Hi friends, acquaintances, players, and adventure game aficionados. Another year has passed. A relatively quiet year for us here at House on Fire. But we would like to take this opportunity to wish all the dedicated fans a Merry Christmas and happy new year from all of us.
Best
The Silent Age team.
For those of you who have an Apple TV, we’re happy to finally announce the release of The Silent Age to Apple TV. You can now enjoy The Silent Age on the big screen with all the bells and whistles you’d expect. Apple TV seems like a perfect platform for adventure games, where you can relax on your couch while enjoying an engaging and intriguing story. We spent a lot of time to get the controls feeling just right on the Apple remote or the full SteelSeries Nimbus game controller.
We’d love to hear what you think about playing Joe on the big screen.
Hi everyone! Have we ever told you how much we love fan art? We love it! A LOT!
Check out these great artworks made by Silent Age fans from all over the world!
This portrait of Joe is made by Menno Wittenbrood, a Dutch artist whose style reminds me of some of the European comic book heroes I grew up with – like Moebius, Cosey and Derib.
US based artist Exleston made this awesome picture of Joe, seemingly jumping between past and future. The picture is called “Paradoxigm”, which I guess is a mysterious mix of ‘paradox’ and ‘paradigm’.
Jón Kristinsson from Copenhagen made this interpretation of an early dramatic scene in The Silent Age. Jón is apparently making a book with illustrations from point-and-click adventures. Sounds like a book I’d buy!
French game art student Clara Soro-Bablet made this image, which she has labelled “A student work in the Silent Age’s style“. Apart from perfectly capturing the tone and palette of the game, the image features various objects from the game, like the lockers from the police station and the fake Mondrian painting from Chapter 3.
Our personal favourite piece of fan art is in this wonderful handwritten letter from Isaac from UK.
Isaac has some fun ideas for alternative outfits for Joe, including a rain outfit, a pyjamas and a science outfit.
In case you wonder how they would look in the game, here’s how I would actually draw them:
Seeing other people’s graphic interpretation of our game is extremely fun for us, so if you feel like making a piece of fan art, we’d love to see it!
Thomas
Hi guys.
We’re happy to finally release a major update to The Silent Age on iOS and Android. The Silent Age now comes in full HD retina graphics, is voiced by some of gaming’s best actors, localized to 7 languages, and even has over 20 achievements to unlock.
When we released The Silent Age on PC, we upped the graphics. But mobile devices have now become so powerful with high-resolution retina displays, that it makes sense to bring these highly detailed visuals to mobile platforms as well. You can actually read Joe’s employee-of-the-month award in his “office.”
The voice-overs will bring a new dimension to the game’s immersion. I’m sure you’ll find it a very different experience, so we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the characters as they come to life.
And finally, so many have asked us to localize the game, as a point-and-click adventure game is often hard to follow if it’s not in your native tongue. German, Russian, French, Italian, Spanish and Ukrainian lovers of point-and-click adventures can now also enjoy The Silent Age in their own language.
This update is completely free to everyone who already owns the game as a thank you for your incredible support. So why are you still reading? Go update the game and tell os what you think of Joe’s voice.
A little snippet. Here’s Mr. Hill, voiced by Roger Jackson, giving Joe, voiced by Owen Thomas, a lesson in ARCHON company values.
Cheers
Uni
Let us know what you think in the comments on Facebook.
Hello everyone,
We have had a long year filled with adventures, exploring new platforms, researching our next game, and contemplating the future. We finished The Silent Age last year in October, but that was far from the end of it. After release we have been bringing the game to new platforms, such as Windows Phone, as well as PC and Mac. On PC we even added voice overs, giving voice to Joe and everyone else in the game. What will the new year bring us? More platforms? More games? Will it be filled with new adventures? Only time will tell.
One thing is for sure, for as long as there will be people like you playing and loving our games, we will continue doing this, with the same passion, if not even more.
And now that joyous time of the year arrived, when we can have some rest and enjoy the company of our families while dancing around the Christmas tree and eating some delicious duck or goose. This is how we celebrate the holidays in Denmark and the Nordic Countries. We hope you can have a Merry Christmas with your families and loved ones as well.
Best wishes from all of us here at House on Fire.
Having a cozy time at our release party.
Right before I started my path as an independent game developer, I followed a lecture for entrepreneurs to be. In that lecture the teacher was underlining the importance of celebration. “Celebrate each little victory, as the path to success is long and difficult“, that is how his motto sounded, more or less.
