Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness
Encyclopedia
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is an episodic action-adventure
video game series based on the webcomic
Penny Arcade
.
Episode 1 was released on May 21, 2008 on Linux
, Mac OS X
, Windows
, and Xbox Live Arcade
, and was later released on PlayStation Network on October 23, 2008. There is a demo available which can be upgraded to the full game. It was later released on Steam, with new Steamworks support. Episode 2 was released on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on October 29, 2008.
The game was originally planned to be distributed episodically
across four games. However, only two of the games were released. , Penny Arcade
creators Jerry Holkins
and Mike Krahulik
have announced that Episode 3 and any subsequent games in the series have been cancelled because, according to Holkins, developer Hothead Games
"has a chance to do something really cool with [DeathSpank
]," and "we'd rather not do it than do it half-assed." Subsequently, prose chapters constituting the plot of Episode 3 have been presented on Penny Arcade's main site.
It has recently been announced however, that Episode 3 will be released by Zeboyd Games
albeit in a completely different graphical style
Penny Arcade Adventures is an adventure game which mixes 3D gameplay with 2D interstitials and cinematics. The gameplay consists mostly of seek-and-find puzzles, reminiscent of adventure games, where the player must collect items and return them to a character to advance the plot. They can also collect spare robot parts to upgrade their weapons. Battles consist of a real time combat system similar to the ATB (Active Time Battle) system of Final Fantasy Games, with context sensitive button presses reducing damage or being used to carry out special attacks.
version of Fruit Fucker Prime), while smaller steampunk Fruit Fuckers attack. After a brief tutorial, the player teams up with Tycho Brahe, a scholar of Apocalyptic Studies turned detective, and his exceedingly violent partner who fought with the devil, Johnathan Gabriel, in search of information on Fruit Fucker Prime.
The three meet with Tycho's mechanically gifted niece, Anne-Claire, who suggests they search New Arcadia for evidence of Fruit Fucker Prime and parts of it. Tycho, Gabe, and the player begin collecting evidence of the giant robot, while also searching for a new home for the player and running afoul of a cult of mimes. They discover the smaller Fruit Fuckers are built in a factory underneath the Shithole, an apartment building the player briefly considers renting from, and that the mimes are devotees of Yog Sethis, also known as the "Silent One". The Necrowombicon, an ancient book that has no text but can be interpreted by a mime, describes the Silent One as "a horrible deity of unending quiet", a giant mime with Cthulhu
's head.
Tycho is horrified that he allowed himself to miss the signs of an ancient God's return previously, and despairs that all hope is lost. He then tells the others it's impossible to kill a god, but they can stop it from entering their world. The Silent One is transferring its energy into their world and putting it into a body. If they can destroy its body before the process is complete, the Silent One will go back to the other side. The player asks Anne-Claire for her input, upon which she theorises that there might be special items that can endow Tycho, Gabe, and the player's weapons with metaphysical properties capable of harming the Silent One's physical form. They gather the required items (a vacuum tube
, scorched hobo urine
, and the soul
of the mime cult's leader), transform their weapons, and defeat the Silent One.
After the final battle, Tycho, Gabe, and the player watch the Silent One's form explode. Fruit Fucker Prime watches them from the beach, and walks into the ocean after Yog Sethis is destroyed. The second verse of the opening poem is then read aloud by the narrator.
as Tycho's father and grandfather when they succumbed to the insanity inherent to dealing with otherworldy affairs. She also demands they collect various pieces of equipment for one of her experiments: Five bolts of silk thread, preferably spider silk, a golden bolt, a truck or tractor engine, and a molecule of Energite, a highly unstable element. They enter the sanitarium to find Crazoir, who promises to give Tycho, Gabe, and the Player everything related to his research, as well as a "robot monkey card", if they can free him from the madhouse. After wooing the receptionist, they encounter huntsman/sanatorium owner Dr. Wolfington, who has used the millions made from the Brahe family's inevitable descent into madness to hunt down and kill every rare animal in the world. He declares the Player, Tycho, and Gabe all unfit for society after a rigged ink blot test
, and has them injected with various chemicals to induce insanity.
