On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is of course the Penny Arcade roleplaying game, developed by Canada's Hothead Games. Hothead's creative director is Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island fame, and he'll be delivering the keynote speech at this year's show. Coincidence? Probably not. Either way, all of these events have led to Episode Two of the Penny Arcade Adventures being marked down 33%, from 1200 Microsoft points to 800, or $15 to $10. This is an excellent chance for folks like me, who played the first part but never got around to indulging in the second, to finally continue their adventure while still having enough left over for a foot long sub at an international sandwich shop franchise location.

Sometimes these posts are just me trying to figure out where to have lunch.

Heading up the deals for this month is Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, on sale next week for half of its 1600 Microsoft point price. That's 800 points for the math challenged, or $10 in real-world money. If you've yet to experience the PA-flavored role-playing game, $10 is pretty much a steal.

The rest of the month is filled with add-on values. The week of April 13th brings the Advanced Warfighter 2 Co-Op Collection for 320 points, followed by the Spyglass Hill Golf Course add-on for Tiger Woods 09 for 400 points during the week of the 20th. Finally, the month ends with the NBA Live 365 Subscription add-on for 30 percent off, or 560 Microsoft points.

Well at least April's deals start off somewhat exciting, right?

The reason Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One was so long in coming to the Playstation Network had nothing to do with favoritism, and everything to do with technology.

"Everyone seemed to come up with their own rumors," Ceraldi said. "They thought there was exclusivity or that Penny Arcade doesn’t like the Playstation 3 but that wasn’t it at all."

After announcing their game for the PC, Linux and Xbox 360 Hothead discovered they had to essentially build their own version of the Torque game engine to bring the Penny Arcade Adventures they wanted to consoles and it took much longer than they expected.

"At that point we were fully committed to getting the game done as soon as we could," Ceraldi said. "So we focused on PC, linux and what we had already announced, the Xbox."

"As soon as we finished and got approved we moved those developers to the playstation and they started working on it for the Playstation Network," he said. "Until we got it running the way we wanted to look, we weren't going to announce anything."

"As soon as we did a full play through of the game we announced."

Future episodes of the game—Ceraldi believes there will be a total of four for this particular adventure—will still not arrive at the same time for all platforms.

While their was a lengthy delay between the release of Penny Arcade Adventures on the Xbox 360 and it coming to the Playstation Network, the new episodes will likely hit within weeks of one another. The Playstation Network will likely still be the last platform the episodes are developed for, he added.

While Ceraldi wouldn't talk hard numbers, he said that the game has had "very very solid numbers" for a digitally distributed game with no retail.

"We are an indie company," he added.

The future of the budding franchise appears to be strong. Ceraldi said that they may even look into releasing a box set or special edition of all of the episodes for Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness at retailers or online.

While they would love to bring the episodic game to the Wii, the size limits for Wii Ware prevent them from going the digital distribution method, he said. But that doesn't mean it couldn't come out down the line as a boxed game for Nintendo's console.

"Id love to be on the platform," Ceraldi said. "It’s purely an issue of size limit. Our game is just too big. If they increase that limit or add a harddrive, anything like that we would revisit (Wii Ware)."

And what happens after the episodic game has run it's course?

"Our goal is to have those single episodes. have them part of an overarching story. We speced out a story arch for it and Tycho has said he would like to do four episodes.

"I think the plan is that we may do a different game. Different theme but still Penny Arcade. They’ve done many different storylines and settings. There is lots of work they would like to explore."

Undaunted, Penny Arcade and Hothead Games now brings us chapter one of Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, a Lovecraftian period role-playing game in four parts. Is it an adventure strong enough to weather the ensuing critic-storm, or will it crack under the pressure, spiraling slowly into madness? Read on, brave adventurer...

Loved
The Story: It's H.P. Lovecraft meets Monty Python, complete with ancient gods, dark rituals, clowns, hobos, and evil mimes. Two great tastes that go surprisingly well together. Being able to create my own character who features prominently in the cutscenes really made me feel like I was part of the twisted tale.

The Combat: It's as if they took the best bits from several RPG's and tossed them all together, adding their own unique spin. You get standard attacks, super moves that rely on mini-games (one rather similar to Shadow Hearts' wheel mechanic), timed blocking, and support characters that can unleash devastating and not-so-devastating attacks. It's an issue of Popular RPG Mechanics.

The Humor: To be honest here, I am a big fan of the Penny Arcade web comic, and that same style of humor oozes through every pore of PAA. It can be a bit hit or miss at times, but I found myself at least tittering to myself a good 80% of the time, with a few definite LOL moments. “What. The. Fuck.”

The Brevity: With RPG's getting longer and longer with each passing year, it's quite refreshing to be able to sit down with a game in the genre and be finished in 8 hours.

The Music: The instrumental music by Jeff Tymoschuk captures the off-kilter atmosphere of the game quite readily, but the ending credits song “Final Boss” by MC Frontalot steals the show.

Hated
The Environments: While the various settings in the game are well-detailed and crafted lovingly, there are only four of them, with one of those consisting of a single room. I wanted to see more of the world.

The Item Collection: The game would have benefited greatly from some sort of item store. As it stands, using up all of your power ups during a difficult fight leaves you running back through the stages whacking trash cans in order to rebuild your supply.

Easy Peasy: Enemies are on screen for the most part, allowing you to avoid them while you hunt for items to help do them in, and your health replenishes completely after every battle, making the game a bit easier than I would have liked.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness is a game lovingly crafted for fans of the web comic, so it goes without saying that if you despise Penny Arcade and all they stand for then this is probably not the game for you. If you are a big fan, then by all means, pick the game up. Even if you aren't big on the RPG format, it's packed with tons of trademark PA humor that anyone who follows the comic shouldn't miss out on.

With that in mind, I found On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness to be a wholly enjoyable experience and an excellent beginning to the Penny Arcade Adventures saga.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness was developed by Hothead Games, designed by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Retails for $19.95 or 1600 Microsoft points. Available on Xbox Live Arcade, PC, Mac. Played to completion.

The game is currently listed only for Window, Mac, Linux and the Xbox 360's arcade.

I shot a quick question over to Tycho to find out what exactly the deal was. He said they hate all things Sony. Ah-hahahaha, just kidding. I got ya didn't I? Actually it's all about the hardware. Right now the Penny Arcade game will only be shipping on platforms that support Torque because that's the blood that runs through their game's veins.

So no partisanship here, just cold hard hardware issues.

Grandmaster of Nerdcore funk MC Frontalot will be recording an original song for the upcoming release of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.

"Penny Arcade and MC Frontalot have a longstanding friendship," said Vlad Ceraldi, Hothead's president. "Frontalot's 'Penny Arcade Theme' has become a nerdcore classic, and we're sure his new song will be an awesome addition to 'On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.'"

That sounds like a nice match. While I enjoye MC F's tune's in person, I haven't really gotten much play out of his CD for some reason.

They are also running a contest at the show to find a name to be used for a character in the game and PAX goers were encouraged to submit their real names for possible inclusion. I went ahead and submitted mine so perhaps I'll be lucky and my ridiculous sounding name will be chosen. I mean I know it's no Florian Eckhardt, but then, what is.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Website [Hothead Games]