All aboard! It’s time for you and a partner to set sail on The FriendShip! You two will be playing as a pair of Antarctic Explorers, hearing a familiar SOS call. Determined to come to the rescue, you end up at an uninhabited island with an… amusement park?! If you can find a way inside, you’ll face a series of puzzling trials, designed to test your communication, teamwork, and trust! Each will require you and your partner to work together, showing how strong your friendship is. Or maybe you’ll find out it isn’t…
You can jump aboard The FriendShip yourself right now and play it for free! There’s a ten-hour free trial which you can begin at any time until October 13th. Coordinate with a friend, and that’s plenty of time to get a top score on every trial… if you can work together.
Now, this isn’t our first rodeo when it comes to developing co-op puzzle games! You might know us at Total Mayhem Games from the We Were Here series – all of which are co-op adventures, focusing on (surprise!) cooperation between you and your partner. There are four games in that series now, which can seem a daunting prospect if you’ve not played one before, so we decided it was time to craft a bite-sized We Were Here experience that would be the perfect starting point to anyone curious about our games… or anyone who wants to find out if their friends are as smart as they say they are.
Enter We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip, which is built from the ground up to be an approachable introduction to our style of intimate co-op puzzle-solving adventure. We’ve honed the experience down to encapsulate all the charm, atmosphere and inclusiveness of We Were Here, while showcasing each puzzle one at a time to allow complete focus without distraction or confusion. Making the game free for a time is another part of the push for inclusivity with The FriendShip!
The FriendShip is actually part of a new series: We Were Here Expeditions. These are separate games to the We Were Here quadrilogy, which is made up of We Were Here, We Were Here Too, We Were Here Together, and We Were Here Forever. They all follow pairs of Antarctic Explorers who find themselves trapped in the cursed Castle Rock and its surroundings. There is an overarching plot and lore spread across the four games, but every title is a standalone experience so you don’t have to play them in order. If you enjoy The FriendShip then you should definitely consider making your own visit to Castle Rock! Getting there is easy; it’s just escaping which is hard…
The other We Were Here games follow a narrative and you solve puzzles to advance through the game. We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip is a bit different – you still need to solve puzzles to advance, but each puzzle has three levels depending on how well you solve them. You can continue with only a bronze medal, but surely you want to go for gold? Fitting the amusement park setting, you can retry each challenge as many times as you want in search of that perfect score. For the bronze medal you’ll need to understand what the challenge asks of you and work together with your partner, but to get silver or gold you’ll need to really get in tune as a pair. If you’re truly BFFs, then it shouldn’t be a problem right?
Whether you face time pressure or shared resources, you’ll likely find yourselves developing your own special way of communicating the most vital information. These aren’t puzzles where one person can just figure out the solution and tell the other what to do! Even in the Trust challenge, which is all about one person guiding the other, working together as a team will grant you the golden medal. Both figuring out the puzzles and then completing them are cooperative tasks. This is central to the We Were Here design ethos: working together is necessary, not optional. There are a lot of games designed for single player with co-op added in – and they’re a blast – but we aim to build a stronger bond between our player pairs, no matter who they are or what kind of relationship they have (even if they’re complete strangers!).
You can learn a surprising amount about someone while tackling tricky puzzles together! To better visualise your bond, you’ll be adding new pieces to your friendship as you progress through the trials and along the boat ride. How nice those addons look depends on how well you did in the challenge! So, for example, getting bronze will give you a serviceable but rough wooden addon, while a top score will be elegant golden fittings. At the end of the game, you’ll even receive your own personalised rollercoaster style ‘action shot’ which you can share with the world to show off how great your “friend-ship” is. Couldn’t manage every gold this time? No worries, you can try again. Grow together as buddies and get yourself the best looking (friend)ship. Or maybe it’s time for a new friend?
The ten-hour free trial is waiting for you – get a friend on board or join someone new online! You can begin your trial any time until October 13th. Will you be able to get gold in every challenge? This is a voyage you won’t soon forget!
We Were Here
Total Mayhem Games
We Were Here is the pilot episode in a series of cooperative standalone puzzle adventures. Two players are trapped inside an abandoned castle, with Player One confined to a small secluded part of the castle as Player Two roams the halls trying to find Player One. Every room challenges your wits and ability to communicate clearly, using only your voice.
Are you ready to find out how well you and your friends work together? If you like living on the edge, try playing it with a complete stranger!
VideoChums said: “…if you want something truly innovative, play this.”
PLAY MORE WE WERE HERE GAMES!
If you enjoy We Were Here, don’t forget to check out the later entries in the series: We Were Here Too, We Were Here Together, and coming soon… We Were Here Forever!
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Source: Xbox Blog
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