It made a lot of sense. Having your own company and creating something out of nowhere is a really hard job for each and every person in the team. So I had promised myself that yes, of course – as soon as anything would get released – as soon as we would have reached a milestone – we would celebrate it and enjoy the moment.
The years passed and in October 2014 we reached the biggest milestone at House on Fire so far: finishing The Silent Age. And of course we wanted to celebrate it, but we were just not experts in celebrating big milestones. In the end we decided that we would all be happy with a small, cozy party, with just us, the Silent Age team (and their families), and the people from House on Fire.
Some of the highlights of the party: the family, the BBQ, the cozy time together, and an actual arcade.
But we still wanted the party to be epic. We wanted to have the same atmosphere Joe had when he entered the famous disco bar for the first time – ‘The Neon Zone Nightclub‘ next to the Archon building.
But how to achieve that? Well, we happened to be lucky enough to have a new game designer in the House, known by his notorious alias ‘Magic Mike’. His speciality? Cocktails. Inventing, designing and preparing cocktails with game themes. And he truly is a master in his art.
So he began his work – to reproduce the “rainbow-frosted, hot lava slushy deluxe – with a twist” drink from the game, for our epic-cozy release party. But he is much better than me at describing his work of art, so below are his thoughts, including, the exclusive secret recipe for The Silent Age cocktail, so that you can too reproduce the authentic experience. I personally added a little bit of Squash (described below), since I like it more softcore 
The Rainbow-Frosted, Hot Lava Slushy Deluxe – With a Twist
Mike, adding his final touches to the drink.
The original drink in the game has some bizarre ingredients, such as: quail eggs, cough syrup, horseradish, potassium-bicarbonate, croutons and banana shavings.
Here are some of Mike’s thoughts about some of the ingredients:
Quail eggs: It is not unusual to use egg white in cocktails (just think of most of the “sour” drinks. So no problem there.
Cough Syrup: Could use real medicine, but where is the alcohol in that As a lot of cough syrups have a hint of anis in their taste, I thought that either Absinth, Pernod or Sambuca would do fine here.
Horseradish: Wasabi tastes similar and there are cocktails out there with wasabi in them. I also gave it a try for my “Frog” cocktail.
However Mike quickly realized that the combination of ingredients was too insane to even try out. So he came up with a plan B, described below:
And here it is: The Rainbow-Frosted, Hot Lava Slushy Deluxe – With a Twist
I wanted to still have some of the ingredients from the original recipe, but I also wanted to focus on the color red / orange as this is the color of the suit that Joe is wearing. Furthermore, I wanted to make a twist to a classic cocktail that was popular in the 60’s and 70’s. My choice was the Manhattan Perfect.
So my version was to substitute the Angostura with Pisang Ambon (a colourless Banana liqueur would here have been a better choice to keep the red). And I wanted to use eggs. I thought of an alternative, and used candy Fried eggs as garnish in the drink instead. so here is the drink:
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain it into a Martini glass. Drop a candy fried egg into the drink to garnish, then serve.
When testing the drink for the ‘late’ release party, some of the guests thought that the drink was a bit too mature, so they wanted me to figure out a way to dilute it a bit. By using the Danish “Tuborg Squash” (which has a similar taste to Orange Fanta) the cocktail could now be enjoyed for everyone.
If you want to see and reproduce more of Mike’s creations, you can have a look at his website: gamecocktails.dk
Linda and Mike
Since the release of The Silent Age, you players have consistently kept us informed whenever you found bugs in the game. We take this feedback very serious and always try to fix bugs as soon as we hear about them.
Goofs is an entirely different matter. They usually don’t break the game, but are simply the result of our lack of attention to detail. They’re hard to spot and most players simply don’t notice. We usually don’t fix them, since we think they’re kinda fun and because we like that the game is not perfect.
Here’s a few examples. (Most of them have been spotted by our clever game design intern Valentin):
The World Clocks
The world clocks in Mr. Hill’s office show what time it is in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. The three cities are European capitals, all placed within the same time zone. Yet they show three different times.
The Rhododendron
Joe is clearly not a botanist. When looking at one of the plants in the ARCHON hallway, he identifies it as a common Rhododendron. The plant is entirely fictional however, and looks nothing like the Rhododendron.
The Police Office Door
The door to the police office doesn’t really fit does it?. You’d think someone would notice, but surprisingly no-one did until two years after the game’s release! (We have now fixed it).
The Fire Escape
On his quest to save the world, Joe must pass through a small hotel building. A clever reviewer noticed that the only way to access the hotel rooms is by climbing a fire escape. I’d like to add that the rooms come without beds! And toilets! I guess it’s a one star hotel.
