Independent Adventuring

Enoworld review

2008-10-28T20:27:00.011-04:00

Some games dazzle you with graphics or sound. Others have great writing, interesting story or a likeable character. Yet others feature challenging, but not frustrating puzzles. Enoworld isn’t among any of those, and yet it has a certain charm that makes it very entertaining.

Despite the fact that you play a knight who revels in his depression, the name of the game is not misspelled; it’s not an Emo world. Alien robots landed on your planet, wiped out all the other knights, and the scientists have tasked you, as their last hope, to stop the invasion. Your character expects the task to be very tedious and depressing, and jumps at the opportunity to feel down a little longer. Throughout the game, he’ll travel across multiple towns and landscapes, collecting items that would help him to defeat the robots and their mothership.

The game is so incredibly linear that I described nearly the entire story in the previous paragraph. The quests and an occasional puzzle are just as simple. They range from basic Fedex quests through collecting a few items to finding a few more items, partially hidden on the screen. In fact, finding the relatively small hotspots for crossing to the next screen was more difficult than the vast majority of quests in this game. You’ll never have more than the necessary number of items, and you’ll never face a lack of information for what to do next. The author even disabled any progress until you solve what you need at a certain location. And to add insult to injury, in some cases you’ll find the key item for a location conveniently located directly on the screen, ready for taking. Your character likes insults and injuries, though.

While the adventuring aspect of the game may be less than stellar, the rest of the writing is superb. The author managed to create an environment that is eclectic, yet fully integrated. The gaming world consists of locations that differ greatly, not only in appearance, but also in people, their way of life, and their attitudes towards the main character. There’s the depressed town, angry city, happy village and many others. Each place requires a slightly different approach to problem solving. More appealingly, each location features non-player characters with very distinct personalities and tons of amusing conversation. The author added an extra touch by adjusting the facial expressions of each person based on their place of origin.

Other than the distinct facial expressions and varied character of locations, the game offers additional production value in a unique drawing style and a little background sound. The graphic style reminded me a little of that in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, with greatly accentuated heights of characters and buildings. Unfortunately, the overall impression of the world is very flat, and the additional natural backgrounds (largely distant hills) in semi-3D make the rest look even flatter. The background sounds are very appropriate in their minimalism, but I was a little surprised by the disproportionately large sound file.

Still, I must admit I’ve had a lot of fun with the game. The gaming world and its inhabitants were so diverse and charming and the dialogs so entertaining that I was happy to overlook everything else and dive into the wonderful world of Eno.

Broken Sword 2.5: Return of the Templars Review

2008-10-09T20:46:00.012-04:00

After several years of work, a group of fans of the Broken Sword series has completed one of the most ambitious independent adventure projects ever: a full-length sequel to the series, hardly distinguishable from the original. In fact, it resembles the commercial games so much that I found myself comparing this title to its inspiration more than its peer group, other independent adventures. In this review, though, I will do my best to rate this game on its merits.

Broken Sword 2.5 takes place between The Smoking Mirror and The Sleeping Dragon. George, the main character, has received a message that Nico, his French girlfriend, has died. He was pleasantly surprised to find her alive, but quite taken aback by her brash behavior and secrecy. It didn’t help to find out that she was accused of killing the mayor of Paris. It’s now up to the player to guide George to find out the truth. As in other Broken Sword games, the truth turns out to be quite elusive, obscured by numerous story twists and turns. And as with other games in the series, Broken Sword 2.5 focuses heavily on the story, so I won’t be revealing anything more.

The game’s presentation is fashioned after the first two official parts: presented in a beautifully drawn 2D cartoonish environment. Many of the backgrounds are actually lifted from the original games, as are the cursors and many character animations. The game authors are not trying to hide this; in fact, in one scene the game actually features flashbacks from the first game in the series when George visits a familiar location.

Unfortunately, reusing existing graphics has introduced the only real problem I’ve had with the game: a lack of visual consistency. There is a visible difference between graphics from the official games and new graphics. The new ones look and feel much flatter, which is a little disturbing with backgrounds and quite annoying with moving people. Especially in scenes where George walks across a new background, surrounded by new people, he stands out like a sore thumb.

Sound-wise, the game is excellent. The voiceovers (at the time of writing only in German, but English speakers will find English subtitles) are some of the best I’ve heard in an independent adventure, and would easily give a commercial game (The Watchmaker, I’m looking at you) a run for their money. The developers were really passionate about their project, and it is perceptible in their voice acting. The soundtrack mimics the official soundtracks, and even though it is not as plentiful as in the original games, it is still very well done. For an independent adventure, the soundtrack is very good, but people looking for the same atmosphere as in the original games will be disappointed by the lack of any music in most screens.

The most outstanding aspect of the game, though, is the writing. Broken Sword 2.5 fits very snuggly into the overall Broken Sword universe as it maintains plenty of ties to previous and future games. Throughout the game, the player will meet familiar characters and share fond (or not so fond) memories. In a few cases, the designers actually included some extra background information, which explains some of the questions that were left unanswered in the original series. The authors touched also on upcoming titles, hinting to future events. In a particularly amusing jab at The Sleeping Dragon (Broken Sword 3), George even comments on how much he dislikes pushing crates around.