The Player fights off the drugs with the help of Twisp and Catsby, and rescues Tycho and Gabe. A guard catches them, and locks down the facility. This seals off Dr. Wolfington's doors with Strengthium, an unbreakable compound. Anne-Claire donates spare parts to fix the doors, but the power difference between her experimental fuse and the security system unseals all doors in the facility, releasing several giant spiders. The trio harvests them for their silk, as per Anne-Claire's request, collects the engine from the truck that Tycho crashed into the Player's house at the beginning of the game, and return to confront Wolfington. After the fight, they forge release papers for Crazoir and read Wolfington's journal. Crazoir is revealed to have been committed as a favor to the mysterious "M", whose address is written down. The now-free Dr. Crazoir gives over his research, which suggests the Fruit Fucker to originally have been a farming tool called "Harvest Buddy", before the designs were stolen by someone as he was abducted by Dr. Wolfington.
The Player, Tycho, and Gabe travel to the apartment formerly owned by "M", in hopes of renting it. There, they confront Charles DuBois, an old enemy of Tycho and Gabe's and a ruthless treasure hunt
er. He plans to outright purchase the apartment out as his "Mid-late-Fall home" (or "early Spring home"; he hadn't decided), and Tycho insists that the Player must thwart him. A chase to the apartment ends in the landlord deciding he will give the apartment to whoever wins in a one-on-one fight to the death. Gabe goes to the kitchen to make a pie, and Tycho ransacks "M"'s apartment, finding various demonic items, including the Black Ledger, a tome that catalogs every deal made between demons and mortals. He pockets the Ledger, and returns to the Player, who has easily won the "sissy boss fight". Gabe finishes his pie, and accidentally sets the building on fire; leaving the player homeless yet again.
Anne-Claire directs the trio next to the "Symposium on the Future of Man" to find more information on Fruit Fucker Prime (as well as the autograph
of her idol, Dr. Lars Krangle). They gain credentials with the other scientists by winning a robot monkey fighting tournament, the first place trophy of which happens to be a molecule of Energite. Unfortunately, at the end of Dr. Krangle's keynote speech, Fruit Fucker Prime attacks, killing everyone in attendance, save Tycho, Gabe, the Player, and the enigmatic Dr. Blood, distinguished by his "timely appearance in the narrative". The robot is revealed to be piloted by Dr. Mordo von Mundo, also known as "M". Dr. Blood hastily explains that the Fruit Fuckers run on Darksteam, a steam mechanism that is infused with pure evil. Mundo then admits creations are stolen designs, and he himself is ostracized from the scientific community because of his radical theories on combining science and arcane magic. He intends to prove his abilities through manipulation of Fruit Fucker Prime, which is powered by the Necrowombicon itself, while the smaller units are powered by inscriptions from the book. After Mordo leaves to enact his scheme, Dr. Blood reveals to the Player and Gabe that Fruit Fucker Prime is the avatar of yet another god: Yog Kathak, the God of Gears, which Tycho was aware of, but hid from the other two. The four unite regardless, and leave for the 1922 World's Fair
to stop Mordo von Mundo once and for all.
Anne-Claire is mysteriously no longer in her room, and at the fair, Fruit Fucker Prime is occupied, violating a building-sized orange against Mundo's will. After fighting through demon-possessed fairgoers, the team reaches the orange, where they do battle with Fruit Fucker Prime. They succeed in destroying its "chute", but the god's essence within heals all damage rendered to its main components. As the four prepare for their deaths, Anne-Claire arrives piloting a giant robot of her own; a massive doll
powered by a truck engine and Energite, wearing a Spider-Silk dress. Anne-Claire destroys Prime, Tycho and Gabe kill Mundo, and the Player retrieves the Necrowombicon. The narrator reads the third verse of the Quartet for the Dusk of Man.
