Congrats Ron!  I'm looking forward to playing this tonight.

I´m looking forward for a torrent :)

:O I stab you.

For some reason Greenhouse isn't working for me, but Ron I can't wait for this game. Congratulations! And come on DeathSpank!

I just got it from greenhouse and it's really great so far

I'm really excited about this game! I purchased, downloaded, and tested my copy before heading to work this morning. (yes, it made me late :P ) If anyone was wondering the system requirements are nice and low. It runs (fairly well so far) on my MacBook Air.

This is really turning out to be a good year for adventure games! First: season 2 of Sam & Max, now Rain Slick, and next month... Strong Bad's game with a very long title that is attempting to compete with the title length of "Penny Arcade Adventures: On a Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One"  Why does it always come down to size?

I wonder if they'll ever be a Wiiware version (they said that they need more room than what Nintendo has to offer).
I think the Wiimote is ideal to control adventure/rpg games.

TellTale was able to get the Sam & Max episodes on WiiWare (or at least they'll go on there soon). Maybe Rain-slick is a bit larger than a single episode of S&M.

Plus PAA is rated M ;)

Sam & Max is coming on a disc...

Yeah, S&M is on a disc, what's on WiiWare is the Strongbad game (which I'm going to download on day 1).

(Downloading demo)

Ok... now I'll just have to come up with something to do for the next 30 minutes.

getting linux demo.

I want a wiiware version too, hope they can(want) find a solution with ninty.

I didn't know about this game, it seems fun (and gotta love the low requirements) but the demo won't run on my machine: in Windows it crashes at startup, which is very bad, and in Linux it asks for glibc 2.4 where my poor old Debian is stuck on 2.3 (but that's more or less to be expected).

I hope the Windows issue will be sorted out by payday, so that I can send you some money :)

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110254631894&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=001

I've been looking forward to this.
Even though I'm not old enough to have a Visa-card yet (and I've been bugging my brother, way to much about his card lately).

Anyway... gonna download the demo and see if it might change my mind about bugging him alittle bit more.

Hurray! I'm gonna download the demo on Friday when I get back to work!

Frankly, I expected more from two guys who are constantly complaining about other mediocre games. This one's just kinda a clone of Freedom Force, but with lame turn-based combats. Turn-based combats, when they don't add tactical depth, which is the case, are a cheap way to add an easy "something to do in the game", IMHO.

Graphics are OK, visual style is great, humor is OK (their typical swearing jokes), path detection seems null (man, the street is damned linear and they even get stuck with nearly everything in your way... and very little more is shown in the demo, so too soon to evaluate. However, I will not be buying the game after that cold first impression.

I just hope with all my heart you are preparing us something much, MUCH bigger, Ron. This one seemed pretty average to me :-/

hehe The little Robots hump the fruit!

I've never really followed Penny Arcade comic strips before. I'm enjoying this so far.

FYI, in retrospect... performance on MacBook Air = a bit skippy in non-combat scenes. Yay for crappy integrated video cards!

I bought the game to show support for adventure games.  I don't even like Penny Arcade.  My impressions so far are mixed.  The art style is wonderful, the writing is a bit rubbish, and the combat was surprisingly more involved than I expected.

As long as adventure games are released, I'm going to buy them.  I'm really looking forward to Deathspank, but I hope you keep the humor above potty mouthed ninth grader -- which you've proven you can do.

Well, I wouldn't say this is an adventure game, and Deathspank won't be either. In fact, they are kinda a traison to adventures, since they show that not even their makers do them anymore.

This one's an RPG, sort of a copy of Freedom Force, just worse in every aspect. I understand why you bought the game, just for support, but in my opinion buying a game you don't exactly like just for paying its creators is just an act of charity, which I think is not the solution for independent development. Especially if they do average games.

So, still no definite release date for DeathSpank? You even can't say if it will be this year or next?

While it seems like an interesting game, I have no plans to buy it, as it is encumbered with DRM - you only get so many activations, and you need to reactivate when upgrading your computer.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1676#comments

I can still play my Monkey Island games whenever I want, but this game expires whenever playgreenhouse decides to screw you and turn off their server.

Sorry to hear.  The DRM we use is quite simple, installs no root kits, and buying one key allows you to play the Mac, Windows and Linux versions.  You don't need to pay for each one.  

We've done everything we can to make it as unobtrusive as possible.  I hate DRM as well and have boycotted several games over it.   But, one of the reason that I joined Hothead was because of how they viewed DRM and the rights of the customer.

That said, if you're not going to buy it on the religious grounds of DRM, I can respect that.

We just finished Episode 1... Great Work, the game was really fun. :)
Finally a rpg for Linux. We really needed such a game.
Ist there already a date for Episode 2?

got the mac demo
shows a screen with 2 options: read eula, quit to desktop

uuuuh right. bye bye hothead

Check the READ EULA thing...

ok found the checkbox.
looks nice, but the terrible mouse lag makes it impossible to play!

