Gray Matter: adventure gaming with style

cj iwakura

So this game looks pretty fantastic.




I was fortunate enough to check out a livestream of the game, and it seems like it has everything I love in a point'n'click game: great music, witty dialogue, beautiful design.

HG 101 write-up

In the very beginning, things don't look too promising. We see a woman on a motorbike, trying to reach London. It is raining, however, as if the big flood just began, the storm turns around the signpost, leading her in the wrong direction. Her motorbike breaks down, of course, just in front of a dark and spooky mansion. Stepping up to the gates, our heroine comes just in time to witness a girl practicing her introduction line: "Hello, I'm the new assistant of Dr. Styles," but something scares her so much that she immediately takes to her heels, although it is not quite discernible what is actually going on.

Now most would follow her example given the signs, but apparently aimlessly wandering around in the rain seemed more of a hassle to her than the atmosphere of immediate threat, so the astonishingly horror-movie-genre unsavvy protagonist decides to take the fleeing girl's place. Not to stay for long, of course, just until she finds out where she actually ended up. It seems almost ridiculous to cram so many clichès into just the first minutes of the game, but Gray Matter knows exactly what it's doing.

Here's some screens:

And a sampling of the very impressive score:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVncCll3Ewc&feature=related

Uh, it only got a PC release in the states. Sorry, 360ers.



Any other impressions?

(Adventure games seem to have a more devout following here than in G&T. Funny about that.)

Ten

I played a bit of this and it was pretty terrible. The voice acting was atrocious and everything felt really awkward. I was disappointed because I quite liked the Gabriel Knight series (which Jane Jensen also created)

If you want a really great new adventure game though, check out Gemini Rue, it was just released yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh2YYDcfT1Y

cj iwakura

Funny, I really liked what I saw of it.


Gemini Rue on the other hand, looks kind of bad. I like the old-school style it has, though.


Gray Matter reminds me of Dreamfall.

Mysst

what the hell is she wearing

Ten

I mean, I'm aware it's possibly a nostalgia thing that makes me like the look of Gemini Rue so much, but apart from that the voice acting is reasonably decent, and while I haven't played very much of it yet, the puzzles so far make sense and the story is pulling me in.

Whereas in Gray Matter I spent the first 5 minutes pixel searching a room so I could feed and water my rabbit. I know it's meant to be a tutorial, but still, it was boring enough that they pretty much lost me right there.

Cherrn

I just received my copy in the mail, and I'm liking it a lot thus far. The voice acting isn't great, but it's easily above average for this genre - at the very least, I don't have a problem with it.

It does start out pretty slow, but I found it more relaxing than boring. Remember that the spacebar highlights all clickable objects, so there's no need for pixel hunting.

The background art is goddamn gorgeous. So far it actually reminds me a lot of The Longest Journey.