The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth

The Pini Society comes from a somewhat more established developer: Arkadium, creator of over 200 casual and advergames. Jessica Rovello, President and Design Lead, spoke first about her own disconnect to the common branding messages and themes wrapped around casual games on portals - cute, furry animals, fantasy settings involving fairies or pirates or somesuch, all ostensibly because "that's what the demographic (educated women 35 and over) wants". She said she wanted something with a little more substance to it, and that all her friends also in that demographic said the same. This served as motivation to present something different.

The Pini Society is the story of a secretive organization that has conducted some of the greatest archeological expeditions and discoveries, and leveraged incredible artifacts to gain access to tremendous power. And it's a shape matching game. The production values are pretty high, and there are cutscenes and auxiliary materials - in-game journals, profiles of real explorers, a companion website fleshing out the story of the organization (with no mention of the game). The release of the game benefited from synchronization with the release of the latest Indiana Jones movie, which Arkadium took as an opportunity to promote the game, reasoning that people interested in Indy might also be interested in an archaeology-themed casual game.

Game Data

The Pini Society: The Remarkable Truth is the story, told through a new game, of one of the world’s most elite and secretive organizations. Founded in 1854 and only recently re-discovered, The Pini Society was responsible for the greatest archeological finds of the last 200 years. Through the game and with your help, we hope to uncover more of the society’s secrets.

Company: Arkadium
Release Date: July 2008
Platform(s): Windows 2000, NT, XP, Vista
Total Development Time: 2 years
Full Time Team Size: 4
Total Team Size: 15
Budget: $200K
Fun Fact: A percentage of the game download fee proceeds will go towards the preservation of an endangered historic site.

The Blackwell Convergence

Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games presented The Blackwell Convergence, the third game in his "Blackwell" series of adventure titles. Being a sequel to a game that was shown at previous Demo Nights, Dave didn't dwell on the concept, production process or technology behind the game. Instead he talked about knowing your audience. Having been an adventure gamer and steeped in the adventure gaming community, particularly the one centered around Adventure Game Studio, he said he had automatically assumed that his games would appear to stereotypical "adventure gamers" - male, late teens to late twenties, predominantly white... Instead he discovered that many of them welcomed his games but didn't play or purchase them. With two previous games in the series, he looked at his sales data, with a particular emphasis on repeat buyers, and discovered that his audience - his real audience - was educated women, 35 and over... "casual gamers."

First, this was a shock to him. Second, he said, by paying attention to the sites and communities where they gathered and discussed, he realized that they were having difficulty playing the game. Despite liking the game enough to purchase it, and its sequel(s), they were not steeped in adventure game conventions and therefore often didn't know how to perform actions that his assumed audience (adventure gamers) would take for granted - dragging an item from the inventory onto an object in the scene to "use with," for instance.

Armed with this information, Dave said he set out, with The Blackwell Convergence, to include an optional tutorial over the early stages of the game to introduce these key concepts and control mechanisms. He then proceeded to show us the tutorial in progress. Running out of time, he stated that he hasn't toyed with the actual interface, but that he hopes the tutorial greatly increases user satisfaction.

Game Data

A new film opens to rave reviews, despite its bloody history. A beautiful uptown office remains unoccupied, despite its prime location. A downtown artist berates himself for selling out, while a Wall Street investor congratulates himself on a job well done. Just normal life in the big city? Or is somthing more sinister binding these events together? Bizarre connections are a dime a dozen for the Blackwell family, but just how far back to they go? Medium Rosangela Blackwell and her spirit guide Joey Mallone are about to find out.

Company: Wadjet Eye Games
Release Date: Fall 2008
Platform(s): Windows
Total Development Time: 1 year
Full Time Team Size: 4
Total Team Size: 4
Budget: $8K
Fun Fact: Sections of the current and previous Blackwell games take place on Roosevelt Island. Before 1921, Roosevelt Island was called Blackwell Island. Dave wishes he knew this earlier, so he could take credit for being clever.

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