The overall story is excellent as well. It may sound very improbable and convoluted, but in hindsight I found it on par with the official games in the series. Unfortunately, towards the end the game slides into lengthy explanations that tie all the loose ends, instead of having George figuring out the entire story himself. Still, the effort the authors put even into this part, is commendable, and with the exception of one aspect – the sudden disappearance of several supporting characters from the storyline – the story worked above my expectations.

The only weak part of the writing is puzzle design. As with the commercial games, the puzzles are usually easy and straight-forward. However, a few puzzles are a little convoluted, and then there are those that require a little pixel hunting. Given the size of the cursors and a certain stickiness of hotspot descriptors (they slowly fade out when moving the cursor elsewhere), some hotspots are easy to miss, making the game a little frustrating at times. My main gripe here, however, was the inconsistency that occurred when George needed to use money: money miraculously appeared when the authors didn’t need to further the story, even though in an earlier scene George couldn’t afford a single ice cream cone.

Overall, though, Broken Sword 2.5 is easily the most pleasant independent adventure experience I’ve encountered this year. It is almost on par with the commercial games in the series, and way above any standard set by free independent adventures. It easily fits into the range of independent games that were commercialized, such as Dark Fall and Final Destination. I feel very lucky I was able to play Broken Sword 2.5.

Reactor 09

2008-04-08T19:16:00.006-04:00

There’s nothing more I admire in a game developer than self-discipline. Being able to write a game that is focused, and resisting the temptation to go off tangents and create unnecessary and often confusing additional content is very rare. Making it appealing to gamers is even more difficult. The author of Reactor 09 managed to pull it off.

Clyde is down on his luck. As a new “lifer”, a prisoner with a life sentence for murder, he’s keeping himself busy mopping the jail floors. Just as he’s picking up some more cleaning supplies while under the watchful eye of a correctional officer, an earthquake cuts the power to the room and locks both of them in. Clyde, not satisfied with the turn of events, wants to find out what happened and if possible, escape into a safer place.

As you may have already guessed, you play as Clyde, the prisoner. Formerly, he was an engineer who designed a set of power generators, and as it turns out later in the game, one reactor has already exploded, causing the earthquake, and another is about to blow up. This relatively straight-forward adventure premise is greatly spiced up by the interaction between Clyde and the correctional officer. The CO has plenty of his own personality. Some of it is well defined; for example, he is very anal when it comes to following rules. Other, however, is quite loose – the CO changes his attitude towards Clyde during the game. This is represented by a trust bar, which can be seen when the mouse cursor is placed over the CO. The trust can be adjusted by various actions, as well as conversations, which further reveal the depth of character of both Clyde and the CO.

Character development plays a much more important part in this game than the puzzles. All of them are on the easy side, mainly because the author dropped plenty of hints on how to solve them. You can thus pay much closer attention to your alter ego. Thanks to Clyde’s complex personality, your character is not just a tool to use to solve problems. He is a prisoner who maintains his innocence, who risks his life to save the city, but also a person who doesn’t have a problem to make cruel fun of the CO and provoke other inmates. Throughout the game, additional information on Clyde’s background is revealed, though a series of newspaper clippings. I found those to be the only element that slipped the author’s tight control.

The game offers other rarely seen features as well. One of them is an information screen: at certain points in the game additional information is offered on the problem at hand or the game environment. All this information is something the main character should have been familiar with, but is outside the scope of the game. Having an information screen of sorts, where the player can read up on this information, is a very elegant way to present it.

Presentation-wise, the game relies on very good graphics and cut scenes. Both the beginning and end give some additional story details, and the way they have been designed frames the game into a very coherent, separate entity. The soundtrack is subdued, with the exception of the later stages in the game, when it very appropriately picks up to create a sense of urgency. Character animations are very clean, but sometimes they evoke the feeling of Egyptian murals, especially when multiple characters stand on the same spot, revealing that they lack depth.

Reactor 09 was nominated for the most AGS awards last year, and yet it came up empty-handed. It had the bad luck of running against some very strong competition. (Personal gripe – I still think it should’ve won the Best Supporting Character Award.) The number of nominations shows, though, how well-rounded the game is. It is definitely a game I can recommend to anyone who likes graphic adventures.

Trilby's notes

2008-03-25T17:09:00.008-04:00

The world of adventure games is full of private detectives, paranormal investigators and loners with an axe to grind. Trilby could easily fall into all three categories, but he wasn’t always like that. He started out as a master thief, and only the encounter with an evil murdering entity has changed him to the extent where he got clumsy, got caught and was forced to work for a government team focused on out of the ordinary events.

