Pixels For Breakfast writes: Pitching the idea of a neo-noir text adventure to someone like Acitivison would be absurd. Who the hell would want to play a game that required users to delve into interactive fiction, without any true gameplay elements, demanding players type out instructions to progress the story?
Javier and Carlos Cabrera believed they could bring it back with their independent debut CYPHER. Rather than just a blank screen with text, they added a unique cyberpunk art style along with audio cues and a moody soundtrack to deliver a text adventure for a new generation. We caught up with Javier to discuss the development process, their motivations and the future for this dynamic duo.
Nelia from Twinfinite writes:
"Video games with minimalist art styles don't mean they're boring or uninteresting. These 10 games are examples of minimalist masterpieces."
Cypher, the cyberpunk text adventure game, loads up with a very promising statement; “For a better immersion experience use your headphones, get comfortable and turn off the lights.” Does it live up to such promise, sadly not.
"Text-based adventure games, or interactive fiction, have largely declined in popularity over the last few decades. The decline is mainly to blame on the fact that video game systems have evolved to become capable of delivering a more visually engaging experience, as opposed to the simple graphical user interfaces that most text-based games feature. Players want beautiful scenery and colorful characters, they want to see worlds come alive and they want interaction within these worlds. Sales show that consumers would rather be handed an experience, than have to imagine one. And really, I didn't blame them. The way I saw it, you would not go to a movie theater and expect to sit in the dark for 2 hours, listening to sound effects and having to visualize the experience, so why should a player have to visualize their gaming experience based off of sentences and limited visuals?" - Tom Christiansen