After the credits, it is revealed that Dr. Blood is in fact, Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood, who took mortal form to seek out and destroy the Necrowombicon.
because they felt the developer would produce content that would remain faithful to the feel of Penny Arcade. Khoo also stressed that Penny Arcade's creators would be involved in the development, from providing art to writing the story. The in-game music was composed by Jeff Tymoschuk
, with the song "Final Boss" by MC Frontalot
playing over the closing credits of Episode One. Episode Two's ending song is "Some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know", by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
. Charles' indecision regarding when he would live in his apartment refers to similar indecision on Holkins's part about whether to introduce Charles in Episode Two (released mid-late Fall 2008) or Episode Three, which was expected to release in early spring 2009 at the time. During a Q&A session at PAX East 2010 on March 26, Holkins and Krahulik admitted that plans for production of Episode Three have been canceled, and that the ending of the story might be released in written form instead. On December 21, 2009 Wired.com named Episode 3 number seven in their list of top ten Vaporware
2009.
and Metacritic
, Penny Arcade Adventures garnered critic averages from 76 to 79%. Penny Arcade released statistics showing that their game ranked third best in launch sales on Xbox Live Marketplace
, coming after Rez HD and Ikaruga
.
While the game's artistic style and humor have drawn approval (with Edge noting that the latter can be an acquired taste
), critics have questioned whether the gameplay will be strong enough to drive a whole series of titles.
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
video game series based on the webcomic
Webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade (webcomic)
Penny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website loonygames.com. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have established their own site, which is typically updated with a new comic...
.
Episode 1 was released on May 21, 2008 on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, and Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
, and was later released on PlayStation Network on October 23, 2008. There is a demo available which can be upgraded to the full game. It was later released on Steam, with new Steamworks support. Episode 2 was released on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on October 29, 2008.
The game was originally planned to be distributed episodically
Episodic games
An episodic video game is a video game of a shorter length that is commercially released as an installment to a continuous and larger series. Episodic games differ from conventional video games in that they often contain less content but are developed on a more frequent basis.Such a series may or...
across four games. However, only two of the games were released. , Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade may refer to:* Penny arcade, a venue for coin-operated devices* Penny Arcade ** Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, a series of video games based on the webcomic...
creators Jerry Holkins
Jerry Holkins
Keith Gerald "Jerry" Holkins né Parkinson is the writer of the webcomic Penny Arcade and co-founder of Child's Play, a multimillion dollar charity that organizes toy drives for children's hospitals...
and Mike Krahulik
Mike Krahulik
Mike Krahulik is the artist for the popular webcomic Penny Arcade and co-founder with Jerry Holkins of Child's Play, a multimillion dollar charity that organizes toy drives for children's hospitals. He goes by the online moniker "Jon Gabriel" or "Gabe"...
have announced that Episode 3 and any subsequent games in the series have been cancelled because, according to Holkins, developer Hothead Games
Hothead Games
Hothead Games is an independent video game developer and publisher based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Hothead is best known for its role-playing/adventure video game series, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, based on the Penny Arcade webcomic...
"has a chance to do something really cool with [DeathSpank
DeathSpank
DeathSpank, , is a comedy action role-playing game by game designer Ron Gilbert. It was developed by Hothead Games and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released on July 13, 2010 on the PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network and on July 14, 2010 on the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade...
]," and "we'd rather not do it than do it half-assed." Subsequently, prose chapters constituting the plot of Episode 3 have been presented on Penny Arcade's main site.