Chronologically, Trilby’s Notes is the second of the four part series by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, which started with 5 Days a Stranger. Even though released later than the adventure in space of 7 Days a Skeptic and thus potentially confusing the story’s timeline, thanks to a very good introduction the player will quickly pick up where he left out in 5 Days. New players won’t have any problems either, as Trilby’s Notes is a fully self-contained game.

The action takes place in a hotel, which seems to be shifting between two realities. Trilby, the main character, will shift even more, completing very simple tasks or merely observing during five different historical periods, all of which explain some of the background of the cursed statue that caused so much trouble in the first game, and which is now back. Showcasing his superb writing, Yahtzee once again spins a very tight and enjoyable story, which despite its subject matter doesn’t require too much suspension of disbelief. The author advances the story via writings that Trilby occasionally finds, in addition to the already mentioned flashbacks. At the very end, the player is treated to a bonus backgrounder that appears after the game’s been completed and before the end titles.

Gameplay-wise, the author has resorted to good old fashioned adventuring. The timed scenes from 7 Days are thankfully gone, and there’s no action like in the 1213 series. The puzzles are all relatively easy, and the greatest challenge will be with the text parser. The author decided to use it instead of a full point-and-click interface, but he did an excellent job loading the parser with synonyms. With only a single exception (finding the proper name for a smoke sensor), I’ve never had a problem with the parser. The greatest puzzle-related challenge will be the relative linearity of the gameplay, where many items appear or are usable only after certain puzzles are solved, and only in one of the two realities. Given the dozen or so spaces that Trilby will have access to, this will mean a lot of running back and forth.

Production-wise, the game bears Yahtzee’s signature. The backgrounds are very simple and clean, drawn in 256 colors (which tends to get a little frustrating when trying to get screenshots). Character animations are very basic, and they reminded me of 1980s commercial games – in a good way. The author was obviously inspired by slasher movies, especially the Friday the 13th series, as the main villain loves to maim other characters with big, pointy objects, in animations that were designed to shock. Even though the horror-themed hotel reality left me cold, the sudden killings out of nowhere did make me jump. The music, as simple as the graphics, fit in well enough, but didn’t evoke the eerie feeling that music in some other games does.

The simplicity of the production value isn’t a bad thing, though. On the contrary, it gives the game a very distinct character and has the author and the player focus on the story and the game itself. This allowed the author to leverage his strength, his superb storytelling and writing. Trilby’s Notes is an excellent game I’m happy I got to play.

Chivalry is not Dead

2008-03-20T19:49:00.005-04:00

Sometimes it’s good to be evil. Sometimes not so much… But it’s always good to have a choice, and this game offers an unprecedented array - for an independent adventure - of such choices. Chivalry is not Dead may look like a run of the mill adventure game, albeit with unique and pleasing graphics, but it’s focus on dialog and multiple endings makes it quite unique.

Deirdra Kiai is an experienced adventure maker. I’ve already enjoyed and reviewed her previous game, The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship, and she’s interned at Telltale Games, the publishers of the Sam & Max series. I was eagerly awaiting her new title, and quickly got into playing once it was released. The author has also written a series of articles about developing the game for Adventure Gamers Underground, but I decided to skip those articles until I finished the game, lest my gaming experience be spoiled.

In Chivalry, you play Phlegmwad, an assassin employed by the villain. You are so ugly that you wear a paper bag over your head, and based on the reaction of people you meet, your awful reputation precedes you. You are tasked with killing the beautiful Queen of Everything. How the story goes from there is up to you...

Well, not exactly. As I mentioned before, the game offers multiple endings, but despite Kiai’s goal to the contrary (as expressed in her articles), the game is very linear. The variance lies mainly in dialog choices, which shape the attitudes of people around you, and which may offer an exit from the storyline prematurely and end the game. There are a few actions, mainly involving the main character’s knife, which can be optionally selected, but how the game plays out depends primarily on how other people see you. In this, Kiai shines.

The author spent two articles explaining how the dialog and attitude adjustments worked on a technical level, but didn’t really touch on the writing of the choices themselves. I found the conversation topics to be more convenient than in any other adventure game I played. Even though they were set in a fantasy word, I felt that I could honestly pick responses that reflected my beliefs, even though at first I didn’t do so. When I first started the game, I played the role of my character, and as the evil assassin I was supposed to be, I disposed of the queen in five minutes. When I realized that I possibly missed a great deal of the game I returned to it, but instead of playing at Phlegmwad I played as myself. Suddenly, the characters around me developed their own personalities, which were ever changing based on what I told them or what I did. As the time went by, I also developed feelings for the non-player characters, which is something I very rarely do. In this case, they were mainly feelings of disgust and frustration, but fortunately the author offered me a way out in the form of a short intermission where Phlegmwad actually met the game developer and was able to stay in her word. I actually felt relieved to take this path and escape from the game, leaving all the others who kept exploiting me behind. Later, I explored other dialog options, but by that time I knew what Kiai strived to achieve, and so they didn’t have such an effect on me anymore.

