The most excellent festival Indiecade has nominated my illustrated text game Everybody Dies as a finalist in their annual competition. Even better, they’re flying me out to Los Angeles to take part in the whole conference, which includes hanging out with the other awesome finalists and talks by the designer of Katamari Damacy (Keita Takahashi) and the Sims (Will Wright).

It’s been tremendously encouraging to see the response to Everybody Dies, so much so that I’ve started planning a new adventure game with crazy-talented artist Ben Shannon. Click through for more!

A Nose For Trouble puts the player in the small shoes of Cynthia. Unknown to her friends and family, she’s a synesthete (an actual neural “crossed-wires” condition) and sometimes she “hears” smells, or sometimes even “sees” something when she sniffs it. This gives her clues about her environment that the people around her don’t get, and she uses them to solve mysteries in her colourful island community.

But the strangest mystery of all is that there’s a monster on the loose, and Cynthia and her nose decide to track it down. When she does, Cynthia’s faced with a choice: turn it in or befriend it?

Depending on what choice is made, Cynthia’s life goes in two radically different ways. Ten years later, living in a world torn apart by Monster vs. Human conflict, she has to deal with the consequences…