Supreme League of Patriots
| Supreme League of Patriots | |
|---|---|
| Studio | No bull intention |
| Publisher | Phoenix Online |
| Senior Developer | Phil Ings |
| composer | Jake Kaufman |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
January 29, 2015 |
| platform | iOS , Linux , Mac OS X , Microsoft Windows |
| Game engine | Unity |
| genre | Adventure |
| medium | Download |
| language | English |
Supreme League of Patriots is a computer game from the British development studio No Bull Intention. The humorous adventure game was published in three episodes in 2015 by the US publisher Phoenix Online.
action
Episode 1: A Patriot Is Born
Kyle Keever and his friend Melvin live together in a neglected apartment in Manhattan in New York . Melvin is a minor administrative clerk with the NYPD ; Kyle is an unemployed actor and temporary janitor with the police force. Kyle applied for America's Got Superpowers television talent show , which is a search for superheroes . With the fictional character “Purple Patriot” he has an alter ego , but has no superpowers. During the casting for the game show, strength, speed, bravery and the ability of the applicants to fly are tested. Kyle has none of these, but can master the tests by acting skillfully. During the final exam, he injured his head and woke up in the hospital. It turns out that the fall has changed his personality: the good-natured Kyle Keeve has become his alter ego, the (among other things) nationalist, misogynist and xenophobic Purple Patriot.
Episode 2: Patriot Frames
The talent show's medical supervisor, Nurse Julie, tells Melvin that Kyle has Dissociative Identity Disorder . Contrary to Melvin's assumption, this was not caused by his fall during the show, but by a reaction of his body to repeated doses of painkillers during the show by Nurse Julie. The studio wants to make itself legally secure and offers a sum of 10 million US dollars for the waiver of any claims against the studio.
The Purple Patriot thinks Kyle is his alter ego and Melvin is his sidekick . He compiles a list of things to do that should formally secure his status as a superhero: He needs an official superhero license, start-up capital, a vehicle appropriate to his status and a shelter. The completion of the tasks requires in part that the Purple Patriot, who considers himself morally superior to others, has to perform wicked acts and harm his fellow human beings, which the game cannibalizes in a humorous way. For his superhero driving license, he has to bribe another superhero, the Russian-born “Cold War Warrior” who works in the driving license authority. While the Purple Patriot can finally receive his superhero license a little later, the Cold War Warrior is arrested for corruption in office and swears bloody revenge on the Purple Patriot and the city of New York.
Episode 3: Ice Cold in Ellis
A gang of criminals with ties to the Russian mafia has robbed a bank and holed up with hostages. The Purple Patriot and Mel rush to the crime scene and gain access to the building. Although they can overwhelm the gangsters, it was only a diversionary maneuver: While all police forces in the city were bundled around the bank, the Cold War Warrior holed up in a missile depot on Ellis Island and threatened to take it to large US cities Directed missiles to detonate. With the help of the superhero "Bleeding Heart", the Purple Patriot and Melvin set out to thwart the villain's plans, which they finally succeed. The game ends with a cliffhanger : While the Purple Patriot is beating up the defeated Cold War Warrior and trying to seduce Bleeding Heart Melvin, Melvin receives a call that another super villain is threatening the city.
Game principle and technology
Supreme League of Patriots is a 2.5D adventure game. For polygons composite, three-dimensional figures act against pre-rendered two-dimensional scenes. It is a point-and-click adventure : With the mouse, the player can move Kyle through the premises by clicking exits and, in addition, use the mouse buttons to initiate actions that allow the game character to interact with his environment. Kyle can find objects, apply them to the environment or other objects and communicate with NPCs using multiple-choice dialogs . As the story progresses, more locations will be unlocked. The available locations can be selected on a city map for quick navigation within the game world. Kyle's friend Melvin, who is present in all scenes, serves on the one hand as a dialogue partner, but on the other hand as an aid if the player has problems solving the puzzle: He can be asked about current tasks and gives tips on how to solve them. In some game scenes, the player has to take on the role of Melvin to replace the temporarily absent main character Kyle. Unity serves as the game engine for building and managing the game world .
The game is divided into three episodes, each of which takes about three to four hours to play. The episodes build on each other in terms of content, but are technically independent of each other, i.e. designed as independently executable games.