It has recently been announced however, that Episode 3 will be released by Zeboyd Games
Zeboyd Games
Zeboyd Games is a developer of 8-bit and 16-bit-style 2D role-playing games that was created by Robert Boyd. It is most known for its two recent 2D role-playing games, Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World.-Epiphany in Spaaace!:...
albeit in a completely different graphical style
Gameplay
Episode One
The game begins with the narrator reading the first verse of a poem, later called The Quartet for the Dusk of Man. The player then designs a character of their choosing; with an introduction in the 1920s suburban neighborhood of the Player. A mysterious voice instructs the Player, whose home is quickly destroyed by a giant robot (a steampunkSteampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
version of Fruit Fucker Prime), while smaller steampunk Fruit Fuckers attack. After a brief tutorial, the player teams up with Tycho Brahe, a scholar of Apocalyptic Studies turned detective, and his exceedingly violent partner who fought with the devil, Johnathan Gabriel, in search of information on Fruit Fucker Prime.
The three meet with Tycho's mechanically gifted niece, Anne-Claire, who suggests they search New Arcadia for evidence of Fruit Fucker Prime and parts of it. Tycho, Gabe, and the player begin collecting evidence of the giant robot, while also searching for a new home for the player and running afoul of a cult of mimes. They discover the smaller Fruit Fuckers are built in a factory underneath the Shithole, an apartment building the player briefly considers renting from, and that the mimes are devotees of Yog Sethis, also known as the "Silent One". The Necrowombicon, an ancient book that has no text but can be interpreted by a mime, describes the Silent One as "a horrible deity of unending quiet", a giant mime with Cthulhu
Cthulhu
Cthulhu is a fictional character that first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P...
's head.
Tycho is horrified that he allowed himself to miss the signs of an ancient God's return previously, and despairs that all hope is lost. He then tells the others it's impossible to kill a god, but they can stop it from entering their world. The Silent One is transferring its energy into their world and putting it into a body. If they can destroy its body before the process is complete, the Silent One will go back to the other side. The player asks Anne-Claire for her input, upon which she theorises that there might be special items that can endow Tycho, Gabe, and the player's weapons with metaphysical properties capable of harming the Silent One's physical form. They gather the required items (a vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
, scorched hobo urine
Urine
Urine is a typically sterile liquid by-product of the body that is secreted by the kidneys through a process called urination and excreted through the urethra. Cellular metabolism generates numerous by-products, many rich in nitrogen, that require elimination from the bloodstream...
, and the soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
of the mime cult's leader), transform their weapons, and defeat the Silent One.
After the final battle, Tycho, Gabe, and the player watch the Silent One's form explode. Fruit Fucker Prime watches them from the beach, and walks into the ocean after Yog Sethis is destroyed. The second verse of the opening poem is then read aloud by the narrator.
Episode Two
Several months after Episode One ended, the Player has rebuilt his/her house (a tent), and Tycho and Gabe have set out to destroy Fruit Fuckers and try to find a lead on Fruit Fucker Prime. While escaping from a swarm of them, they crash a truck into the Player's (partially rebuilt) house, and recruit him/her to help them track down their lead. A trip to Anne-Claire's reveals that they have found the original designer of the Fruit Fuckers: Dr. Jonathan Crazoir, presently incarcerated in the same sanatoriumSanatorium
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...
as Tycho's father and grandfather when they succumbed to the insanity inherent to dealing with otherworldy affairs. She also demands they collect various pieces of equipment for one of her experiments: Five bolts of silk thread, preferably spider silk, a golden bolt, a truck or tractor engine, and a molecule of Energite, a highly unstable element. They enter the sanitarium to find Crazoir, who promises to give Tycho, Gabe, and the Player everything related to his research, as well as a "robot monkey card", if they can free him from the madhouse. After wooing the receptionist, they encounter huntsman/sanatorium owner Dr. Wolfington, who has used the millions made from the Brahe family's inevitable descent into madness to hunt down and kill every rare animal in the world. He declares the Player, Tycho, and Gabe all unfit for society after a rigged ink blot test
Ink blot test
An Ink blot test is a personality test which involves the evaluation of a subjects response to ambiguous ink blots.Types include:* Rorschach test* Holtzman Inkblot Test...