It’s difficult to understate the importance and genius of the dialog tree in this game. It not only drives the story forward and gives surprisingly deep character to non-player figures, but it also provides for most of the puzzles in the game. Inventory is greatly limited to just a few items, and the cursor only allows for walking, looking and talking. Detailed actions, such as smelling items or eating them, which appeared in the author’s previous game, as missing here. This simplicity further expands into graphics, which are very clear and large. Just as was Kiai’s goal, the player will focus on the dialog.

In her last article on the game, the author mentioned that most players reported to her that choosing more evil courses of action seemed to be easier than selecting good actions. Killing or threatening a non-player character indeed seemed to get the results faster than trying to convince the character to do the player’s bidding. I felt that Kiai named the game as a plea to try a different path to victory, to be more chivalrous to the queen who’s obviously a self-centered bigot. I must admit I enjoyed abandoning or abusing the queen over and over again, but I truly appreciated having a choice in this matter. In this respect, Chivalry is one of the best adventure games out there.

Pigeons in the Park

Later, Kiai released another game, which takes the dialog idea to the extreme. Pigeons isn’t truly an adventure game – it features no puzzles, not even character movement. It only has two strangers having a conversation on a park bench. The author did an incredible job with the dialog, though. Once again, there are many forks the player can take and even more so than in Chivalry, the forks sound very real, and the player may be truly drawn into the dialog. One of the greatest innovations, in my opinion, was to also include a “no answer” option. Keeping silent is a response as well, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen it in other dialog-driven games yet. I thought I’d play this game a few times, to explore the different forks in conversation and their effects. I ended playing it only once, and I won’t be going back to it. I found that I could pick every answer truthfully, based on how I really felt about the conversation. At the end, my conversation partner developed a real personality, and I didn’t want to spoil this by exploring the software behind the two characters anymore. If you have a few minutes, try it out to see what I mean.

What Linus Bruckman Sees When His Eyes Are Closed

2008-03-17T17:19:00.006-04:00

I still don’t know what this title won the AGS Best Innovation Award for: the very addictive gameplay, or the very unique name. In order to save space and my index fingers, I’ll use a shorter name for the game in this review, and call it simply Linus and focus on the gameplay instead. Hopefully I’ll be forgiven…

The game itself is very reminiscent of Rubik’s Clock, where you have two puzzle planes, which you need to set to certain values, but where an action in one plane affects the action in the other puzzle. Vince Twelve, the designer of this game, came with a great way to solve the problem of a steep learning curve. Instead of having the gamers plunge into the whole puzzle and force them to figure everything out, the author first enabled only one side of the puzzle.

In this game, you start out as playing an alien servicing a fast food restaurant. The orders got mixed up, and you’ll need to assign them to the right customers. There are two basic challenges you’ll be facing. First, you’ll need to use the menu to translate the orders into basic food ingredients and find the proper containers with their right combination. Then, you’ll have to distribute the meals onto predefined positions. Here, moving one container also moves up to three others, and thus shifting them to their proper places requires the greatest deal of thinking.

The puzzle is not as dry as it may sound, though, as the author spiced it out with lots of humor. Your in-game father is a moron who makes Homer Simpson look smart, and your customers range from fellow aliens through known characters like Chewbacca and the Borg, to Charlton Heston. (By the way, did you know that MS Word recognizes the word “Chewbacca” as valid and grammatically correct, but doesn’t recognize “Heston”?) The customers feature very appropriate and highly amusing dialogs, such as HAL 3000 who replies to your request to repeat his order with “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.”

All through the game, you’ll see a different action taking place on the upper portion of the screen. There, someone who looks like a Japanese samurai mimics your actions from the bottom of the screen, but unless you can learn and understand Japanese, you won’t know what’s going on. You’ll learn soon enough, though. When you successfully complete the initial puzzle, the upper part will be unlocked by switching to English. You’ll learn that you’ll have to re-sort some items on the top, too, to release your goddess from her prison. Unlike the bottom game, the top part does not feature any humor; instead, it is very serene. You’ll have to figure out the chronological progression of an ancient legend, and find out which spot you’ll need to place each item at. Just like with the bottom part, you’ll switch multiple items at the same time, but using a slightly different method than that on the bottom. Why? Because at the same time you’ll be solving the bottom part again, and as both characters are mimicking each other’s moves having different item movements allowed the cruel designer to mix up the items in different ways.

It may take several attempts to solve the game, but given how addictive the gameplay is, it won’t be a burden for most players. Given the game mechanics, however, I can’t really describe Linus as an adventure game. Even though the author incorporated two stories, in the end these stories are of very little consequence, and the game is pure puzzle. That doesn’t detract from its value, though, and one can just stand in awe, realizing how much has Twelve accomplished with AGS, a game creation studio designed for adventure games.

Production-wise, the author did also a great job. In line with the subject matter of the two puzzles, he created a cartoonish and artistic part of the game. The bottom, cartoonish part, is very colorful and quite loosely drawn. The customers who appear in TV monitors are very eclectic, yet fitting for the theme. The top part is very appropriate for the sober topic matter: all colors are dulled, brownish, the graphics are very precise, and the animations are as innovative as the puzzle and game title. The movement animations of the samurai are enough to warrant replaying the game if you already tried it, and a download if you didn’t.

