The Adventures of The Black Hawk

[croquetasesina]

Hi adventurers,

We have just published our first project: The Adventures of The Black Hawk, a graphic adventure inspired by the LucasArts classics of the early 90s.

In our history, we recount events in France in the days leading up to the Revolution. Against this historical backdrop, we control a masked hero who tries to do justice and fight against the tyranny of the nobility, who plunge the people into misery with their taxes.

Our protagonist takes advantage of his high social status to get to know all the ins and outs of the palace and thus achieve justice.

With an interface of 9 verbs, as it could not be otherwise, you will start a journey to the past from the first moment you open the game. The game has a resolution of 320x200px, whose graphics are, to a large extent, designed with design software from thirty years ago, drawn with a mouse.

We leave you some screenshots and the Steam link, in case you want to know The Adventures of The Black Hawk a bit more in depth.

STEAM WEB OF THE ADVENTURES OF THE BLACK HAWK

The game consists of three parts or chapters, with a total length of approximately nine and a half hours of gameplay. During the story, you will control two different characters: our masked hero and Violette Hulot, the female protagonist without whose help it will be impossible to overcome our challenge.

In addition, we have developed controllable sword fights, controllable with the keyboard in the old-fashioned way.

The game is currently for Windows, although some Mac users have already told us that they are enjoying it on Mac through Parallels without encountering any problems. On the other hand, regarding Steam Deck compatibility, the game is fully compatible, we are just working on publishing our control configuration in case someone wants to take advantage of it. However, the game manual, being in PDF, cannot be opened under Steam Deck, so we recommend downloading it beforehand on another system or mobile phone.

Here our website where you can find more information about our adventure! We hope you like it!

www.elhalconnegro.com

We remain at your disposal to answer any questions you may have and hope that those of you who buy it enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed its development. 

[Athanor]

Wow, that comes as a pleasant surprise! I supported the game and mourned the fact that it didn't reach the kickstarter goal. I was very happy to hear that you still worked on it. And now it's here! Wonderful, I'll buy it immediately. Congrats to the release!

[croquetasesina]

Thank you very much for your support, we hope you enjoy it.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Hurray!

[The Last To Know]

This looks like another AGS-Highlight. 

[Matti]

A pleasant surprise indeed    Congrats on finishing the game!

[croquetasesina]

Thank you very much for your words. We have made a huge personal effort to get it finished and published. It is the result of four and a half years of constant work in which we have a lot to thank members of this forum and this community.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed the development.

[The Last To Know]

I liked this nostalgia trip! 
Read my review here (translated with google) or here (in German).

[heltenjon]

I've played a few hours of this game to check it out before the nominations. I think I have only visited five locations, so I haven't gotten far.

So - the first you see when starting up the game, is a type of copy protection like the old days, alt+enter to skip to a window with the manual, find the correct word on page five, skip back to the game. This must be done for nostalgia reasons, and gets old the second time you boot up the game. I'll forgive it, but don't do that again, please.

Secondly, it looks and plays like the nine-verb Lucasfilm games. As far as I have played, there is a balance between humour and seriousness, as you are playing Zorro The Scarlet Pimpernell The Black Hawk in the times leading up to the French revolution. (So I'm playing an English translation of a Spanish game about French characters. Whew!) There's a funny and well done intro before I can take the reins and explore my character's home and talk to my partner/servant/friend. There are lots and lots of items that are interactable, or at least possible to examine. This holds true for the later locations as well, making me spend a lot of time looking at spoons that are not really important or interactive beyond being possible to examine. I like this, but I do see that for other players, the amount of hotspots could be too many.

I've talked to about 20 characters in the five locations I have been to, and almost every one of them has a lengthy conversation tree. If you like to read, this is fine, but even I thought it was a bit much. Is every person in the tavern that important? Really? Sometimes I think I by accident have clicked away some vital information, and the line can not be repeated. Ah, let's hope it was just background. Some lines can be repeated, and I guess that must be the ones that I really need.

Puzzles? I haven't found many, but fooling the guards was satisfying, at least. I'll have to come back to that one later on.

Graphics and music are very good. The graphics mimic the style of Indy 4, yet set in another time. It's self-reliant and independent, but still reminiscent of that certain Lucasfilm style. (Well, we all recognized Maniac Mansion in The Castle, so there's no problem here.)

I guess it's too early for me to say how good the game is. I really like the main character, and all  those conversations are fleshing him out a lot. The amount of text and especially dialogue may be a love or hate dilemma. On the one hand, the story doesn't move fast if you read everything, like I do. On the other hand, it allows the player to delve more deeply into the world you are in. Isn't it nice if every character on the street actually is someone with agendas of their own? That's the main attraction of multiplayer games, isn't it?

One problem with the immersion is that the fourth wall is often broken during dialogue. I haven't found any historical inconsistencies yet, but the characters may talk like they know they are characters in a graphical adventure and in on the joke, mentioning hint books and similar stuff. I think that joke doesn't really fit with the realistic and detailed graphic style, and if it were to be used, I would rather have one character who consistently is the one to break the fourth wall, while the others played it straight. But I may be reading too much into what amounts to the opening act of the game.

I will return to the game after trying out the last few games in the FYC thread.