you guys to try it. Please let me know what you think once you've had a chance to play it a for a bit.

I'd like to thank everyone over at Hothead for all their hard work on RSPD. I worked especially closely with the artists over there and I can't thank them enough for the way they managed to turn my scribbles into a living breathing 3D world. Also thank you to the extremely talented flash animators that handled all the gorgeous 2D cut scenes you see in the game. I was so lucky to have such a great group of artists helping me out and honestly making me look way better than I actually am on this project.

-Gabe out

I just got back from Paris. I'll talk about the trip later after I've had some time to organize it all in my head. Right now it's still all sort of a blur. I have to talk about the game though.

It feels like it was a million years ago that we met with Hothead and cooked up this plan to make an episodic game. We've joked before that if we'd known what we were getting into we never would have done it. Truthfully though this is a dream come true. I don't know any gamer that hasn't dreamt of making their own game and while it's true that it was much harder than we expected, it was also totally worth it.

So the game is out now. You can grab it from the Greenhouse site or you can pick it up on the 360. We haven't talked much about the game here in this space just because that's not really our style. We make a lot of stuff and we trust that if you want to, you'll go buy it without us prodding you to do so in a new post. Like I said that's our philosophy and it works fine for 99% of the stuff we make. This game is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of talented people though and I feel like I'd be doing them a disservice if I didn't make a point of promoting their efforts here.

The crew over at Hothead has done a really amazing job. Not only did they manage to produce a game that I'm proud to put my name on, but they did it while having to put up with Tycho and I. I'll go ahead and tell you right now we're complete assholes when it comes to Penny Arcade. From the diameter of Gabe's pupils to the way the game should be marketed and sold we were fucking assholes. As much as we had no idea what we were getting into, I think Hothead also had no idea what they were getting into. I have no doubt that our names were cursed on more than one occasion after we demanded some new minuscule change. We all got into it on more than one occasion and fuck it that's the way it should be. It means everyone involved was passionate about the project and determined to make something really special. Those poor bastards put up with us for two years to make this game and God bless them they've got another year at least to go.

I won't beat you over the head with game stuff. I'll probably mention it a few more times but it's only because I really do think it's good. So please go check out the demo. If you like what you see grab the whole game and let me know what you think.

-Gabe out