Theseis
Preview
Watching the "real" story behind the Theseis myth unfold and develop during the investigation should be intriguing and gratifying
by Marcus Mulkins
previewed on PC
"Theseus", Or Is It "Theseis"? It's All Greek To Me
Most of us are at least a little bit familiar with the legend of Theseus & The Minotaur. There are numerous variations, of course, but most of them boil down to this: The mean, old, nasty king of Crete demands that the Greek city-states pay him a tribute that includes virgin adolescent girls (why is it always virgins?) and boys (don't hear about them nearly as much), which he then sends into a complicated maze called the Labyrinth. There they are hunted down and presumably eaten by a half-man/half-bull called the Minotaur. The day comes that the girlfriend of young Theseus gets selected and he decides if anyone is going to-- uh, never mind. Or maybe it wasn't his girlfriend, but he has a reputation as a hero to uphold, or maybe he does it just for kicks. Whatever the reason, Theseus goes to Crete, navigates the Labyrinth, kills the Minotaur, and saves the girl.
Now fast-forward to the present day and ask yourself: what if the legend was based on something, as legends often are? What if the whole Labyrinth/Minotaur shtick was just one small aspect of a much bigger, more sinister Big Picture? If there was some secret society or cabal or whatever operating back in the shadows then, what kind of secrets would they hold if they still existed today? After all, the legend describes the defeat of the Minotaur, but not the destruction of the Power (note the big "p") that created it. And even today archaeologists are investigating Cretan (Minoan) ruins that very probably were, in fact, the Labyrinth.
Can we say, "conspiracy theory"? With a touch of the mythic and mystic thrown in for good measure.
Theseis is the first project of a Greek development team that has assumed the label of Take7games. (One wonders what happened in takes 1 through 6.) [Given that they are Greek, based in Athens, I'm inclined to believe that "Theseis" is the correct spelling rather than the Anglosized mauling it got when the name hit English.] The way the Take7 members describe themselves, and the fact that they've poured 2 years into the Theseis project already, I believe the term "idealistic" applies. Generally, idealistic startups either go bust or lose their idealism inside that time frame. In their case, I sincerely hope that they hold it together long enough to get this game out the door because it looks absolutely amazing. [The hope is shadowed with serious foreboding because Greece seems to be the HQ of Software Pirates 'R' Us, and the chances are good that the marketplace will be flooded with Theseis ripoff clones before the Real McCoy gets into the stores. Plus they're still shopping for a publisher that will foot the bill on the game, despite the fact that it's coming out of Piracy Central.] But if all goes well, we might actually see the game in late 2007.
Did I mention That It's All Greek To Me?
Here's how Take7 describes the game:
A Journey of Heroes
Andonicos Kalogerou is a man devoted to science and the war against superstition. From his office in the historic centre of Athens, he has worked diligently for more than 5 years, traveling all over Greece and revealing the paranormal for what it truly is: drunken fantasies and uneducated hysteria. But his intelligible, safe little world is going to come crushing down when a call from Pheve, his adopted sister and fervent advocate of the mythic, informs him that his step-father is not only missing, but presumed dead as well. With a heavy heart, Andronicos travels to the place of his childhood, high atop the Greek mountains, to bury an empty coffin and reunite with his quarrelsome sibling. Little does he know that each step irrevocably brings him and Pheve closer to what Destiny has in store for them. For the death of their parent heralds the beginning of the greatest struggle between [G]ood and [E]vil with the prize being nothing less than the very future of this world.