The Police Car Numbers
The number on the police car outside the police station is the same as on the one outside the hospital. Joe finds both cars parked in the future, excluding that the car could have simply been driving from one location to the next. Hmmm… Maybe Joe’s actions in the past have created an alternative timeline in which the police car is parked in front of the hospital instead of the police station?
The Calendar
If we are to believe the calendar in the doctor’s office, it’s Monday, May 17th. The Silent Age takes place in 1972. If you look up May 17th 1972, you’ll learn that the seventeenth is a Wednesday, not a Monday.
Studio 54
Cedric, the suave bartender, compares the Neon Zone Night Club to Studio 54. Studio 54 was a posh Night club located at Manhattan in the late Seventies/early Eighties. It wasn’t called Studio 54 until 1977, so how could Cedric know about it when The Silent Age takes place in 1972?
Got more goofs that we haven’t heard about? Please let us know!
Thomas
How does Joe’s voice sound? Those of you who have played the recently released PC version of The Silent Age will know by now how we, the developers think he should sound. Or should I say how some of us think he should sound. Joe has been a daily part of our lives for more than three years, and each of us have created our own inner voice for Joe. Hearing him speak for the first time has been mind-blowing to us. It’s both really awesome and really weird at the same time. I guess this is how authors feel when watching a movie version of a book they’ve written.
All voice production was done by Somatone Interactive. Most of the actors are video game voice acting veterans (sounds like a tongue twister doesn’t it?), and their work include titles like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and LA Noire.
And then there’s Roger Jackson. Roger plays Joe’s boss Mr. Hill. Here he is, giving Joe (Owen Thomas) a lesson in the ARCHON company values:
Some of you may also remember Roger Jackson as the voice of Ghostface in the Scream series. Here he is, doing his famous “Hello Sidney” telephone call:
Game voice actors are mostly recorded one at a time, which makes dialogue scenes particularly challenging. The first actor to be recorded will have to imagine having a dialogue with a another actor who’s not there. The second actor will then have to imagine the mindset of the first actor in order to give the correct emotional response. I’m not an actor, but to me that sounds extremely challenging!
The Cast:
Owen Thomas……………………………………………Joe
Brian Sommer………………………………Dr. Lambert
Chuck Kourouklis…………………………………..Frank
Adam Harrington*……………Cedric, police officer
Vilija Marshall……………..Ms. Gulette, Dr. Brown
Damian Marhefka……………Welder, Jittery Man
Gavin Hammon…………….Guard, Angry Scientist
Roger Jackson…………….Subway Singer, Mr. Hill
* ‘Adam Harrington’ totally sounds like Adam Carrington, my teenage idol from the eighties soap opera Dynasty.
Thomas
Hello Everyone,
We have made it onto Steam, which means now you can play The Silent Age on your PC or Mac, using a mouse, just like old school Point and Click adventure games.
To celebrate this new achievement, we are selling the game 35% off on Steam, for a limited period.
You can get the game here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/352520.
The most amazing news is that the game has now voice acting. Ever wondered what Joe’s voice sounds like? And what about Frank? Well, now you can find out. It is a completely new experience to play the game with voices, a lot more immersive.
To add a little extra challenge we have added Achievements to the game: there are more than 20 to collect. Some of them are trickier than others to get, and a puzzle in itself. Can you catch them all?
The Silent Age is going to be in Ultra HD, meaning that for instance signs and titles of books that on the mobile version were just a blur, are now going to be readable. So mysteries like: what’s Joe’s full name? and, What books did Joe just burn? or, was that a warning sign on those containers? will finally be revealed.
I really hope you will enjoy our game on Steam. I am actually curious to hear if playing the game on the big screen is as good an experience for you guys as it has been for me.
Have an awesome weekend,
Linda
It is with great joy that we would like to announce the completely revamped and updated PC edition of The Silent Age, the thrilling point-and-click adventure with over seven million mobile downloads, coming to Steam on May 29th.
Help Joe as he travels between the groovy present of 1972 and the apocalyptic future of 2012 to discover the truth behind humankind’s extinction—a quest entrusted to him by a dying man from the future.
Winner of the 2013 Casual Connect Indie Prize and applauded for its deep story, clever puzzles and radically simple navigation, experience The Silent Age in a whole new way exclusive to the PC edition, including: character voiceover and Ultra HD graphics. Can you, a simple janitor and literally, “the average Joe,” save humankind.
Watch Trailer & Learn More http://store.steampowered.com/app/352520