Production notes
Author Phil Ings previously worked as a freelance programmer in the production of various computer games and also worked as an author for the indie game magazine Cliqist . When writing the script, he was driven by the idea of creating a realistic version of a patriotic superhero and portraying him as a violent, misogynistic, homophobic and self-centered brute. He cites the LucasArts adventure Day of the Tentacle from 1993 as a source of inspiration . Ings developed the script while working as a freelance programmer for various development studios. He invested at least $ 150,000 in the game from his own resources. Most of the other contributors to the game were freelancers . The game was originally supposed to be released in summer 2014, but was delayed by half a year.
The Supreme League of Patriots followed an unusual release policy. When adventure games are released in episode format, this is usually done in order to have more time to develop the outstanding episodes or to make money on the first few episodes. Supreme League of Patriots was released in episode format, but all three episodes appeared at the same time. Additionally, the game was only announced by the publisher two weeks before it was released. The specialist magazine Adventure-Treff speculated that the decision to publish the not overly extensive game in episode format was aimed at the lucrative market for mobile devices. Author Ings himself claims to have noticed after completing the script that it contained three separate, sequential storylines. Ings also stated that he had originally aimed for a staggered release of the episodes. It was distributed via the Steam and GOG platforms ; the game's soundtrack is also sold separately as an album via Bandcamp .
As part of the marketing of the game, No Bull Intention took an unusual marketing measure. The AAA game Batman: Arkham Knight , which also contains a superhero and was released in June 2015 , which received praise from the media for its console versions, was criticized for its PC version due to technical weaknesses. No Bull Intention offered everyone who bought the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight free access to the first episode of Supreme League of Patriots in order to shorten the waiting time for Batman maker Rocksteady Studios to bring the game to an acceptable level.
speaker
| role | speaker |
|---|---|
| Kyle Keever | Eric Fox |
| The Purple Patriot | Zach Holzman |
| Melvin | Alan Smithee |
| Lt. Griffith | Sarah Elmaleh |
| Bleeding Heart | Sarah Elmaleh |
| Cold War Warrior | Lucas Schuneman |
| Consuela | Sandra Espinoza |
| Nurse Julie | Amber Lee Connors |
| Stefan | Paul Jones |
| Penelope | Kira Buckland |
| Kirk | Kyle Hebert |
| Security chief | Kyle Hebert |
| Colonel Zirkhov | Lucas Schuneman |
reception
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The Supreme League of Patriots received mixed to negative ratings. The review database Metacritic aggregates 8 reviews to an average of 56. The specialist magazine Adventure-Treff noted a multitude of humorous allusions to pop culture, other computer games and films as well as classic search and thought tasks without mini or logic games. The magazine praised the humor of the dialogues in the game, but criticized the cumbersome operation and the inadequate staging: the story is irrelevant, the actually funny dialogues are very long, and the protagonist's animations and speed of movement left a lot to be desired. The US magazine IGN took a different perspective: editor Chuck Osborn credited the game with “clever puzzles”, but criticized the game's humor for degenerating, doggedly beating around the Republican Party and its values, which even he considered die-hard liberals going too much. The trade magazine Adventure Gamers pointed out that the Supreme League of Patriots is doing everything right in its approach. The “faux-retro” setting - over-the-top characters like in superhero series of the 1960s, but transposed into a modern Manhattan - is interesting, the graphics are clear and powerful and the speakers for the two main characters are well chosen. The plot, especially in the first two episodes, is banal, character development does not take place, the humor is repetitive and the constant exchange of blows between Kyle and Melvin at some point just becomes tiring. All in all, the game started promisingly, but the positive impression fizzled out over time. The German magazine Adventure Corner evaluated that the Supreme League of Patriots explores the limits of good taste, but has no narrative depth. The Romanian tech news website Softpedia found that the game had the highest density of allusions and flippant remarks of all computer games. The US tech website VentureBeat praised the content of the game, but criticized that it would be ruined by the slow gameplay in the form of slow animations and endless dialogues.
Web links
- Trailer on YouTube
- Supreme League of Patriots at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cliqist.com: Phil Ings. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Adventurecorner.de: Interview on Supreme League of Patriots. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Adventurecorner.de: Supreme League of Patriots. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Adventure-Treff.de: Supreme League of Patriots. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ↑ PCGamer.com: Supreme League of Patriots developer offers free game to Batman buyers. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ↑ a b AdventureGamers.com: Supreme League of Patriots. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ↑ a b IGN.com: Supreme League of Patriots Review. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ^ A b Metacritic.com: Supreme League of Patriots. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ↑ Softpedia.com: Supreme League of Patriots Review. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .
- ↑ VentureBeat.com: Superhero adventure Supreme League of Patriots loses its grasp on fun. Retrieved March 27, 2020 .