Ben Jordan Case 6: Scourge of the Sea People *Bug Fixed*

Grundislav · Thu 30/08/2007 04:43:03

Grundislav Games proudly presents:

Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator
in
Case 6: Scourge of the Sea People

The Story

Following Alice's near-fatal poisoning in Japan, the paranormal investigating trio decides a vacation is in order. Traveling to Greece, they find themselves in the remote fishing village of Agia Anna. However, they soon learn that even while on vacation their work is never done. It seems that ancient creatures of legend known as the Sea People have been emerging from the ocean at night and dragging villagers down to the depths to eat them.

Ben, Simon, and Alice must investigate and stop the SCOURGE OF THE SEA PEOPLE!

The Screenshots

Wander around Greek villages!

Ride around on crappy boats!

Explore exotic islands!

Download here

UPDATE 9/2/07: I've uploaded a new version which fixes the "swim behind the mural" bug.

Afflict · Thu 30/08/2007 05:00:37

Awesomeness!

Downloading.

edmundito · Thu 30/08/2007 05:03:50

Dude, this is an 27 Mb April fool's joke. Don't bother downloading it!

Stupot · Thu 30/08/2007 05:17:38

But it's August...
...downloading...
... 27mb ain't that bad. Once you finish the game you can always delete it again.

edmundito · Thu 30/08/2007 05:21:03

PS- I was joking.

Stupot · Thu 30/08/2007 05:22:34

Playing...
Great so far... 29 points in... nice story...
Possibly already contender for the 'Stu's favourite Ben Jordan Game' award (No.4 currently holds that prestigious title).
I'll probably have this completed today.

warpfactor9 · Thu 30/08/2007 05:35:05

Harsh. Can't anyone say something nice? Looks gr8 so far. Good job!

LUniqueDan · Thu 30/08/2007 07:41:49

TO2K, now BJ6, is that mean that CofSol are comming too?
...

ok... Downloading it too....

seaduck · Thu 30/08/2007 10:41:19

Ultra cool, another BJ!

Playing now, it's fun so far 8)

GarageGothic · Thu 30/08/2007 11:23:51

I sat down to play for a couple of minutes and didn't stop until I'd completed it an hour and a half later. Excellent game, and certainly an improvement on BJ5, though it could perhaps have been a bit scarier. I'm happy to see that the overarching plot is beginning to shine through.

Spoiler

First of all, I'm intrigued by the appearance of Prof. Sanbourne who I've been wondering about for a while. The dialogue with him in the restaurant was an excellent way of handling exposition - and, I assume, foreshadowing the sequels. Ben's nightmares were also genuinly creepy, and I'm looking forward to find out the connection between Alice and the Smailholm case.

The overall gameplay was near perfect. At first I was a bit sceptic of the "escape from the airport" introduction, but the photography puzzle made it all worthwhile. The rest of the game flowed better than most commercial games. I was never in doubt what to do, and the puzzles were logical, fun and not terribly difficult. A few comments on minor design details though:

1) Due to the larger emphasis on natural backgrounds, it's rather difficult to make out where the exits are - or rather which screen edges doesn't have exits. Perhaps a highlighting of exits similar to the highlighting of hotspots (for example labelled "To bungalow") would help a little.

2) A walk-skip function would be very welcome. After a while, traversing the beach does get a bit tedious, similar to the path to the village in BJ5.

3) The drinking contest was a fun idea (and any illogical part is forgotten after Simon's comment on the silly rules). However it would be nice if you could "cancel" the game and place the mirror after the guy explains the rules. Of course you can place it beforehand, since the function of the nail is so obvious, but it would be nice to do things in the natural sequence instead of going through a drinking game that you know you will lose.

4) Perhaps a death scene could have been added for Simon in the end (even just the same picture as when the creature attacks Ben). I went to the kitchen and got some tea, and when I returned after several minutes it was still strangling him.

The background artwork was great - even better than BJ1 Deluxe, I think. Especially the nighttime scenes were very atmospheric, and the underwater scenes reminded me of Eco Quest. I'm guessing that the artistic references to King's Quest VI were on purpose, seeing as that game also had islands, a minotaur and all? My only small criticism is that I liked the forward walkcycle in BJ5 better than the new one, something about how his hands move. I also noticed two place, were the object edges were a bit too visible: The boulder, after it falls has a very straight right edge, and the bottom edge of the drag marks on the beach is also a bit too sharp for it to blend in properly. But those are minor things.
I loved the music. The island of the siren was particularly haunting (setting up for one of the few moments of genuine horror in the game). Is it just me, or did the electronic style of the music in the bungalow remind anyone else of Blackwell Legacy?

[close]

Great work, Grundislav. I'm looking even more forward to the sequels after playing this.

scalad · Thu 30/08/2007 11:31:12

Thanks Grundislav! Can't wait to play! Downloading now!

InCreator · Thu 30/08/2007 12:06:06

**Screaming and ripping shirt off
Yaaay! Will play now!
Review later.

Adamski · Thu 30/08/2007 12:50:11

Quote from: GarageGothic on Thu 30/08/2007 11:23:51
Spoiler
Is it just me, or did the electronic style of the music in the bungalow remind anyone else of Blackwell Legacy?
[close]

Spoiler

That'll be because the majority of the soundtrack was written by the same person as Blackwell, and was much quicker at doing so than a certain lazy composer who only supplied a few quick sketches before being kidnapped by a full time job!

[close]

CosmoQueen · Thu 30/08/2007 13:09:53

YES!!!! DOWNLOADING NOW!!! I'm so excited!

Thank you Grundislav!!!

voh · Thu 30/08/2007 13:22:11

Fairly awesome so far. I'll continue later - definitely.

Oh man, I can't believe it, another Ben Joren! *giggles*

GarageGothic · Thu 30/08/2007 14:12:19

Adamski: Ah, that explains it. I didn't compare them, but the instrumentation sounded almost identical. Thanks for clarifying. What pieces did you compose?

Reaper · Thu 30/08/2007 14:17:20

I just finished playing the game and it was great.

Spoiler

I liked the photo puzzle and the references to all the greek mythology and the labyrinth shaped like the head of the minotaur

[close]

For the overall epic story plot I had a problem. It was long long ago i played the other ben jordan games, so i did not understand all of the references.

Buckethead · Thu 30/08/2007 14:53:19

Well isn't that nice? I was just feeling like playing a BJ game and here it is

SSH · Thu 30/08/2007 15:13:58

Ben Who?

Buckethead · Thu 30/08/2007 15:30:13

Afflec?