Okay, my two day stint for EGX2018 is officially done (although you lucky people still have Saturday and Sunday to check out the awesome things going on around there.
For added confusion just mention this website to the teams within the Leftfield collection area, and the great guys and gals keeping the retro section up and running each day back in the furthest areas the NEC, the more people who promote, the more this site grows and gains access to further content which I’ll bring to you guys as quickly as possible.
You know it’s taken me a day to pull together my thought’s on The Bradwell Conspiracy, Bossa Studios newly announced game, acting as a publisher for A Brave Plan. Who’s game truly had me reminiscing for the hour I played it (yes I got that caught up in it, it’s that GOOD!) of the navigational..no make that first person narration style of ‘The Stanley Parable’ mixed with a familiar walk around a la Portal 2 guiding you through area to area with ease.
So lets start with the plot. Set during Summer Solstice in the near future of 2026, The Bradwell Conspiracy drops you right into the game as an new employee of Bradwell Electronics, a company that appears benign on the outside, but you just know somehow somewhere is being funded by some devious Bond villain. The game begins by narrating you this short backstory, leading you to the point where you awake to find yourself trapped within the rubble and continued destruction of the Stonehenge Museum, having been knocked out during the presentation of Bradwell Electronics latest breakthrough.
Due to smoke inhalation your protagonist is unable to speak, enabling for some Fable/Half Life style jokes to be set in motion through the course of your adventure. during my time of play, I did Identify that at least one other survivor, Amber made it through the disaster alive. The downside.. and part of your first puzzle is that Amber is trapped on the other side of a locked door, requiring you to find a creative solution to relay information to her and enabling a method of communication which has been used sparingly in adventures before, but never played out as a key tool. This communication will lead you down to the induction rooms. of which the first great cameo that made me smile arrives. It’s not for me to spoil here, but I fully recommend that you play this with the sound up as the atmospheric detail in sound and art style will remind you of where these BAFTA luminaries and AAA veterans have dabbled before. Within the first 30mins you could feel in design the essence of Fable, Batman, Tomb Raider to name but a few, with the care to attention and detail in the environments so clear, I have just as much joy looking around as I did moving from task to task.
And yet even at this point, I still haven’t even started to scratch the surface on the games killer hook to solving puzzles, which to say felt like a homage to point and click as must as recent first person games, enabling for some creative results.
Negative wise, it’s clear there are a few puzzles from the introduction area which need a little fine tuning, one from the 2-3rd task which during my play time saw myself and a few others fall fowl to missing a key location, which I was assured would be made more intuitive before beta release. Though to a few minor tweaks required to obscure detail of later paths, to allow for a more revelation of discovery like we saw in ‘The Witness’ which rewarded players for exploration.
With the key layout for actions being quiet intuitive, which i’m sure will translate just as well with a controller, I left the game with a huge smile upon my face, feeling I could play more and longing to take the adventure home. That in itself is a testament to how well the team have nailed this game down as their first release, and I couldn’t be more happier for them, especially as I believe this could be the breakout star for next years Gaming Bafta.
The Bradwell Conspiracy will be heading first to Steam, with console releases expected to be announce closer to launch.
