Deadly Premonition and The Good Life creator Hidetaka “Swery” Suehiro’s next project is a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer in the vein of Prince of Persia and Inside — with a gruesome twist. It’s known as The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, and it stars an immortal woman who must dismember, decapitate, burn and harm herself in a variety of other ways in order to uncover the mysteries of a strange island and rescue her friend. Swery and publisher Arc System Works brought the game to Tokyo Game Show, where we played a trio of levels together. Swery said, through a translator, that players will have to overcome the idea that they might be harmed or killed by The Missing’s environmental dangers — things like spike traps, wrecking balls and a giant hair monster that wields a box cutter. Instead, players need to think about how to bypass traps and overcome obstacles by causing J.J., the game’s heroine, harm. For example, in a demo level set in a waste facility area, a teetering wooden plank led to an exit, but walking across that platform to its far right end caused it to tilt downward, making the nearby platform edge inaccessible. In order to counterbalance the plank, I had to walk J.J. into a spike trap, ripping off her arms and legs at the opposite end of the plank, thereby weighing it down. She could then crawl, using a single remaining arm, to the end of the platform, finally progressing. Fortunately… [Read full story]
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