Brawsome is overjoyed to officially announce development of it’s first commercial length 2D point and click adventure – Jolly Rover.Jolly Rover is a light-hearted swashbuckling 2D point and click adventure in a pirate setting. Containing a cast of 25 skilfully animated and voiced scurvy dogs, and over 60 beautifully rendered scenes, our game follows the short and stubby tail of young Gaius James Rover, across three wild and untamed tropical islands, as he attempts to fulfil his dream of starting a circus, hampered only by pirates, villains, voodoo, love and considerable lack of loot.
Made possible through a Digital Media Prototyping grant from Film Victoria (http://film.vic.gov.au), and investment from Viskatoons Animation (http://www.viskatoons.com/); Jolly Rover is the first commercial length adventure to be produced by the small indie studio which formed in 2008 providing programming/scripting on Emerald City Confidential by Wadjet Eye Games, and Avenue Flo by PlayFirst.
Design, Production and Programming is being handled by Brawsome, with Art and Animation being done by Viskatoons and Audio done by Lamaic (http://lamaic.com). Viskatoons brings over 10 years experience in children’s cartoon animation, specialising in action comedy. Lamaic brings with it a wealth of experience from film and theatre, having been credited on blockbuster titles such as Gladiator and Ali.
The game has been in development since late August 2009 and is slated for completion in July 2010, for digital distribution. Brawsome will be attending GDC in March 2010, with an Alpha build to show to potential distribution partners and press.
And now for a little story. Jolly Rover was inspired by the personality, humour, characters and story of early adventure games by Sierra and Lucas Arts, with the first two games in the acclaimed Monkey Island series obviously having some influence. The concept of Jolly Rover originated in 2004 from a perceived lacking in the adventure space, with the game first being pitched to publishers, without success, at GDC in March 2008. With more than 15 years since the last decent Monkey Island, Brawsome was more than surprised when LucasArts and TellTale released the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition and the new Monkey Island series in mid 2008, just as Brawsome successfully negotiated funding to begin development of Jolly Rover.