The Unique Adventure is a first person, decision driven comedy game developed by Darkest Desire Studio that manages to both amuse and creep my the hell out. The Unique Adventure is currently in Kickstarter but they’ve released a free playable demo that takes you through the first 30-45 mins of the game.
Left on the house on his own as his parents go off to expand their business ventures, Bob goes to a party. On his way home and with a wonderful inebriated logic decides that now would be a good time to visit his former girlfriend. It also seems like a very good idea to climb over the back fence to gain entry. However, drunk as you are you slip and hit your head on the pavement. Waking up in a strange apartment, with one hell of a hangover it’s up to you to find out who rescued, or maybe kidnapped you.
In an ordinary house this could be hard enough, but a house filled with disappearing, re-appearing doors and a mysterious narrator whose motives are yet unclear only make this more difficult.
The game is all about exploration and escape. As you explore the strange house, your kindly (or not) narrator gives you advice on which way to go and what things to do. (Which direction at a junction or which cupboard door to open etc.) If you ignore his advice he doles out bizarre punishments. In the demo there’s one case where you can have your hearing taken from you when you answer a phone when he asks you not to.
It’s these points that decide which ending of the game you’ll see. There are a number of endings that all depend on which instructions you follow and which ones you don’t. The demo itself has 5 decision points that take you to one of two possible endings.
It’s obvious that The Stanley Parable was a big influence for this game. In fact by the quality of the narration and dark humour you might feel they were developed by the same people. That in itself makes it worthy of a look.
If you need any more convincing take a look at The Unique Adventure’s features. All rather shamelessly taken from their Kickstarter page.
1. You get to choose how everything plays out! The demo itself offers 5 very important decisions, that will impact whether you’ll escape or not.
2. The demo features two endings. Which one you get depends entirely on how well you choose.
3. The Unique Adventure pushes the boundaries beyond what you’ve seen in any other game, thanks to the Unique Punish System. If you refuse to listen to the Guide, you get all sorts of punishments. At one point you could lose the ability to hear anything but him… you know… just to make sure you are focusing on the right thing.
4. There are a ton of references – TV series, other games, popular brands with altered names, etc. All of that, so you can feel the pleasure of saying “Wow, I know where this is from!”.
5. Since we realize how important the internet is, we decided to include cats in the game. If you ever feel overburdened by all the choices, you can sit back and watch the Unique Cat Commercial we’ve added!
6. Over 200 hand-crafted assets made exclusively for The Unique Adventure! What you see in-game is a one-of-a-kind thing. That, plus the stylized art-style really bring the game to life.
7. Over 70 audio files and over 20 minutes of narration – the Guide is here to help! The demo also features 7 different tracks that will play as you explore the building. The power of the Guide’s voice, combined with the OST’s of the game brings the project a huge step forward.
8. A mixture of many different styles – there’s the horror corridor, the escape room, the comedy hall, etc. All of that, so you can have a huge variety of choices.
9. A lot of interactive things. Some of the objects can be picked up and examined. Light switches can be flipped on or off. There is even a working range hood.
If you want to download The Unique Adventure demo you can from any of these links
”¦ Alternatively, if you want to contribute to The Unique Adventure Kickstarter (Something which we at TheZombieChimp wholeheartedly recommend) you can get to that from this link here”¦
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
