There’s a lot riding on Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, the first video game to be published by Vancouver’s Hothead Games. Not only is it the first game to be released by the fledgling studio, it must satisfy the scrutiny of an audience of Penny Arcade fans. Somewhat counterintuitively, the latter may have been the more intimidating of the two burdens.

Penny Arcade started as an online comic strip and accompanying blog by, about and for cultural geeks — video gamers in particular. However, founders Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins have grown the business into a burgeoning media empire that includes PAX, a yearly game convention in Seattle, and Child’s Play, a charity that raises millions annually for children’s hospitals around the world. They were also the art director and writer on the video game that bears not just their brand but their alter egos, Gabe and Tycho.

In a recent interview at Hothead’s Yaletown offices, Joel DeYoung, chief operating officer and producer of Precipice, told Fast Forward that involving the two in the development was one reason Hothead won the opportunity to create the game. It was also a big hurdle. “They know games, but they aren’t game developers, so that was definitely a learning experience for us and for them,” DeYoung admits.

The game was created to appeal to Penny Arcade’s existing audience, which was both a benefit, because of the built-in sales opportunity, and a challenge, because fulfilling the expectations of fans is fraught with peril. It’s why the characters of Gabe and Tycho are voiceless. “It would have ruined it for everybody,” DeYoung says. Fans of the comic strip, he explains, already hear the voices of the characters in their imagination.

It’s also why the game was handed a rating of mature. “It would have been certain death not to go ‘M’,” DeYoung said, “because that would be perceived as not authentic. It would be making compromises to appeal to a broader audience.”

If all that wasn’t enough of a challenge for DeYoung and the gang of Hotheads, they also decided to make Precipice episodic. The first episode, released at the end of May, will be followed by episode two sometime this fall. DeYoung says that each episode should take between six to 10 hours to play. The current plan is to release new episodes every four months or so.

While Hothead has not announced how many episodes are planned for Precipice, DeYoung says that internally they know how many segments will make up the premier season of Penny Arcade Adventures. There is an arc to the story that has been planned, and DeYoung doesn’t expect that fans who sink themselves into the tale will be disappointed by a cancellation, which so often happens in the world of television.

“Nothing is ever guaranteed, but we’ve always believed strongly in this franchise and Penny Arcade and how much of a committed audience they have, so I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t see it right through. And if it’s successful, let’s do another season. Let’s keep making games.”

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1 (Hothead Games; Linux, Mac, Windows, Xbox LIVE Arcade; rated mature)

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is an action-adventure game with role-playing game (RPG) elements. Combat is a modified turn-based system in which you’ll control the actions of your adventurers — a motley assortment of accomplices. The more battles you win, the more experience your characters gain, the more powerful (stronger, faster) they become. The game’s esthetic, set in a 1920s-like era, plays off such influences as Dashiel Hammet and H.P. Lovecraft — and you’ll fight against fruit fuckers (search the online comic’s archives), mimes and hobos. It’s all presented in a clever comic style, too, with panel borders and dialogue balloons. The good news is that Precipice will most certainly satisfy the built-in audience of Penny Arcade fans. It may not, however, appeal to anyone else. The sarcastic, decidedly non-PC tone of the game is expected — and appreciated — by fans, but could turn others off.