The Procession to Calvary

[LESS T_T]

http://www.joerichardson.games/theprocession/

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. Ecclesiastes 3:8

About
Huzzah! The holy war is over! Your oppressors have been vanquished, the churches of the Old God lay in ruin and thousands of innocent people have been murdered! But it's not all good news; the tyrant Heavenly Peter has escaped your clutches, and you have been tasked with the mission of finding him...

Your journey will take you through a richly detailed landscape built from hundreds of different Renaissance paintings. You will steal a ship, feed a donkey, compete in a talent contest, assist an inept street magician, sing, dance, play the (magic?) flute, poke a man's face, hunt for treasure and have a chat with Our Lord God Almighty... But will you find Heavenly Peter? And if you do, how will you take your revenge!?

Features

• Pointing and Clicking – A traditional point and click interface, with a 'verb coin' interaction menu and a simple inventory from which you can drag and drop your preciously hoarded items.
  
  
• Renaissance Artwork – Paintings by Rembrandt, Botticelli, Michelangelo and many more are brought together into one consistent world, in a way that is also as sympathetic as possible to the original works.
  
  
• Classical Music – a soundtrack selected to fit with the style of the artwork. Music from classical composers such as Vivaldi, Bach and George Frideric Handel will accompany you on your journey.
  
  
• Standalone Story - The Procession to Calvary is set in the same world as Four Last Things, but it's story can be played independently.
  
  
• Optional Murder – You will be equipped with a sword. This will become useful in a number of different situation, but you will be strongly discouraged from using it on people. Ignoring this advice - and murdering anyone who stands in your way – will serve as a useful method of skipping any puzzles you don't like. But be warned; your actions might come back to haunt you...
  
  
• Nonsense – A style of humour reminiscent of the surreal, anarchic comedy of Monty Python. Lofty subject matter is treated with refreshing flippancy. Gags about butts are taken very seriously. But rest assured, while some of the jokes may be ridiculous, the puzzles make perfect sense! (or at least adhere to a consistent internal logic)
  
  
• Moments of Surprising Profundity – Actually, no... Don't read too much into it.

 

[Sore Loser]

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[Tramboi]

And the best PnC game I've played for a while is... The Procession To Calvary (yes there was a hint in the title) by Joe Richardson.
In the same vein than Four Last Things, but even better.
It's funny, the puzzle design is very good and of course the music is perfect.
Have a try if you're into this kind of things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLeMMBbcets

 

[Sore Loser]

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[Tramboi]

(Thanks for spotting the mistake)
Yup it's not for everybody, indeed, but the puzzle design is very sound IMO.

 

[3 others]

After playing the demo for the dev's next game, I think Procession to Calvary will turn out to be the high point of his "trilogy".

Four Last Things is the promising yet disjointed debut marred by hard-to-decipher backgrounds, obtusely presented puzzles, and uneven aesthetics. Procession to Calvary is where the auteur puts it all together: an impressive amount of the comedy hits home, as does the farcically pompous musical score, and the puzzle design is, indeed, "very sound". It has the same sense of whimsical irreverence as the good Monkey Island games did. Or the 90s Discworld point'n'click with Eric Idle.

In comparison, Death of the Reprobate feels more like settling into a groove. While the work with the background paintings has still improved, the dev is getting too reliant on 4th wall meta-humor, and the characters aren't as immediately captivating as last time. I'll still buy and play it, but for a newcomer, it's hard to recommend starting anywhere else than with Procession to Calvary.

 

[Modron]

Four Last Things is the promising yet disjointed debut

But that wasn't his debut...

 

[3 others]

Researching before posting? Couldn't be me

 

[lightbane]

Hist first game is very short and a bit lame, but it's cheap enough to not be a problem. It set the foundations of the author's humor style.

 

[rolandstones]

I agree. The backgrounds, animations, and overall visual cohesion is a lot better in Reprobate, but the dialog feels a bit too forced. Classic case of 2>1>3.

 

[Fedora Master]

The series deserves attention for the art style alone.

 

[3 others]

In honor of the recently released sequel Death of the Reprobate, here's some surprisingly profound artfag angst from Procession to Calvary:

 

[Maxie]

In honor of the recently released sequel Death of the Reprobate, here's some surprisingly profound artfag angst from Procession to Calvary:

nothing profound about it, it's a brain disfunction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

 

[3 others]

Well yeah, the first half is just moping but the 2nd point about how subcultures become more insular as they "refine" is more interesting:

"I write vast, polyphonic symphonies, the complexities of which it takes another existential malingerer like myself to pick apart and studiously enjoy. The few that are reached by my music are not soothed or educated or brought together by it, but made more insular by its enjoyment."

You can see a similar dynamic elsewhere: 2D Street Fighter -style games have diverged into a competitive ghetto of frame-counting fanatics on one side and casual beat-em-up enjoyers chugging a few beers on the sofa on the other. Wines that score highest ratings from the aficionados who write the reviews are nothing but turbocharged swill for those of us who haven't dedicated our lives to it. Progressive rock and other more cerebral music styles have a tendency to disappear up their own ass by composing complexity for its own sake. I think it was Gustav Mahler who made the same point about late 1800s orchestral music and its stylistic dead-end at the time.

 

[3 others]

Played through the recent Death of the Reprobate, the successor to Procession to Calvary and Four Last Things. It's not quite as good as a point-and-click or as a comedy as the former, but surpasses the latter in both.

The humor is actually very good in a lot of spots, but frustratingly the dev didn't have the confidence to let it stand on its own two very capable feet everywhere, diluting the jokes' impact with unnecessary layers of irony or 4th wall breaking commentary. Whomever the mysterious entity behind "Joe Richardson Games" is: you write good absurdist comedy. The punchlines and the timings work well. Don't dig the ground underneath your own feet this way.

The pointing and clicking is alright, with some problems being too straightforward and the denser puzzles aided by the game's multi-gated pacing where you generally don't have to consider the whole game world a "solution space" for each particular problem. Even then, the game as a whole is shorter than I'd have liked, and the coda brings very little to the table.

Art, animation and music are again excellent. As much as the dev is taking the piss on renaissance paintings, classical music and the Christian church, I get the sense that he actually likes the subject matter he's parodiying. Which is the sine qua non of a successful parody, as Norm MacDonald pointed out about the lousy, spiteful Trump impersonations the shitlib comedians were cranking out 8 years ago.

If I'd tried this after Calvary, I'd probably feel slightly disappointed, but after calibrating my point-n-click enjoyment gland with the subpar, meandering Thimbleweed Park and the utterly wretched Stasis, I can recognize Death of the Reprobate as the slightly flawed but solid puzzle-comedy it is.