The engagement, the ring, the curse and the time loop
Randal's Monday is the product of the minds of two best friends who then promptly decided to create a game from their joint idea. The recipe is as follows: take a somewhat cowardly, kleptomaniac sociopath, a couple of eccentric friends and a ring (no, not the one that needed a party of barefoot would-be heroes to journey to a volcano and throw it into its fiery depths, although, in all honesty, its more or less equal in importance), then have them drink themselves to oblivion during an engagement party. Alcohol does its job in influencing their minds, and the party ends up taking a turn for the unexpected.
Randal’s MondayPlatform: PCGenre: AdventureDeveloper: Nexus Game StudiosOur hero wakes up on Monday in yesterday's clothes, accompanied by a splitting headache and his friend's wallet tucked into his pocket. As he leaves the room, he realizes that his rent is due on that very day. This wouldn't even be that bad... until he gets fired from his job. And so, he decides to sell the engagement ring found in his friend's wallet. What he did not calculate with is his good friend's deep attachment to the ring, who, upon learning of the ring's loss, chooses to commit suicide. These events trigger the ring's curse, which force our reluctant hero to relive this fateful day over and over again. And so, Randal's quest is to break the curse's hold on him before the universe itself collapses – hardly an easy task, but more than worthy of a try.
The sociopath, the friend, the girlfriend, the comic book store owner and the policeman
- Our hero is the aforementioned Randal Hicks, kleptomaniac and helpless sociopath – someone you certainly wouldn't want to call a friend. He puts his own interests before everything else, and happily plunges into the craziest of situations as long as it serves his needs.
- Matt Griffin might appear a swell guy at first glance, but as soon as he takes to the bottle, he changes into a beast – to the point of vomiting on his fellow men. Nonetheless he plays a fairly important role in the plot.
- Matt's girlfriend, Sally Thompson is a bright young girl, which leads to even more doubt as to how exactly she fell in love with such a weirdo. She always looks out for her loved ones, including Matt, whom she's constantly trying to stop from indulging in his unhealthy lifestyle.
- Charlie, old-time college buddy to Randal and Matt, runs a comic book store. He finds pleasure in wearing the most extravagant of accessories, including superhero belts and clawed gloves.
- Murray is a local police officer able to handle every situation thrown at him by life. He's there at conferences, crime scenes, police departments, acting as a security guard at subway stations or supervising prison wards. While he's not working, he pursues his hobby of traveling and taking pictures of himself while indulging in barbeque.
The game is made unique by a cast of fleshed out characters, an engaging plot, countless references and a general reverence of geek culture, all coming to life with over 5000 lines of dialogue spread out over seven chapters, including a prologue and an epilogue. The developers even created a making-of video chronicling the process of pretty much everything from drawing the individual characters to coloring and shading all the necessary background art.
Based on the info we have so far, Randal appears to be a game that won't torture us with a „click anything and everything and hope for the best because otherwise you wouldn't find the necessary clues anyway” type of gameplay, either.
If promises of a BBQ'ing skeleton or a Chewbacca clad in Star Trek garments wouldn't be enough, here's one more morsel: the script is written by Terry Pratchett's (author of the Discworld series of novels) hair stylist's best friend's closest neighbor. In other words – success is guaranteed.
When exactly can we plunge ourselves into this masterpiece, though? If the developers can be trusted, sometime in mid-2014, primarily on PC and any other platforms that might react positively to a bit of financial persuasion. :)
Official page.