Overall, Linus is deservedly the most innovative AGS game of last year. The basic mechanics of the puzzle may be well known, but the author managed to dress it up in two very engaging stories, and structure the game in a way that would allow relative newcomers to puzzle games to easily learn the concept and thus have a much better chance to finish the game without getting frustrated. I’ve had a lot of fun with this title, and I hope you will, too.

Ben Jordan Case 6: Scourge of the Sea People

2008-03-12T16:52:00.006-04:00

Ben Jordan has decided to take a vacation. Little did he know what the rest of us already did – that if it’s a Ben Jordan game, he’ll be chasing after monsters no matter what his original intentions were. This time, the story takes place in an idyllic Greek village, and the monsters appear to be the descendants of the Greek mythological god Phorcys. This god, along with his wife, seems to have spawned quite the offspring, which included Medusa and the other gorgons, the Sirens, and more.

The author of the game has done his homework in this game, and has dutifully described Phorcys and his wife, and relayed parts of the legends about him. Ben Jordan finds himself entangled in a plot where the Sea People, descendants of the god, awakened after a thousand years and once again began dragging people into the sea. With his two friends, and joined by the author of the guide for paranormal investigators, Ben must find a way to stop the attacks.

Francisco Gonzales, a.k.a. Grundislav, the maker of the Ben Jordan series, has grown tremendously since the first title. Over the past few parts he developed a slowly changing personality for his main character, and as the time goes by, he adds new characters who tag along, but who also have their own personalities. Even though sometimes I feel the character development seem to be a little too fast, such as in the third game of the series where Ben managed to fall in love, get betrayed by and have his love interest die in a span of ten minutes, Grundislav has improved in this respect as well, and instead of having the characters experience everything on the screen he allowed them to have their own little adventures in the background. Their character development, relayed through the characters’ retelling of their stories, seems thus more believable.

The author also keeps improving the structure of his games. Instead of making them more difficult and appealing to an ever tighter group of fans of the series, he actually made them more accessible to others by focusing on the story and character development, and keeping the puzzles relatively easy. The fact that the number of locations is strictly limited helped in this regard even further. This will not only attract new players to the series, but also prompt them to play older games, as Grundislav threw in a bunch of flashbacks from earlier games to bait the new players. In addition to these flashbacks, he hinted at future events and an unknown entity behind all the paranormal occurrences.

Not all is perfect, though. Even though the game demands great suspension of disbelief as Ben encounters various mythical beasts, I was a little taken back by the anticlimactic ending. Given the amount of damage and fear the monsters have caused, seeing the culprit was worse than watching the ending of a Scooby Doo episode.

Production-wise, the game is still a mixed bag. Grundislav did his best with the graphics. Despite the very low resolution of 320x200, the backgrounds look like watercolor paintings, and all of them are very atmospheric. Character animations and graphics, especially in close-up scenes, look still amateurish, though. The highlight, however, was the excellent and very fitting soundtrack, which seems to include a specific theme for each of the locations. It worked very well towards the overall immersive atmosphere for the game. The only tiny gripe I have here is that in the sound of doors being opened sounded more like someone getting punched in the stomach. Unfortunately, there are very many doors that need to be opened…

All in all, though, Ben Jordan Case 6: Scourge of the Sea People, is a very fine game, easily accessible to adventure players of all levels and very immersive. It shouldn’t take more than three hours to play through, but it offers a peak at other titles in the series, which those new to the series may want to explore and thus extend their playing experience. Ben Jordan is slowly but surely rising up the pantheon of adventure game heroes, and it would be a shame if you missed out on him.

It's alive...

2008-03-12T16:48:00.002-04:00

It’s alive… It’s alive! The monster is alive! After a long hiatus I’ve come back. I think I owe an explanation to the 2.43 readers who may still check this blog from time to time, though: I’ve been, and I still am incredibly busy at work, but that’s my own fault – I simply like what I’m doing too much. However, even with my limited time I’ll be able to re-launch the blog in a different format, so the “too busy” excuse loses much of its validity. The simple reason why I disappeared for a time was that I burned out. What was originally a lot of fun, turned gradually into a chore. Checking for new games and indie games news became a secondary work for me, and even though I’ve had fun playing very many of the games, there were many more that offered the entertainment value of vacuuming my apartment. I got increasingly bitter in my reviews of such games, which put additional pressure on my conscience – after all, even the creator of the worst game achieved more than I did: created a game. Who was I to judge them?

