No, unfortunately, but when I complete the remake soon, I'll be making a Nintendo Power-style walkthrough. In the meantime, YouTuber Cranky Templar did a detailed step-by-step walkthrough on his channel
Another world entirely. A fantasy land inspired by Arabian and Greek mythology. I made it an unofficial prequal to The Uninvited, where the origins of the supernatural creatures and events that occur in the Uninvited mansion originated in the magical kingdom. The unknown sorcerer who owned the house and trained apprentices, including that games antagonist, was the same sorcerer from Spectacle. Of course I added around 10 other direct references and links to The Uninvited.
I came up with everything myself.
Probably the Hyleg Well puzzle, in the Azure palace, where you have to line up the moon and throw in a coin to make the gust of wind destroy the Yajna upstairs. A LOT of people wanted to go down that well. I'm like "Oh yeah, you go down a well in Shadowgate. That's why they're so determined to try and go down there", lol
Oh, Themeire. I cancelled that because I had 2 other games to work on, in an official capacity, including Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequel to NES Shadowgate, due out in a few months. The other game is still secret. The reason I cancelled Themeire, and not just put it off, was because a lot of the assets, ideas and puzzled for the game were used in making one of the sections in Beyond Shadowgate, aptly named Themire (spelled slightly differently)
To be 100% honest with you, I have no idea how to gauge the difficulty, even compared to those adventure games that inspired me, because it seems like 1/2 the feedback that I receive is that it's too hard and the other 1/2 say it's too easy.
If it helps, I don't have any moon logic or overly obtuse puzzles and I designed this game as someone who isn't particularly good at these kinds of games. Worst case scenario I do have a step-by-step walkthrough [link below].
I hope you try it anyway and let me know what you think. I'm always happy to hear feedback, even if it's negative.
Thank you very much. I 100% agree with you about the Deaths being boring. I wrote the game and I am NOT a writer, lol. I admittedly was a tad hasty in my descriptions because at the time I underestimated both the importance of the deaths and the amount of people who would actually play the game.
The InfestedX remake has a professional writer/Shadowgate fan on board (Chris M. from our Beyond Shadowgate team), so he will definitely understand the assignment and make the deaths MUCH more colorful :D
Also, the stranger is a she. It's actually an astral projection of the Ringmaster's assistant at the circus in your world. She uses the cloaked avatar to help guide you so that you bring the magic instrument back to her, so she can use it on the evil wizard/demon. She was the Princess of that land, hence why her father (the Shah/King) appears beside her as a ghost at the end :D
- We were not aware of that bug, but I'll take note of it
- We decided to make the player read the book/floor first in order to navigate the deserts cause otherwise there was sequence breaks that cause issues in the game, but I understand where you're coming from. Good point
- I don't remember the Cicada freeze time one, I'll have to look into that
Glad you enjoyed it and I'm always happy to receive notes like this, so thank you very much :)
Thank you very much. That means the world to us. I'm really glad you love the games. I actually designed Infested in the mid-90s and never did anything with it until I was on sabbatical in 2015, when I decided that there was a serious lack of Shadowgate-inpired Indie games (read; none). As for Spectacle, I actually originally wrote it as a short story called The Great Spectacular. On top of what you see in the game, It also involved a village being turned to stone and a hunter that turned out to be the evil Wizard's emotions run amuck without the presence of the Wizard. When I turned it into a game I removed some of those plot points and replaced them with direct references to Uninvited in order to make it an unofficial prequel.
Oh, thank you. They're free simply because I really wanted to get these out there for people to enjoy. We made them on our free time for fun and thought that Shadowgate-style games are a bit too niche right now and what better way to help rekindle the subgenre than to get as many people as possible to play and [hopefully] enjoy them
Thank you for the heads-up. We may update Infested, but we're currently remaking Infested from the ground up at the same time as Beyond Shadowgate, so we may just focus on that release. We'll try our best to get a Mac version, but the problem is that the neither of us own a Mac and analytics for Infested's Download numbers show that approx. 4% of DLs were on Mac, so that's why we didn't bother with Mac for Spectacle. Either way, we DO want to have as many people as possible play these games, so we're definitely looking into Mac, but it's sadly not a priority right now. We'll let you know if we need anything. Thanks again
I can FINALLY announce the project I've been secretly working on: Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequel to Shadowgate on NES. We'll be launching a KickStarter soon, so stay tuned!
