Because you need to be down with Francis before he picks it up.' It's a while well into The Artful Escape before you get your guitar. 'I think you have a little bit more time than a film or novel to establish the world, and establish the stakes for your characters.

'I think games have more time than other mediums in their first act,' Galvatron says.

Developers are still trying to figure out the best way to tell stories in games, he says. Just like music and films, there are many games that can make you change your outlook on the world and realize things about yourself, according to Galvatron. 'It's like playing Smells Like Teen Spirit, you know? It's not hard, you don't think about it, but it makes you feel badass.' Following your cosmic dreams 'We wanted that guitar to be effortless,' Galvatron says. Galvatron says the gameplay mechanic goes a step further though. When Lightman starts to play guitar, you must repeat the melody back to him by following the progression on a color wheel, similar to the electronic memory game Simon. When it comes time to jam with Lightman, the gameplay mechanics change. At the beginning of the game as Francis struggles to perfect his folk repertoire, prompts like 'hold X to play guitar' or 'to shred a sci-fi odyssey hold X' made Francis play the guitar. But before you can venture into the Cosmic Extraordinary, you have to show Lightman you can play.Īs someone with fond memories of Guitar Hero, I was eager to see how The Artful Escape would translate playing guitar to gameplay. Lightman asks Francis to be his support act for an upcoming concert. 'We're going on a ride across the dilated pupils of the cosmos,' Lightman tells the dumbstruck Francis before they take to the stars. Annapurna InteractiveĮventually, Francis meets a character named Lightman - and his alien companion, Hypnagogic Zomm. As a player, I felt the growing weight of the town's expectations for Francis to follow in his uncle's musical footsteps.

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