I didn’t stop playing adventure games, though; I just limited myself to the better ones. And this will now be part of the new blog format. Even though I’m aware that many readers appreciated that I reviewed all games, I don’t want to burn out again. Instead, I will focus only on games I have something nice to say about, games I can recommend to others. Obviously, not everything is perfect, and I won’t shy of criticism, but I will no longer feature a game only to tear it apart. This narrow focus will allow for a second change in the format: instead of mile wide and inch deep articles where each game, no matter how good and bad, gets one paragraph, I’ll be writing more in-depth reviews. There won’t be any rating, considering that only games I like will be reviewed, and I’ll try to stay below 1000 words. The reviews will begin with older games, which I played last year but never reviewed on this blog, and I’ll be slowly working my way to the present. I’ll stick to independent adventures, since that’s when the action and true innovation lies. I hope you won’t mind the new format too much…

Robotragedy 2: Countdown to Doomsday Review

2007-01-03T21:01:00.000-05:00

Ladieeeeees and gentlemen! Welcome to this week’s fight for the fate of the universe. In the villain corner, weighing an impressive 358 pounds is a large crocodile who returned to conquer the entire reality as we know it. In the hero corner, weighing 47 pounds (if we take away his entire inventory) is a big metallic ball on top of a pole with wheels, also known as Toby X, a common household robot. And so, without further ado, llllllets get ready to rumbleeeeeee!”

We’re in trouble. A villainous villain has emerged, threatening to spread his villainy and take over the entire universe.

“Whyyyyyyy?” Cry all the beings that are capable of making a sound. “Why does it have to be a reptile? Why not a pink flamingo, donkey or koala? Why is the villain again a crocodile?”

We may never know. But here’s some good news: the villain can be stopped. All we have to do is to find five pieces of an artifact, which nobody really believes exists, and whose parts are conveniently strewn through five planets, hidden behind numerous traps and puzzles.

“Whyyyyyyy?” Cry the same beings again. Actually, not all of them – there are a few worlds which adventure clichés didn’t reach yet. “Why is it always a device straight out of a legend, which is more magical than technological, and yet which somehow got scattered across the entire universe, several very distinct cultures, and which is protected by puzzles that require chewing gums, magnets, and who knows what else?”

Fortunately, not everything is lost. I’m sure that the Galactic Council finds someone capable of solving this crisis. Oh wait, I’ve spoken too soon…

“Whyyyyyyy?” The cry is getting quite annoying. Especially now, when it reaches a new, feverish pitch, and threatens to rip my eardrums. “Why did the Galactic Council choose a tiny household robot incapable of lifting large items, with only one retractable arm and socially awkward? The entire universe is at stake and the Council didn’t consider using every means necessary – including military force – to comb over the five planets and collect the artifact?”

Oh well, too late to change anything. So now it’s up to you, Toby X, to save the day once again. You got some adventuring experience when you rescued that pop star you were in love with from the kidnappers. Granted, her life was not in danger because as a robot she had none, but you still became her hero and married her at the end. Now, however, the love nest is empty. She is recording a new album, and you have a universe to save.

This, in a nutshell, is the premise of Robotragedy 2, which is a much better adventure game than you may think after reading the introduction. Its author must be a special case: patient, organized and very inventive, as he managed to create a game that’s long enough to compete with most commercial titles, and which remains interesting from the beginning to the end. Even though the story has been told numerous other times, the author’s knack for puzzles, very good writing and non-linear gameplay makes this one a keeper.

The game is tightly controlled in three self-contained parts. In the first part, you’ll be able to access only one planet, in search of the first artifact piece. This allows you to get used to the kind of puzzles you’ll encounter, the large dialog trees, as well as traveling between the artifact planet and your home to collect items you may need in your quest. The second part is much more expansive, with thee new worlds becoming available. Applying the same principles you learned before, especially in terms of solving puzzles on one planet with items collected elsewhere, you’ll work on finding three more artifact pieces. Just when the quest becomes tiresome and repetitive, the location of the last piece is revealed, and the storytelling switches to a frantic mode. Even though there are no action sequences, you’ll feel like time is really against you.

Puzzles play an enormously important role in this adventure. Unlike many other adventures, the narrative is only secondary here. Cut scenes are short and quite generic, as the author focused on puzzles. They are often very complex, sometimes requiring you to visit several worlds to piece together the solutions, and other times interacting with several non-player characters. Conversation often triggers new actions, which unlike other games don’t consist of simple FedEx quests. In fact, very few characters will ask you for something. They’ll either mention a problem that needs to be solved, or you’ll find out about their needs from other people. Puzzles that don’t require character interaction often consist of several parts, which cannot be solved at once. Instead, your character will be forced to set a puzzle aside, in order to solve something else, which in turn will allow him to continue on the previous puzzle.

I must admit that I wasn’t too good at solving this game. Just like the original Robotragedy, I got distracted by items that served as a ruse. There are many items that offer very simple and elegant solutions for given problems, but they are either not available, or they’ll become available much later in the game, as part of a much more convoluted solution to a wholly different puzzle. In addition, despite having three entire worlds available, the game remains relatively linear, as many crucial items only become available as previous puzzles are solved. The author has greatly limited the number of concurrent puzzles, which, in my opinion, detracts from the gaming experience.