Played it within 6h. I love it.
Blogged here: http://blog.eigenfrequenz.net/2008/05/22/penny-arcade-adventure/

For a game that is supposedly written by a true gourmet of superfluously sesquipedalian words, the game feels particularly "devoid of text." At least by my expectation.

Combat and gameplay are grossly disappointing. Judging from the demo alone, there's not enough writing (yet) to hold my interest completely. I'm on the fence with this, and the more I think about it, the less I want to purchase it. As a huge fan of PA, I'm fairly disappointed.

No, I did not expect an adventure game. Yes, I knew it had FFesque combat system. Yes, I wanted more text in the game. Yes, I'm aware this may appear "disrespectful" to Ron Gilbert. And last but not least: no, the writing that I did see was NOT particularly too funny.

It has appeared to me that my post has a very slight chance of making me seem to be a real royal "dick."

Since now I've played the "full" version... I'll say that HOTHEAD need a lesson or two how to make demos, or, I should say, THEY need to teach people how NOT to make demos.

The writing is... THERE! And yes, it's Penny Arcade. And the game seems fun.

Which makes me happy. Because I've waited for this patiently ever since the announcement. And there's no other title in years that had the hype that this game had - something about some big-name game designer or something being in some way attached to the project...

"Phew."


(The above text still very much stands as my opinion of the demo.)

I actually loved the demo.
I'm so buying this game.

Even though I own PCs and Macs and can afford a XBox -- I will never buy one, I feel left out. Why?  Because the Wii has my attention.  Does this make me a bastard?

I'm also jealous that they got a game made of their comic strip, so now I shall sulk under my desk as I grovel in my own hate. Anyone else want to suck my thumb?

Rainslick is fantastic, bravo to everyone involved.

Incredibly funny... Well done indeed!

I'd really much like to play this one, but unfortunately I can't. At moments like this it's hard to be a Nintendo & PlayStation gamer.

Oh,so I dont need to buy a knew HDTV+PS3 only to play GTA IV

i´m suprised the game was launched on the 360 Ron, you don´t exactly strike me as a Microsoft supporter

*There are some vague spoilers below*

  I just finished the game and, while I have a few complaints, for $20 I enjoyed the hell out of it. The writing was pretty funny, especially once I started taking the time to read all the descriptions tagged everywhere. I frickin' loved that the game came in OSX and Linux flavors as well as Windows. I'm on the road a lot and, besides my DS, my Macbook is my main gaming machine. Not having to boot into Windows to play the game was actually a huge factor in my deciding to gamble $20 on downloading it, and having the demo available to see how it ran on my crappy integrated video card sealed the deal for me.

  I wasn't a fan of the combat system early on (since the Fruit Fuckers were so fast that I barely had time to make an attack), but I liked it once I got the hang of it. However, the combat is a little simple and the game isn't very challenging overall (the final boss had 45,000 hp, but still only took one try to beat!). Knowing that Ron was helping design the puzzles, my biggest complaint is that there was nothing I consider an actual puzzle in the game! The closest thing to puzzles were the quests the Fortune Telling Machine handed out, but those were little more than fetch quests. I know that this is only the first episode, and so a lot of time was probably spent just getting the core game mechanics working. Since those are hopefully taken care of now, I hope that the developers were able to spend more time developing more complex battles and puzzles for subsequent chapters. I know the inventory system isn't built for using items to solve puzzles in the way I would like, but I'm really looking forward to finding out what the hell the lint and the monkey card get used for :-).

  Anyway, thanks to the guys (and gals) at Penny Arcade and Hothead for making a enjoyable game. I'll definitely give the next episode a shot and, if it's as good as this one (and hopefully at least a little better) you can consider me hooked.

Congrats!! :D

The long and the short of it is... I liked the abused fruit which had been loved and left. I hope Ron was responsible for that important detail. The devil was in fact in the details. But even the devil got kind of boring the fiftieth time I had to tromp through the same bland grid for entirely arbitrary reasons.

Moving forward, I'd like more... integration, interaction and, intercourse.

I should mention that I never did tire of killing mimes, hobos, and clowns. Where do you go from there on the wishlist though? Wealthy dowagers and their snooty poodles?

My congratulations for you,mr. Gilbert.
It´s really a pleasure to have people like you among us

The pee guy was funny.

Loved everything to do with On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness, except for the utterly terrrible voice-over guy, who drains the humour out of some truly terrific writing. Not sure how it got past anyone, to be honest.

Some possible solutions;

A) Give the option to mute the VO, or just mute it per se (cheap)
B) Get someone else to rerecord it, preferably Tom Baker, and reissue the damn game (costly)
C) Get me to do it (very cheap - but good)

Why was this voiceover retained when everything else reeks of quality? Damn monkeys.