Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller!

The Story

Phoenix Online Studios, Khaeon Gamestudio, and guest story consultant Jane Jensen have all come together to bring you a new point and click adventure game!

     Cognition is a point and click suspense, thriller game that focuses around Erica Reed and her profession as a FBI Agent. Through the stress she experienced from her brother’s murder, she gained Post-Cognition powers, allowing her to see the past of any object she comes in touch with.
Determined to find the man who took her brother’s life, Erica takes on every serial killer related case that comes into her Bureau. Her newfound power is definitely an addition to the job, but it’s a force Erica fights to control, leaving her with both personal and professional troubles.

About Phoenix Studios

Phoenix Online Studios first came together almost ten years ago as a group of adventure game fans who wanted to recapture and recreate the magic of the games we played when we were kids. Since that time, it’s been our passion and labor of love to create our freeware King’s Quest fangame, The Silver Lining, and now we’re taking the next big step! What has long seemed like an intangible pipe dream is, after years of hard work and dedication, finally within our reach. We’ve partnered with Khaeon Gamestudio, and will be working Jane Jensen as our Story Consultant–truly, an indie dream team!–to bring you our first commercial game Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller. 

 

The Interview

We were able to get in contact with the Cognition game developers and interviewed them about their upcoming game.

• What Genre would you consider Cognition to fall in? 

  Cognition is an adventure game, so it’s point and click, a lot of logic puzzles, talking to people to put together clues and some inventory puzzles and the like, although we’re also going to add in some action and arcade sequences where they fit with the gameplay and story. Within that, it’s in the supernatural detective/thriller genre as for the style and the kind of story we’re doing–we’ve got Erica Reed, our FBI Agent hunting down serial killers, and she’s got her very special ability of post-cognition to aid her in doing so.

• What Software was used to create Cognition? 

  We use Maya for our 3D software, and we’ll be using the Unity Engine. We’re working on creating our own tools for that right now, in fact.

• In our review of “Against the Wall”, the developer related it to a mixture between Portal and Minecraft, what would you relate your game to? Cognition is along the lines of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (no surprise, given we’re working with GK designer Jane Jensen, and are huge fans of the series!) and Heavy Rain. The in-depth look into killings, a personal story grounded in its setting (Boston, in this case), and with a more modern interface than the old school five-icon adventure games. We’ve also had in mind shows like Dexter and CSI as we’re designing it, both for procedural  and story elements.

•  Will this game only be available for PC or will you consider other consoles to host it as well? 

  It will definitely be released on PC and Mac platforms, and we’re also very interested in doing an iOS release for iPhones and iPads; iOS is really an excellent platform for adventure games! We’re also going to look into console releases, like XBLA and so forth.

• How long did it take to get this far in development?

  After Khaeon Gamestudio approached us about a possible partnership for the game at E3, we were interested right away. Our CEO and my fellow designer Cesar Bittar and I spent about a month creating a completely new plot and outline based on some existing sets and characters designed by Romano Molenaar (a well-known comics artist), then we put it all together and sent it off to Khaeon to look at. They got back to us in September with a yes, and we started to work on building up the team, including talking to Jane Jensen and her coming on as the Story Consultant, and then putting together our Kickstarter campaign, which launched at the end of October. We’re focusing now on Episode 1′s development: putting together our engine tools, concept art, more detailed outlines and finalizing the script and so forth.

•  What sets this game apart from others in the same category? 

  There aren’t too many new adventure games out there using modern engines and art. The adventure genre on a whole is a smaller one now than in its heyday of the 80′s and 90′s, although it has been seeing a resurgence recently. At Phoenix, we all grew up as big fans of Sierra On-line’s games in particular, and that studio is really our role model and what we want to become. To bring back the best aspects of adventure games–great stories and characters you get to know, good puzzles that really require you to think about how to solve them, mysteries that capture you and get you wondering what the answers are–and make them for the gamers of today. Not just nostalgia, but new adventures people will love, something more involved than casual games but different from a lot of things you see in the market today. We love well-told stories that involve the player, and that’s what our goal is with Cognition; and I really think we have a great story here with some good twists and turns to it, and for gamers who want to play for story and puzzles, this will be what they’re looking for.

Jane Jensen

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the works of Jane Jensen, you are missing out! She is known for both directing and writing a variety of games. Some titles under her name include:

• Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
• King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
• Gray Matter

The games are beautiful, intellectually designed, and always keep you guessing. Jane Jensen has a huge fan base from the indie community who all love and support her work avidly. With Jane Jensen paired with this team of game developers, this game promises to be a treat.

Cognition Teaser

 

 

 How you can help?

Phoenix Studios has a kickstarter page where you can help fund their newest game, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller. All backers (people who donate) will get prizes in correspondence to how much they donate. This is a game that has a brilliant and creative team behind it so without a doubt, this game will be worth your while. So to show Phoenix Studio some love and support the future of gaming, just head on over to their page and donate!

 

 The Artwork

 

 

 

Show your support!

Here’s some links to learn more about Cognition and it’s developers!

• Cognition’s Kickstarter page 
• Phoenix Online
• Khaeon Gamestudio
• Jane Jensen
• Phoenix Online Youtube Page
• Facebook Page

 

 

In Conclusion
I hope this preview of Cognition:An Erica Reed Thriller gave you a curiosity that can’t be cured by anything but the game itself.
I highly recommend you donate to the cause and jump in line for its release. If you decide to donate, look on the kickstarter update page for a video of the CEO dancing! That dance is for you, my friend!