, and has them injected with various chemicals to induce insanity.
The Player fights off the drugs with the help of Twisp and Catsby, and rescues Tycho and Gabe. A guard catches them, and locks down the facility. This seals off Dr. Wolfington's doors with Strengthium, an unbreakable compound. Anne-Claire donates spare parts to fix the doors, but the power difference between her experimental fuse and the security system unseals all doors in the facility, releasing several giant spiders. The trio harvests them for their silk, as per Anne-Claire's request, collects the engine from the truck that Tycho crashed into the Player's house at the beginning of the game, and return to confront Wolfington. After the fight, they forge release papers for Crazoir and read Wolfington's journal. Crazoir is revealed to have been committed as a favor to the mysterious "M", whose address is written down. The now-free Dr. Crazoir gives over his research, which suggests the Fruit Fucker to originally have been a farming tool called "Harvest Buddy", before the designs were stolen by someone as he was abducted by Dr. Wolfington.
The Player, Tycho, and Gabe travel to the apartment formerly owned by "M", in hopes of renting it. There, they confront Charles DuBois, an old enemy of Tycho and Gabe's and a ruthless treasure hunt
Treasure hunt
A treasure hunt is one of many different types of games which can have one or more players who try to find hidden articles, locations or places by using a series of clues. This is a fictional activity; treasure hunting can also be a real life activity. Treasure hunt games may be an indoor or...
er. He plans to outright purchase the apartment out as his "Mid-late-Fall home" (or "early Spring home"; he hadn't decided), and Tycho insists that the Player must thwart him. A chase to the apartment ends in the landlord deciding he will give the apartment to whoever wins in a one-on-one fight to the death. Gabe goes to the kitchen to make a pie, and Tycho ransacks "M"'s apartment, finding various demonic items, including the Black Ledger, a tome that catalogs every deal made between demons and mortals. He pockets the Ledger, and returns to the Player, who has easily won the "sissy boss fight". Gabe finishes his pie, and accidentally sets the building on fire; leaving the player homeless yet again.
Anne-Claire directs the trio next to the "Symposium on the Future of Man" to find more information on Fruit Fucker Prime (as well as the autograph
Autograph
An autograph is a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist; the meaning overlaps with that of the word holograph.Autograph also refers to a person's artistic signature...
of her idol, Dr. Lars Krangle). They gain credentials with the other scientists by winning a robot monkey fighting tournament, the first place trophy of which happens to be a molecule of Energite. Unfortunately, at the end of Dr. Krangle's keynote speech, Fruit Fucker Prime attacks, killing everyone in attendance, save Tycho, Gabe, the Player, and the enigmatic Dr. Blood, distinguished by his "timely appearance in the narrative". The robot is revealed to be piloted by Dr. Mordo von Mundo, also known as "M". Dr. Blood hastily explains that the Fruit Fuckers run on Darksteam, a steam mechanism that is infused with pure evil. Mundo then admits creations are stolen designs, and he himself is ostracized from the scientific community because of his radical theories on combining science and arcane magic. He intends to prove his abilities through manipulation of Fruit Fucker Prime, which is powered by the Necrowombicon itself, while the smaller units are powered by inscriptions from the book. After Mordo leaves to enact his scheme, Dr. Blood reveals to the Player and Gabe that Fruit Fucker Prime is the avatar of yet another god: Yog Kathak, the God of Gears, which Tycho was aware of, but hid from the other two. The four unite regardless, and leave for the 1922 World's Fair
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
to stop Mordo von Mundo once and for all.