Presentation-wise, the game is above average. The graphics range from good to great, with some of the backgrounds being on the top end of this scale and a few characters on the bottom. The good news is that the graphics remain consistent throughout the entire game, which is impressive given the length of this title and the number of locations.

Interface, on the other hand, would benefit from a little more polishing. The author is not a native English speaker, which shows in the language, but given how important character interaction is in this title, asking a few people to proofread would help a great deal. The dialogue and item descriptions confused me at times and led me away from a particular puzzle solution.

The other problem I’ve had with the interface is the inventory screen. Robotragedy 2 is heavy on items, often requiring you to combine multiple pieces into a single contraption. Unfortunately, the inventory screen shows only one row of four items. Scrolling back and forth to combine items has proven to be quite the exercise in patience.

All in all, Robotragedy 2 is a great game, albeit for a limited audience. Its expansiveness and puzzles take it out of mainstream independent adventures and put is along classic LucasArts titles. As such, veteran adventure players will enjoy the challenge, but newer gamers, used to the current crop of commercial and independent adventure games, may find themselves overwhelmed and frustrated. I found this title’s design to be refreshingly challenging and yet addictive, often turning off the game, only to keep thinking about a particular puzzle and a returning to it first thing next morning to try several new approaches. And unlike so many other recent titles I played, I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment when I finished this game and saved the universe.

“Whew,” said people all across the universe. “We lucked out this time; the villain’s minions were obviously so inept that they couldn’t foil this little household robot in finding the amulet. Come think of it, this wasn’t such a great threat after all. Maybe it’s time we fire the Galactic Council for spreading panic and elect new representatives. And maybe, just in case the little robot is needed in the future, we give him a second arm and a laser on top of his head. A big fricking laser…”

The Museum of Broken Memories Review

2006-11-12T17:39:00.000-05:00

The Great Machine spins its wheels. It spits out yet another soldier caught in the middle of the horror of war. Or maybe the horror only exists in his head; the real war may be over. I guess we’ll never know, as this soldier is trapped in a world with no escape; a world consisting only of fragments of his memories.

Jonas Kyratzes has written several great games. He focuses on the horrors of war, and on the individual trapped in those horrors. The main character is always alone. He reacts very strongly to the environment, becoming very emotional and retrospective at the smallest impulse. This game is not an exception: once again you play a person scarred by the war who contemplates on the past. His memories aren’t limited to the horror of war, however; he also remembers fragments from his pre-war past, and in contrast, the war looks even more brutal.

This very theme was explored by one of the author’s previous games, The Great Machine, to a great extent. In that text adventure, you played a soldier trapped in a never-ending cycle of survival on the battlefield. The author references the game here when he mentions the wheels of the great machine spinning and threatening to grind the player, but here he is more interested in exploring the character’s psyche. The very powerful narrative allows the player to explore the main character, and despite the relative lack of linearity, it always fits together very well.

The Museum of Broken Memories takes place – not surprisingly - in a museum. There is no visible exit, but some of the paintings serve as portals to other worlds in the main character’s brain. You can move around by clicking on a room on the museum’s map. Despite the game being presented in a first person view, one can only turn around in the museum; movement is not implemented in the main interface (a pseudo-movement is available in some of the sub-games, by clicking on the door to the next room). This doesn’t detract from the experience, though, most of the game lies behind the five portals you’d be able to access.

These portals lead to five different worlds in the main character’s mind. Some of them present skewed and fragmented memories, while others seem to stimulate the character’s imagination. In one world, you’d feel the strong urge to escape from an unseen horror, in another you’ll want to find your friend, and yet in another you’ll be helping others to regain their memories. Each world has very unique graphics. In one case, for example, you’ll move around an adventure game storyboard, drawn in simple lines on a notepad. In yet another world, you’ll be blind. The place is totally dark, and you’ll move only by touch.

The heart of the game, however, isn’t connected to the very appropriate graphics, but lies in the narrative. The main character remembers things. Nearly every memory sparks an emotion, which further colors his speech. The author paid close attention in giving the character a very unique voice, which does not explain anything to the player, and yet makes the player understand things as the game goes on. You’ll be able to extract a great deal of information about the war and suffering the character and his lowed ones went through. One scene in particular, where your character explores the memories of a child who lost its toy, is extremely powerful and may stay with you for a long time.

However, nothing is perfect, and neither is this game. Interestingly, it is the narrative that fails. In one of the five worlds, it is much weaker than elsewhere, and given how strong it is in the other four worlds, this contrast is enormous. The largest world you’ll find yourself in is a maze without any light. The screen will remain dark throughout your journey here; only the cursor will change in the appropriate spots. The character will be able to use his hearing and touch, though. Here, the storyline follows the search for your lost love, only finding death all around you. The house you are moving in slowly falls apart, morphing into a battlefield. Given the lack of graphics, I anticipated the author to pay a much greater attention to the narrative. I expected not only the usual flashbacks, but also a much more detailed environmental description, and possibly my character guessing what he heard or touched. I was sorely disappointed. The flashbacks and emotions were almost gone, and all that was left was the description of the environment. The character seemed more curious than anything else. The author tried to compensate by using a very flowery language, but even that didn’t work. In fact, sentences like “a carpet of broken bones, bound together by rotting flesh” sound quite ridiculous if the main character doesn’t express any emotion.