I can FINALLY announce the project I've been secretly working on: Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequel to Shadowgate on NES. We'll be launching a KickStarter soon, so stay tuned!
I'm sorry to hear about that happening, but thanks for letting me know about that. Not sure what could be causing that, but I'm sure that won't be an issue in my remake of Infested coming out next year
Thank you so much for the kind words and I'm very glad you enjoyed the two games. Those criticisms were most definitely constructive and helpful. Very good point about the fruit. I can 100% understand thinking you needed to find a different fruit somewhere else. The Cicada puzzle could have used a hint somewhere, for sure. I'm currently working on several projects at the same time, but one of them is another Macventure, so I hope to get even more balance in the puzzles and gameplay, so thanks for the insight into your playthrough.
UPDATE: For anyone curious about our 3rd MacVenture game, Themeire, we've actually cancelled the game indefinitely, BUT that is ultimately for the better because we are working on 2 bigger and better games. One is a top secret project that is an official game that will have a KickStarter launching soon and the other game will be announced this Saturday on my Twitter @GrahfMetal
UPDATE: For anyone curious about our 3rd MacVenture game, Themeire, we've actually cancelled the game indefinitely, BUT that is ultimately for the better because we are working on 2 bigger and better games. One is a top secret project that is an official game that will have a KickStarter launching soon and the other game will be announced this Saturday on my Twitter @GrahfMetal
I really appreciate that, thank you. Spectacle is an unofficial prequal to Uninvited with a total of 7 references to the classic game.
Hopefully we'll have news on the 3rd game soon. We're doing a Kickstarter for it and we're just getting the preliminary showcase and logistics in order so we have a solid foundation to begin crowdfunding. I can't wait for all of you to play it!
Absolutely amazing! Love the collection. I one day hope to have our games on physical format. We'll see how this third game does. Also, you're like the 4th person to use the term "GrahfVenture" since I started all of this and that always makes my day and brings a huge smile to my face. Thanks :D
Thanks again for the super kind words. Sorry, I worded that wrong regarding the location. It WAS in North America, but I then shifted it to Scotland and reworded a few things and changed a few sprites. I even included a nod to my father's side of the family from Scotland, but that's a VERY subtle reference that no one outside my family would get.
Your input on the desert crossing puzzle is excellent. I love hearing feedback like this cause it lets me know how to approach puzzles in the future. The third game is actually a much bigger project and a joint effort with a small studio, but it's still a secret as of now, so I can't say anything else other than it'll still be a humble NES-style MacVenture, just a tad more ambitious than the last two. We're planning on announcing it sometime in the New Year and it will in fact cost money (no amount decided yet) and it'll most likely get a wider release as well as here on itch(.)io, either through Steam/GOG or even console (fingers crossed)
Thanks again for all of your comments. Let me know if you have any other feedback, it's always welcome and I can't wait to share the 3rd game when it's announced!
Thank you, I really appreciate that. That actually helps a lot. I'm so glad you care about our game, that means so much. Glad you like the conclusion too. Fun Fact: After making Infested I was planning on making a game that took place entirely within a Circus, but I couldn't quite figure out a story or how to design a coherent map around the concept, so I scrapped the idea. When I eventually decided to brainstorm another game concept and came up with Arabian Nights (I got the idea from looking at a Persian rug my grandfather gave me) and as we were making the game it was slowly becoming an unofficial prequel to Uninvited (NES), so I then decided to recycle some of the early 20th century Circus sections set in North America at the start and end to place it close to the events and location of Uninvited in order to tie the two games together further. So in total there are 8 direct references to the NES game.
Thank you very much for the kind words and thank you for the feedback. With this soundtrack we were actually experimenting with something more soothing over the 8-bit music of all the predecessors because this is technically the longest of all the "Macventure" games, so we wanted something that would not feel tiring and have an epic feel to it to give weight to the land. For our third game we we're actually hitting the middle ground and doing a hi-fi 8-bit soundtrack, so it will be 8-bit music, but with a higher quality, so somewhere in-between Infested and Spectacle. I think you'll like the soundtrack to the 3rd game :D
Anyway, thanks again for the awesome feedback and take care
Thank you. It's even funnier (in a morbid way) to think of just how gruesome that would be if it was in realistic third-person. Goes to show how perception and perspective makes all the difference :D
