No joke: The Jester and the Madman coming next month to PC

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Standalone sequel to the free 2017 Lovecraftian mystery Curse of the Old Gods arriving October 21st on Steam

After a detour into the world of small-town journalism for Cantaloupe Chronicle earlier this year, indie developer Tim Rachor is returning to old familiar haunts for The Jester and the Madman, an upcoming standalone sequel to his free 2017 Lovecraftian mystery Curse of the Old Gods.

Players once again step into the first-person shoes of Rick Moreton, although now you're a former FBI agent instead of an active one. You're also locked in a cell, at least to start. After returning to New York City from "the mesas of the Congo" following a murder case related to African cults, Moreton is abducted on the street and "imprisoned beneath the mysterious Kingdom Hospital." There he meets a nurse named Holly Bardot when she accidentally "stumbles upon Rick’s cell and unknowingly opens the door to a deeper nightmare." Now the two must work together in order to "uncover a vast conspiracy hidden beneath the surface of modern America" by exposing a "secret cult that stretches into the ranks of the FBI and Homeland Security… before it's too late."

As with its predecessor, The Jester and the Madman promises a "story-rich point-and-click adventure game steeped in eerie atmosphere, over-the-top pulp fiction, and creeping cosmic dread." And once again it's presented via slideshow-style mechanics with directional arrows for navigation and a verb coin interface that highlights context-sensitive hotspot interactions. However, there are numerous updates and improvements this time around, most notably the graphical boost to a "digitized art aesthetic" meant to resemble classic 90s adventures like Harvester, The Last Express, and Phantasmagoria, featuring "characters and scenes built from real photos and actors." While the sequel is still intentionally pixelated to give it a "gritty, tactile look," the environments are now in full colour with much greater visual clarity than before. And instead of relying almost exclusively on a highlighter, environmental hotspots here are labeled when moused over. Switching between the two playable characters, you'll need to "talk to strange and suspicious characters, collect and combine items, uncover hidden clues, and solve challenging logic-based puzzles" as you descend ever deeper into "a world of cults, paranoia, and creeping madness."

Surprisingly, the complete version of the game is nearly done and expected to launch on Steam on October 21st for Windows and Linux. In the meantime, you can catch up on what you may have missed in Curse of the Old Gods, free on Steam and itch.io, then check out the playable demo of The Jester and the Madman on Windows and Linux for a sneak peek of what to expect.