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Game News What does a coffee machine on legs have to do with helping Afghan children?

Nedrah

Erudite
Joined
Mar 14, 2005
Messages
1,693
Location
Germany
Tags: The desolate room

Well, actually more than you would propably assume.
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Not-so-well-known indie developer Scott Cawthon gives an interesting twist to raising funds for charity. Here's what he has to say on his <A HREF="http://www.scottgames.com/">site</A>.
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<blockquote>This site and it's (sic!) games are made to raise money for a good cause. The games are completely free, but please consider donating towards the current charitable cause. 100% of your donation goes towards the current charity project.
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Right now, Scottgames is raising money for: Item #: 41495- Equipment for an entire playground in Afghanistan Price: $1,591.00 You can view this item on the Christian Children's Fund gift page[...]</blockquote>
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Well, that Fund gift page looks genuine on first look, but I suppose we still have to take his word for the moment.
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On to the actual game:
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The desolate room, which you can download <A HREF="http://www.scottgames.com/TDR.zip">here</a>, is about you playing a coffee-machine on legs, stranded on some kind of isolated island along with his equally robotic but now defunctional friends. I'll leave the explanation to <A HREF="http://tigsource.com/articles/category/rpg/page/1">The Independent Gaming Source</a>, or,in other words, I'm ripping off their nice description of the game, posted on 24 August 2007.
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<blockquote>To say that The Desolate Room is not your typical RPG would be an understatement. [...]
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I'll say this much: the game “happens” in three different places. The first is an island, where a lonely, egg-obsessed coffee machine robot resides. The second place is a virtual world. The third is the past… in the memories of other, long-dead robots. The way the coffee robot, the long-dead robots, and the three places connect to each other is a great bit of storytelling. It’s not complex or anything… just thoughtful and well-done.
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[...] PLEASE don’t let the rather mundane fetch quests in the first part of the game (or the overall clunkiness of its presentation) deter you from continuing! It picks up quite quickly from then on and I promise that (some of) you will really dig the battle/experience system, which is evenly-paced and quite satisfying (and a little overwhelming at first).
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If you are at all interested in RPG’s or unique, emotional narratives, this game is worth a look for you. [...]</blockquote>
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I propably should better mention that the term RPG might be a bit of a risky choice by codex standards.
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I downloaded the game to make sure it works, which it does. The initial fetch-quests are off-putting indeed, but combat looks like it could be interesting. It (combat) is JRPG like turn-based style, so that might be a reason not to try the game for some of you. Although gameplay appears to be on rails, I can see how the story could become interesting enough, provided you are in the mood to have a game tell you a story instead of being able to really create your own.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://tigsource.com/">The independent gaming source</A><br>
 

pkt-zer0

Scholar
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
594
Well, the game's pretty short, two thirds of the gameplay (running around the island and the VR world) isn't terribly exciting, but the turn-based combat and interesting mood/setting make up for it, I'd say.
 

Captain_Obvious

Scholar
Joined
Oct 30, 2007
Messages
129
Damn,the american liberators must have forgotten to include playgrounds into the brave new world they brough into Afganistan...
About the game,meh.Tried it for a few mins,but didn`t find it very appealing,despite the praised TB combat.The story and atmosphere are almost interesting,don`t expect thow some beth marvel that keeps you hooked on the computer for 400+ hours,like that young man admitted in his Oblivion review 2 items up.
 

Nedrah

Erudite
Joined
Mar 14, 2005
Messages
1,693
Location
Germany
Captain_obvious, you're obviously right. The game is very much hit or miss and very far from epic. I still believe it's a good thing to let the public know about this kind of thing.
 

Nedrah

Erudite
Joined
Mar 14, 2005
Messages
1,693
Location
Germany
It's all about the games

(no, seriously)

:salute:
 

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