GDC 2012: Phoenix Online Studios presents adventure game Cognition - Examiner.com

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GDC 2012: Phoenix Online Studios presents adventure game Cognition - Examiner.com Mar 12th 2012, 19:39 Ask a game developer--do they make games for money or for love? Once you've wiped the spit off your face from the ensuing fit of world-weary laughter, you'll have your answer. Developers work unbelievably long hours doing what's often a thankless task and there's no way they'd do it if they didn't love it. The Phoenix Online Studios team, makers of upcoming adventure thriller Cognition, know just what I'm talking about. After ten years developing labor of love The Silver Lining, Phoenix Online Studios embarked on new IP, Cognition. They presented Cognition at this year's Game Developer's Conference and I had the pleasure of being walked through a portion of the game by co-designer, Katie Hallahan. Cognition's about a rare but tortured FBI agent named Erica Reed. Rare, because she has psychic powers that enable her to "see" visions of the past by touching people and objects. Tortured, because years ago, she lost her younger brother to some sicko serial killer. Advertisement What I was first struck by upon seeing the game, was its unique integration of 2D and 3D graphics. The characters are 3D, which makes for more cinematic up-close views, while the backgrounds are digital 2D paintings. It was cool to see the way Phoenix has married the two and I was particularly impressed when Erica managed to come walking down a stone spiral staircase. I was further impressed by the game's streamlined interface in which you could toggle the radial action menu anywhere on screen with a simple left click. Even better, the menu was context-sensitive, and changed depending on what Erica was able to do at the time. The short bit I saw showed Erica investigating a graveyard with her partner, following the trail of the sinister "Cain Killer". Using psychic visions, they tracked him to a large monument where a bloody message lay in wait for them and where Erica had to solve a particularly, ahem...painful puzzle. I don't want to give anything away by divulging more detail, but from what I saw during the short demo, Cognition employs all the story-centric,  exploratory and puzzle-solving mechanics adventure game fans live for. And although the graphics in the Alpha build I saw were a bit rough around the edges, no doubt such wrinkles will be fully ironed out come release day. In addition to the game promising to be a crowd-pleaser, what was most apparent to me about Cognition was that Phoenix Online is excited about making it. And with their collaborators, who wouldn't be? With the artistic contributions of comic artist Romano Molenaar (X-Men, Tomb Raider) and story consulting by legendary designer Jane Jensen (Gabriel Knight, Gray Matter), there's a lot for them to be stoked about. Cognition is set to be an episodic story told in four parts and will be available this summer on PC, Mac, and iPad. For more information about the game and its developers, visit the Phoenix Online Studios website. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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