The Exchange Student series

[Dimitris Manos]

The Exchange Student is an interactive sitcom, an episodic adventure game featuring a point and click interface and cartoony graphics.

Episode 1: First Day in Sweden

In the first episode of The Exchange Student, our Italian Casanova is tired of being neglected by the Italian girls and so he decides to go on an exchange studying program to Sweden. His parents are not happy with his choice but Emilio is determined that at the age of 22 he is now ready to take his first big step towards adventure and love!



The trial version of the first episode is available for download right here at Adventure Europe:
http://www.adventure-eu.com/index.ph...id=8&Itemid=51
and you can buy the full version within the game for 6 Euros (approximately $8)

Episode 2: Point Club

Emilio Carboni, the most prestigious aspiring philanderer of modern times will embark on a merciless hunt for points! However, he will have to face grim competition with the likes of Pedro, Miguel and Mathias also searching for points. Is Emilio going to have any luck on this dog-eat-dog quest?



The trial version of the first episode is available for download right here at Adventure Europe:
http://www.adventure-eu.com/index.ph...108&file_id=95
and you can buy the full version within the game for 8 Euros (approximately $11)

[axelkothe]

I know that Ep. 2 was just recently released, but still, here is the question everybody wants to ask: When can we expect episode 3? Will the Oberon Deal have any influence on the series?

[Dimitris Manos]

I know that Ep. 2 was just recently released, but still, here is the question everybody wants to ask: When can we expect episode 3?

Episode 3 is scheduled for release in Q1/Q2 2008. But this is an estimate, I would not put my signature ever on a deadline. The game is going to be ready when it's going to be ready.

Will the Oberon Deal have any influence on the series?

Absolutely. Having the support of a publisher like Oberon a) guarantees that all episodes will be released. b) raises our budget hence c) raises our possibilities in terms of gameplay length . Having a reliable publisher over your head is very helpful as now we have someone who can guide us and give us helpful advise regarding the market.

[axelkothe]

good to hear. let's just hope they don't try to have too much influence

It's really quite interesting that the casual games companies seem to take notice of these small, episodic indie adventures suddenly. I think this is a very positive development that may cause a lot of additional interest in the genre, of which everybody in the "adventure industry" could profit.

The only fear I have is that this could also mean that the games will be dumbed down even more to allow this new target audience to have fun with them - gone could be the days of different actions to choose from and brainwrecking puzzles

EDIT: Hmm, actually this post would have been better in the oberon thread... sorry

[Dimitris Manos]

I wouldn't say that giving the opportunity to people who are not used to adventures to finish the game without a walkthrough is "dumbing down" the genre. I'm not saying that hard adventures should not be made anymore, but producing only hard adventure games is as wrong as releasing only very easy adventures.

Illogical puzzles and insane challenges have played their role too in the death of the genre in the late 90s. We shouldn't put adventure game in a box and say adventures should be hard, or should be easy or or or. There should be adventure games that are easy, other ones that are hard. Some should be 2D, some should be 3D. We should have games spanning all story genres...comedy, horror, adventure, drama, epic, mystery. We should have 3rd person and 1st person adventure games.

[axelkothe]

except for the very last part, I agree 100% (I just don't like 1st person adventures... or at least not as much as 3rd person - but that's just me )

[Quill]

Hi Dimitris, hope you're having fun on the Exchange Student series! What made you want to move from the press side (doing Adventure Europe) into the adventure making scene - was it something always at the back of your mind or was it seeing indie developers actually making progress with their games in what was typically a big production-house market?

[Dimitris Manos]

Hi Dimitris, hope you're having fun on the Exchange Student series! What made you want to move from the press side (doing Adventure Europe) into the adventure making scene - was it something always at the back of your mind or was it seeing indie developers actually making progress with their games in what was typically a big production-house market?

Hello, I'm definitely having fun working on the game. I started wanting to work on a game while I was writing The Inventory. I played so many adventure games at the time. I started seeing patterns, things that many developers did wrong and things that they did right. I had also played many adventure games in the past, great classics like the ones that Sierra and Lucasarts produced. I thought that the new games lacked some of the magic that we used to experience when we were playing the oldies. So I wanted to create something modern that would have a little bit of the magic feeling we used to get when we played the oldies.

[Quill]

Good to hear you're enjoying the game making process Dimitris. So, all the adventure games you play from now on is purely for research purposes? ;D