Anne-Claire is mysteriously no longer in her room, and at the fair, Fruit Fucker Prime is occupied, violating a building-sized orange against Mundo's will. After fighting through demon-possessed fairgoers, the team reaches the orange, where they do battle with Fruit Fucker Prime. They succeed in destroying its "chute", but the god's essence within heals all damage rendered to its main components. As the four prepare for their deaths, Anne-Claire arrives piloting a giant robot of her own; a massive doll
Doll
A doll is a model of a human being, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have traditionally been used in magic and religious rituals throughout the world, and traditional dolls made of materials like clay and wood are found in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest documented dolls...
powered by a truck engine and Energite, wearing a Spider-Silk dress. Anne-Claire destroys Prime, Tycho and Gabe kill Mundo, and the Player retrieves the Necrowombicon. The narrator reads the third verse of the Quartet for the Dusk of Man.
After the credits, it is revealed that Dr. Blood is in fact, Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood, who took mortal form to seek out and destroy the Necrowombicon.
Development
Penny Arcade Adventures was officially announced on August 25, 2006. Robert Khoo, director of business relations at Penny Arcade, stated that the Penny Arcade team decided to partner with Hothead GamesHothead Games
Hothead Games is an independent video game developer and publisher based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Hothead is best known for its role-playing/adventure video game series, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, based on the Penny Arcade webcomic...
because they felt the developer would produce content that would remain faithful to the feel of Penny Arcade. Khoo also stressed that Penny Arcade's creators would be involved in the development, from providing art to writing the story. The in-game music was composed by Jeff Tymoschuk
Jeff Tymoschuk
Jeff Tymoschuk is a Vancouver based composer for film, television, and video games. Jeff has written music for Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice for BigBig Games/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, the James Bond franchise of games from Electronic Arts Jeff Tymoschuk is a Vancouver based composer for...
, with the song "Final Boss" by MC Frontalot
MC Frontalot
Damian Hess , better known by stage name MC Frontalot, is a Brooklyn-based hip hop musician and self-proclaimed "world's 579th greatest rapper". He is best known in nerdcore hip hop and video game culture, for naming the nerdcore subgenre, and performing at Penny Arcades annual Penny Arcade Expo...
playing over the closing credits of Episode One. Episode Two's ending song is "Some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know", by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets is a rock band from Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. Their music largely consists of often tongue-in-cheek homages to the works of H. P...
. Charles' indecision regarding when he would live in his apartment refers to similar indecision on Holkins's part about whether to introduce Charles in Episode Two (released mid-late Fall 2008) or Episode Three, which was expected to release in early spring 2009 at the time. During a Q&A session at PAX East 2010 on March 26, Holkins and Krahulik admitted that plans for production of Episode Three have been canceled, and that the ending of the story might be released in written form instead. On December 21, 2009 Wired.com named Episode 3 number seven in their list of top ten Vaporware
Vaporware
Vaporware is a term in the computer industry that describes a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually released nor officially canceled. Vaporware is also a term sometimes used to describe events that are announced or predicted,...
2009.
Episode 1
Episode One has been modestly praised by reviewers. On the aggregate review sites Game RankingsGame Rankings
GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...
and Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, Penny Arcade Adventures garnered critic averages from 76 to 79%. Penny Arcade released statistics showing that their game ranked third best in launch sales on Xbox Live Marketplace
Xbox Live Marketplace
The Xbox Live Marketplace is a virtual market designed for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console that allows Xbox Live members to download purchased or promotional content...
, coming after Rez HD and Ikaruga
Ikaruga
is a shoot 'em up video game developed by Treasure. It was released in the arcades in 2001 on the Sega NAOMI, subsequently released on Dreamcast in Japan and then worldwide on the Nintendo GameCube, and was released on Xbox Live Arcade on April 9, 2008...
.
While the game's artistic style and humor have drawn approval (with Edge noting that the latter can be an acquired taste
Acquired taste
An acquired taste often refers to an appreciation for a food or beverage that is unlikely to be enjoyed by a person who has not had substantial exposure to it, usually because of some unfamiliar aspect of the food or beverage, including a strong or strange odor An acquired taste often refers to an...
), critics have questioned whether the gameplay will be strong enough to drive a whole series of titles.