I’m a big fan of Japanese developer Cing. Trace Memory was the first adventure game I played on the Nintendo DS and it filled me with all sorts of hope that the genre was on the verge of a resurgence. I liked Hotel Dusk a little less, mainly because some aspects of the storyline and the setting felt clumsy and unrealistic, but it was still an entertaining game and I was optimistic about Cing’s future.

When I first heard about Again: Eye of Providence, I was really intrigued by the premise—a serial murderer has started killing again after twenty years, and only by delving into the mysteries of the past can the crimes of the present be resolved. I’ve always thought Cold Case would make a great adventure game, giving players a chance to investigate the past as well as the present, and Again: Eye of Providence promised exactly that.

Then came some bad news: in March, Cing declared bankruptcy, Again still made it out in English (albeit in an extremely low-key, blink-and-you’ll-miss it release from Tecmo), but it’s very possible this is the last game we’ll see from Cing in English. (It’s not clear if their recent Hotel Dusk sequel will be released outside of Japan.) So I went into this game with high hopes for the experience, but also sad to know that it was Cing’s last chance to really wow me.

Well, it almost really wowed me. Some aspects of Again are really, really good. Some—in particular, the believability of the story—fall flat. But it’s still worth playing, especially if you’re a fan of their previous work. Check out my review on Adventure Gamers to see why I think so.

Oh, and if you want to buy the game, Amazon’s got it… for now, anyway. With the lax promotion it’s received so far and Cing’s shaky financial situation, I don’t have a lot of faith that this game will be available at retail for very long.

A few months ago, Telltale was offered the chance to do a Tales of Monkey Island postmortem in Game Developer, and they asked me to write it. The article appears in the May 2010 issue which is going out to subscribers now and will be available for purchase soon. I received sample copies on Friday—it turned out great!

In typical postmortem fashion, the article outlines five things that went right with Tales of Monkey Island’s production, followed by five things that went wrong. The “went rights” include telling one big story broken up into five chapters (rather than five little stories strung together, as Telltale had done with previous episodic games), striking a good balance between favorite Monkey Island characters and new ones, and of course working with legends like Ron Gilbert. The “went wrongs” delve into scheduling issues, the little problem of many of the secondary pirates looking very much the same, and that old favorite: feature creep.

It’s a good read if you’re a Monkey Island fan and/or if you’re interested in how episodic game development really works… and I’m not just saying that because I wrote it. (Of course, I had lots of help from members of the Monkey Island team—guys like Dave Grossman, Mark Darin, Mike Stemmle, Dave Bogan, Derek Sakai, Will Armstrong, Matt Hansen, Eric Parsons, Jake Rodkin, and surely others who I’m blanking on at the moment.)

The issue also includes a Monkey Island “playthrough” by Ron Gilbert and a sort of horrifying collection of crunch stories from various anonymous developers. My advice: buy it, read it, and then store it in plastic for the next fifteen years so you can lovingly pull it out and read it again in a fit of Monkey Island nostalgia.

Update: As of May 5, the issue is available for purchase in PDF format, for the low price of $3.95. Just saying.