Isola is a dynamic, animation-rich, beautifully rendered first-person adventure game production for the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, and PC.

Created by indie artist Matthew Lyles Hornbostel, "Isola" is an intriguing adventure game concept... originally intended as three episodes, the project is  being condensed into one - the content from the first episode, "Isola: Prologue" and some content from the planned second episode, "Isola: Revelations", are being combined into a single, longer episode, simply titled "Isola".

This is good, insofar as it allows players to explore much of the island in the first game instead of waiting for a second episode, and offers more value for 99 cents; this breaks up the story in a way I hadn't initially intended, but a new plot structure has formed in its place - and I do think that this revision will work quite well.

The graphics are likely the strongest point of the game; the imagery is quite extensive and there's a great deal that hasn't yet been shown to the public.

There are a large number of places to explore in this game, places which I've crafted carefully and assembled into a compelling, beautiful gameworld.  The game is absolutely loaded with animations... from the character cutscenes to the transitions to the ambient animation and interactive bits of the world.

The graphics are also fairly high-resolution - which, when combined with the scope of the game and its animation-rich design, result in a very large filesize (potentially over a gigabyte).

The audio is also pretty solid, and the story is engaging... though the puzzles are a bit simplistic.  (That's a disappointment to hard-core adventure gamers but good news to those who like easy puzzles.)

Despite the many revisions, I do feel that this'll be a high-quality game, and better as a result of the changes made.  Ports to other platforms, such as Android, Wii, etc, and an eventual "Isola 2" are all options I'll consider should this prove a success.

I do think that the changes actually improve the coherency of the story of the first game, and remove some gameplay filler - and offer a darker, larger, more interesting, game than had been planned initially.

Hundreds of hours have been poured into this project, and I imagine many more are left before I'll have something I can actually submit this to the App Store.

We'll see how this goes: this may well be my biggest creative gamble ever... I started it in 2007 and am finishing in mid-2012 - and after I've made one final push forward, we'll soon see whether the long-awaited finished game was actually worth the effort.

If this release goes well, it could kickstart a whole lot of my other art, video, and video game projects which are currently stalled.  Bookmark this page and stay tuned for more news in the weeks ahead... I have a lot of things I'd love to create and put on the web for you all to watch, play, and have fun with.