Pieces of Eight
Preview
Gold doubloons and Pieces of Eight, Waiting to be found.
by Marcus Mulkins
previewed on PC
Hide-and-go-seek, Anyone?
When all is said and done, Pieces of Eight is pretty simple and straightforward: Receive package. Figure out clue from package. Use clue to find next clue. Repeat repeatedly. Along the way, solve many puzzles - while trying not to get killed or scared out of your wits. And throughout the process, be mightily impressed by some seriously well-done graphics. AND get the heebie-jeebies while absentmindedly listening to the subsonics provided by the "Cellar of Rats" music and sound effects. ("Cellar of Rats" did the music and sound effects for Scratches and several tracks inspired by Call of Cthulhu. If you're not familiar with those titles, trust me, they seriously invoke the word, "creepy".)
Without necessarily giving anything crucial away, let me say that the basic situation is that each of The Eight had been incredibly wealthy from smuggling and piracy. As a group effort, each had contributed a hefty percentage of that wealth into a pirates' Community Chest. (Start thinking "National Treasure".) The Community Chest could be accessed when all eight were in agreement; none could access the combined treasure without the cooperation of the other seven. Accordingly, each of The Eight has hidden away their "key" for accessing the Community Chest behind secrets and clues and traps and tricks. (Now start thinking "The Goonies" - times eight.) All you have to do is track down the "key" for each of The Eight, surviving all of the nasty boobytraps emplaced along the way. THEN you get to do the same thing one more time on the way to the Community Chest -- where the traps and puzzles are much more difficult.
Piece of cake.
NOT!
This is mainly a Myst-type of game, with lots of point-and-clicking, with very little dialog. Despite that simplicity, I expect to seriously enjoy this game. After all, who doesn't enjoy a really good treasure hunt?
Please Release Me...
Pieces of Eight was originally meant to be released at the end of June/beginning of July. But there has been a turn of events:
I always figured that an adventure game with an interesting theme and good graphics would do better than most other self-published games. I didn't think it would get as much attention that it did though! This of course ends up changing things for I would be foolish not to really push the limits on this and to keep it the same size as originally intended. Some of the ideas I tossed out because I thought they would be too time-consuming are now back in. Then there were the puzzles that just kept going as the scenes were developed. The initial plan was for 2-3 puzzles in each area. I have yet to finish up an area without expanding the puzzles and adding 1-3 more. In looking at several commercial games, I counted between 20-30 puzzles in them. PoE right now is tapping 40, so yeah, it's pretty big!
So now it looks like another three months before the game releases. And, as of this moment, Eric is still hoping to keep the price around $20. (This may change. There are a number of Big Name publishers sniffing around, hoping to make a deal with Hidden Sanctum. If one of them proves particular persuasive – most likely by waving a big money roll around – it may mean that Pieces of Eight gets spiffier packaging and more extensive marketing, but necessitate a bigger price tag.)
"Gold doubloons and Pieces of Eight,
Waiting to be found. Ain’t that great?"
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
