510: “We Hid Gabe Newell in Our Game!” – Powerhoof - Making Retro Point & Click Adventures – The Retro Hour Podcast EP510

public a bit more. So yeah, I already miss it. Yeah. Expect some mega nerdism on this week's show. Uh, before we do that, though, we have got, of course, an amazing guest, um, our final guest of 2025. Now, um, again, it's something that you and I don't need any excuse to talk about point and click adventure games. One of my favorite genres. Yeah. So, um, we've got Dave Lloyd and, uh, he's from, we've been saying power hoof. Um, I would say power hoof being English. I don't know. Um, you know, this is an…

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I think, I think that's really good though, because nowadays, you know, some people use operating systems and there's a, uh, they don't actually see the background and see a front end and then never kind of get into it. So it did kind of teach us something. I was, I was wondering then like what adventure titles you got into and, and what like really got you gripped on the genre. Yeah. So I think it was probably a little like, yeah, a couple of years later, probably we got a 386. Uh, and so we had colors. Uh,…

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Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, uh, the benefit of unity I think is, is that you can make anything in it, but it's also kind of the thing that makes it harder because there's just so many options to every little thing. So the workflows are pretty kind of clunky. So, uh, compared to something like adventure game studio, the thing I started in, um, where it just does one thing, like it just makes adventure games. So everything you do is just like super streamlined for just making adventure game. Um, and so I kind of…

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Coming up on this week's show is it the end for retro-briting and a rare Sonic arcade cabinet goes for auction. And keeping point-and-click adventures alive, we chat with Powerhoof Games. And the Retro Hour podcast is brought to you every Friday with our sponsor, our good friends at Bitmap Books. Now of course today, lots of chat about classic point-and-click adventures. ...

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on the art? Yeah. Well, I mean, I've, I sort of stole him for the art for the drifter for, for the last few years, really. Uh, and so I'll have to, he'll, yeah, I'll have a bit, but he's, yeah, he's got another friend helping with program, but I'll be just like popping in and sort of helping with bits. Uh, I'm keen to kind of do more adventure game stuff still, uh, next as well. Um, some more sort of probably a palette cleanser project next that doesn't take six years there. ...

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every single week. Thank you so much for joining us and make sure that you're here next Friday for our final episode of 2025. Um, we're going to be doing our most fun episode of the year, the annual retro hour Christmas quiz and play along at home. We'll see for that next Friday and next to going inside the water point and click adventure games with Dave Lloyd of power of games. Next on the retro hour podcast. ...

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throttle as well. Um, what were your influences with it? Yeah. I mean, I've played, I've played so many of those, like, uh, uh, the dig was probably a bigger influence. Um, there's not many sort of more serious, uh, Lucas arts adventures. There's a lot, probably more, um, Sierra ones, but I was trying not to be too influenced in terms of gameplay on, uh, by, uh, older point and clicks, uh, as much as probably, probably just like the stuff I'd learned going through that adventure game studio community and how…

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... What about the interface itself? Cause I remember obviously they kind of changed a lot in the nineties from like those, uh, the early nineties Lucas arts adventures, like you said, a load of verbs that weren't used in the games. And I remember some came along later on where it would be literally stripped down to like two or three controls that maybe were hidden. You have to put your mouse to the corner of the screen and they will pop up. ...

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but we'll see how it goes. I'll get back to the drifter. I mean, in terms of, um, the, the modern conveniences that players in the 21st century expect that maybe they did it back in the eighties and nineties. I mean, did you find that a bit of a balance set, including like think modern features that players would expect in an adventure game these days, but also kind of retaining what made those retro point and click adventure games so good. So I remember there were some very unfair puzzles in games back then.…

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make, uh, which is, yeah, the best thing I think, like, so really exciting. I think, and I think, yeah, for the award stuff, like personally, it's very rewarding for me because it's that genre that I really like that I don't see kind of getting recognized as much, um, as much as others, I think. Um, so that made it extra special. Yeah. I mean, to me, point and click adventures always feel more at home on computers, but, um, I know obviously a lot of gamers want them on consoles. I didn't believe that you're…

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... Um, not the Sonic team and it ran on their Sega system 32 arcade hardware. Interestingly, yeah. It plays very different to Sonic that we got in the mega drive. For example, this is an isometric arcade action adventure game designed around track ball controls. Um, you can, it looks like a three player game from the, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could do multiplayer. ...

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of that. Um, I think there's, and there, there is a bunch of sort of game game dev community stuff around game jams in, in Australia and Melbourne, but I think that's just, it's not so much around game jams. It's just, it's just really generally a really good scene in, in Melbourne, particularly, um, in Australia for, um, adventure, sorry, for indie games and stuff. You kind of decided to go for this retro kind of theme with, uh, one of your first full releases when you like quit your jobs and decided to create…

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sort of, yeah, that sort of fantasy fantasy kind of epic series thing. So that, that's going to be fun. I'm really looking forward to doing that. And it's fun drawing the AGA art. Cause like that's 16 color. That's really fun to do. Fantastic David. Well, obviously Christmas break is coming up. So people want, you know, a good adventure to sync their T thing to the drifter out now. I'll link up your website at powerhoof.com. Um, in the show notes as well, where there's links to all your games on steam, GOG, all…

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