The catch-up coffee: Thursday, April 6, 2017

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7 mins read

News by Britta S. and Lindsay M.

Welcome to Digitally Downloaded’s regular catch-up news feature. With each issue we will bring you the best news that you may have missed. Grab the biggest mug you’ve got, fill it with your favourite brew, and catch up with us (and our favourite news anchor, Dee Dee)!

Travel the Plague Road

By Britta S., Contributor

I think it was the unusual, highly vibrant art style that first drew me to Plague Road, and I supported it on Kickstarter with the added hope it might reach that stretch goal for the PS Vita. And it did. We don’t have a release date yet but are assured it will be “soon,” with the PC release launching first and console versions shortly thereafter. On PlayStation, Plague Road will be cross-buy for PlayStation 4 and PS Vita and also support PS4 Pro and PS TV. Xbox One rounds out the console offering.

Plague Road is the story of one lone doctor returning to the city being devoured by the disease. As he travels through the plains and forests to reach his final destination, the city itself, he rescues survivors. Some will find a place on his safe farm — providing a farming/crafting sim element, as I understand it — and others will join his party to fight the ghoulish monsters spawned by the plague. The Plague Doctor is the only one unaffected by the threat of permanent death. The developers call the story “a tale of regret and redemption.”

The other unusual aspect that got me interested in Plague Road is its hybrid genre. The development team, Arcade Distillery, decided to combine turn-based strategy with roguelike features. However, the harsh ‘lose everything’ mechanic of roguelikes was not quite what they envisaged for the game, so they came up with the idea of the farm as a safe haven where progress will not be undone even if you are defeated in one of your journeys along the plague road. Get a first impression in the above trailer; and no doubt you’ll recognise the voice of Jim Sterling as the Narrator.

The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker: a random whodunnit

By Britta S., Contributor

Not everybody enjoys the interactive cinematic experience of full FMV productions such as Her Storyor The Bunker, but we at DDNet find much to like in the genre. These games seem to work best when combined with some mystery enquiry involving the player chasing clues. It looks like we’ll soon have another to add to the list, and an intriguing murder mystery it promises to be.

D’Avekki Studios — a husband-and-wife team in the UK — have produced what they describe as a “Lovecraftian” PC game in which you, as a psychiatrist, try to solve the murder of Dr Dekker — and the murderer is randomly chosen at the start of the game. Dr Dekker left behind some rather unusual patients. D’Avekki have taken a novel approach to the standard questioning mechanic: instead of pre-set dialogue choices, you can type whatever you wish into the text input and the patient will respond in full, voiced video. Apparently, many of the characters have over 40 ways of saying “I don’t know!” Patients can ask you questions, too, and your answers will have an impact on how the story plays out.

The developers stress that the game has a simple, clean user interface, thus keeping focus squarely on the FMV. There are multiple endings, however unmasking the killer is not the end of the story; you need to help patients through the aftermath, and that won’t be easy considering their bizarre afflictions. The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker will come out on May 19 on Steam and you can examine the above trailer for psychoses and neuroses.

Friendly reminder: there’s more Danganronpa is in store for PS4!

By Lindsay M., News Editor

After releasing the first two Danganronpa games to the PlayStation 4 in a combo pack earlier this year following their 2014 PlayStation Vita releases, NIS America is bringing another title from the famed series to the home console. Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls also enjoyed a previous release on the Vita, and following the success of its successors (I know, I know, I couldn’t help myself) on the PS4 there is no surprise that another title is on its way. Spike Chunsoft released the below trailer this week, detailing the gameplay style differences between Komaru and Tōko Fukawa:

Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is set between the first two games, Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair. Komaru, arguably the star of this Danganronpa title, is the younger sister of the first game’s protagonist. In his review of the title, Matt S. called the game deeply unsettling, stating, “I don’t think there has been another game that has managed to shake me quite as profoundly as this one.” Expect to spend several hours on a tedious narrative, but the good parts will happen, we promise.

Don’t forget that even more Danganronpa is on the way this year, with V3: Killing Harmony coming to North America and Europe for PS Vita and PS4. The first two titles are also available on PC. That means that if you haven’t played this series yet, you’re running out of excuses — you may want to run towards your local game shop instead!

This is the bio under which all legacy DigitallyDownloaded.net articles are published (as in the 12,000-odd, before we moved to the new Website and platform). This is not a member of the DDNet Team. Please see the article's text for byline attribution.

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