Why is her shirt torn...?

I don't know what it is today, but all the stories that land on my desk involve women invading gaming in unlikely ways. I'm not even going to mention what my editor threatened me with if I didn't take this one. But take heart! Although this one doesn't involve scantily clad promo girls, it does involve the winning of a major, non-industry award by one of the primary creative forces behind upcoming title, err, So Blonde.

You might not know his name, but you could be familiar with Steve Ince's work, as he's been behind some of the biggest point-and-clicks and adventure games, including the much-applauded revival of the Broken Sword series. The most well-received of these was Broken Sword - The Sleeping Dragon which was nominated for three BAFTAs - the U.K.'s answer to the Academy Awards, which has included a video games ceremony since 1998. That's impressive enough, but Mr Ince didn't rest on his laurels, oh no! Now his work as gameplay designer, story and dialogue writer on So Blonde has actually netted him a nomination for a Writer's Guild of Great Britain award, in the Best Videogame Script category.

This is exciting for a few reasons. Firstly, while the Writer's Guild allows a videogame category, it is a non-industry body. It doesn't have to award prizes to games; it only does so if it feels the writing contained within a title merits the accolade, and meets the same standards as traditional works of literature. This, along with the fact that The Writer's Guild of Great Britain is an extremely creditable, internationally respected body, means the writing of So Blonde must be very good indeed.



The other reason this is exciting is because it means So Blonde, a point-and-click title and therefore quite reliant on high quality plot and dialogue to hold interest and succeed, now looks extremely interesting.

So where are the unlikely women? They float happily about in the form of the game's protagonist, Sunny Blonde. (You'll note it wasn't nominated for Most Original Names.) Why is she unlikely? Call me cynical, but ask yourself, how many gamers, up to their eyeballs in FPS and MMORPG and other acronymic titles, would seriously consider

Just missed ITLAP Day.

dropping their assault rifles and instant death spells to earnestly follow the adventures of a seventeen year old mall rat whose biggest worry, having found herself stuck on a desert island in the distant past, is that her make up is caking?

... well, possibly some of them, depending on how she's rendered ...

The thing is, it's actually looking pretty decent. The screens are showing an overdose of "pirate", which is always welcome, and while cartoony, the PC graphics are rich and vivid, and the DS colourful, but simple and clear. With a veteran like Steve Ince behind the gameplay, you can expect fairly fiendish puzzling as well as a few twists on the formula.

After a PC release through independent German publisher dtp Entertainment, So Blonde is getting a wider PAL release on Wii and DS through Eidos. Look, I'm not saying I'd trade in Monkeys of Doom 7: Bye Bye Bananas for it, but since we have the PC demo hanging around, it might be worth checking out what all the fuss is about. *clicks link*