A new demo for the upcoming adventure game from Pinkerton Road and Phoenix Online Studios, Moebius: Empire Rising is available for download from Steam and Phoenix Online Studios’ website. Written and masterminded by Jane Jensen, the woman behind Gabriel Knight, Moebius is regarded as the spiritual successor to the acclaimed adventure series.
The game is described on the official site as “a contemporary adventure that merges classic point-and-click puzzle solving with Jane Jensen’s sophisticated storytelling.” As the curiously named antique dealer Malachi Rector, the player will travel across the globe on an investigative mission to find clues behind the murder of a young woman in Venice.
The demo level takes place early in the story, and tasks the player with digging up information on someone called Mr. Masri before approaching him at his store. The player is free to explore the game’s environments and interact with numerous objects, as well as engage in a sort of mini-game in which Rector can “read” people based on their appearance and body language. Rector can also analyze various objects he comes across and compare them to historical figures stored within his photographic memory
One of the studios involved in Moebius, Pinkerton Road, was founded on April 5, 2012 by Jane Jensen and her husband, Robert Holmes and is based in their farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Moebius, its first game, was announced on April 10, 2012 via a Kickstarter campaign, alongside another graphic-adventure game titled Mystery Game X. Within a month, Moebius achieved its $400,000 Kickstarter goal and by May 19, 2012, reached over $435,000 in funding.
Moebius: Empire Rising is due for release on April 15 this year for the PC and Mac. Release dates for Linux, iOS and Android versions have not been announced yet.