Arberth Studios Schedules Coven Release

"Press Release
Cardigan, Wales, 22nd February 2010

Arberth Schedules ‘Coven’ Release
Welsh independent adventure developer Arberth Studios has laid out its plans for delivering its second
title ‘Coven’ in Quarter 4 of 2010.
Arberth’s spokesman Noel Bruton comments, “There are three essential dates in the schedule. The first
is the beginning of the second quarter, when the gameplay demo will go to prospective publishers as
their opportunity to take part in the project. The second is the Gold Master target date - we have 20th
September in mind. The third is the release – and for that we’re aiming to achieve the end of October
2010.”
Arberth is actively seeking publishers for all territories, and hopes that setting the dates out like this will
give the channels an opportunity to prepare. “A key element of the company’s strategy for ‘Coven’ is a
simultaneous launch in English, French, German, Italian and Russian. We acknowledge that publishers
may wish to undertake the localization themselves, but it’s always handy to have more than one string to
your bow. There are gamers in France, Germany and Italy who have already offered to help us with
localization, and they will start receiving text in Quarter 2”.
With the collapse of some of its publishing channels in 2009, Arberth turned its hand to self-publishing its
first title ‘Rhiannon’ in the UK, Germany, France and Canada, while seeking new outlets in the US. This
now gives the company the option of putting Coven too through these direct routes to market, although a
formal publishing relationship can have benefits. As Bruton says, “Some players prefer to buy a box in a
shop. For that, a publisher with the right expertise and channel contacts is one practical solution.”
For Coven, as well as considerable gameplay augmentations, Arberth’s reputation for strong story lines
will be further enhanced. The writers are creating an even deeper story than in ‘Rhiannon’, including
themes and topics rarely if ever explored in an adventure game. Arberth believes that the PC adventure
genre is unique in being able to deliver challenging, relevant puzzles among solid, sophisticated,
interactive drama. In keeping with this, Coven’s plot will be more like that of a movie than a computer
game.

Information for Editors
Arberth Studios is a three-person, family team based in West Wales, specialising in point-&-click PC adventures. It
launched its first title ‘Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches’ in October 2008 in the US and UK. Since then, it has
added Russian, German and French localisations and is working on an Italian version. The French version was
recently hailed as ‘PC Adventure Game of the Year’ by players at a French gaming website"

Coven ............ at Arberth Studios