Still, this deficit barely scratches this great game. Even though the graphics and music should be enough to please any gamer, the main strength of this title lies in the writing. In fact, it reads more like a poem than a game. That may not be too surprising, considering that the author seems to have been inspired by the writings of William Blake. In fact, Blake’s god of intellect, Urizen, plays an important role throughout this adventure. I found Urizen to be a little more malicious and active here than in Blake’s world, but this is the author’s prerogative. Jonas has later explained to me his vision of Urizen as the Authority, the personification of everything that’s fueled by short-term greed, such as senseless wars, economic and military imperialism, and more. His description allowed me to better understand the solitude of the main character as well, as Urizen also represents the repression of the individual.

All in all, The Museum of Broken Memories is a highly original and insightful work. It won’t be enjoyable in the classic sense of adventuring, as it lacks the traditional inventory system and puzzle solving. It will work itself into the player’s brain and create more questions than answers. With its superb graphics and soundtrack it will make it a little easier to digest the narrative, which is outstanding on its own. Despite a small hiccup in writing, I highly recommend this title to anybody looking for something more mature than what games usually offer.

Still alive

2006-11-03T21:26:00.000-05:00

I'm not dead yet. I'm not. I'm getting better. I'll think I'll go for a walk.

There, I said it. First of all, I'd like to appologize for my disappearance and for not replying to e-mails and personal messages. The sad truth is that I was well over my head. In May I got my master's degree, and the next day I started working for a very exciting startup. I knew I was getting into a position with lots of varied work, seven days a week. As of Nov. 1, however, I've got an assistant, and I should get back to a resemblance of normality, rarely exceeding 60 work hours per week. This allowed me to already play my first adventure game in months, and soon I'll be beginning to catch up with the roughly 200 games I missed.

In addition to this blog, I will be posting short articles on independent adventuring at GameSetWatch.

Frasse and the Peas of Kejick review

2006-04-25T22:42:00.000-04:00

One sunny day, Frasse found a note from the king, offering reward to anyone who would find the fabled Peas of Kejick. Armed with nothing else than his armless friend Gurra, he set on an adventure that brought him to the highest peaks of the kingdom and the lowest depths of the king’s cheese cellar, let him meet fantastic and not so fantastic creatures, and had him ultimately prevail against the evil that’s got to be present in any self-respecting adventure game.

This, in short, describes the story of a very well thought out and polished adventure game. You play as Frasse and Gura, in the search for the peas. Frasse is a blue, hairy blob of um…something, while Gurra is a green, armless something else. You may want to call Frasse a monster; at least that’s what the game is inclined to do towards the end, but thanks to the very cute graphics he is an extremely likeable monster. He only has one problem: he is not too bright, and you won’t be able to have him lead intelligent discussion with people. Fortunately, there’s Gurra who you can switch to for dialogues. He is not only smarter, but he can also kick things, swim and eat nasty bugs. He’s not perfect, either. He lacks hands, and so he can’t manipulate objects or hold an inventory.

This tag-team of two complementing characters is the main theme of the game. We’ve seen similar tag teams before, in games like Gobliiins and others, but here they are much better integrated into the story. And while the two characters are being used to complement each other, the developer avoided the trap of overusing them at the expense of focusing on the story. To mix up things a little, in addition to having different puzzles for different characters, there is also a section of the game where the two must work together, each in a different location.

Frasse and the Peas of Kejick is a traditional point-and-click adventure, which lets you collect items, combine and use them, sometimes in very weird ways. Some puzzles are of the FedEx variety, where you need to deliver an item to someone in order to receive another. To the author’s credit, I must say that none of the puzzles was too straightforward. Instead, you’ll be faced with the task to collect and combine several items before being able to exchange the resulting contraption for the next thing that helps you in your journey, and sometimes you even have multiple paths to accomplish a certain thing. One interesting feature here is that items that are too big for your inventory are simply too big. As a result, Frasse needs to carry them on his head, and he won’t be able to do anything else while holding them.

Unfortunately, not all puzzles are obvious, and in a few instances the author opted for well-meant references to other games, but forgot to leave a hint to the player. As a result, despite the relative linearity of the game, the player may face a few frustrating moments.

The game itself is quite linear. It is divided into four parts that are defined by a series of locations, and even though you’ll be able to move across all the screens of a location without too many limitations, the writing forces you to focus on one puzzle at a time. This is not inherently a bad thing; in fact, it serves the game very well. The author has been very good at writing an engrossing story, and thanks to complex puzzles you’ll never feel like you’re being lead through the game on a leash. At least, this is true for the first three sections.

The biggest drawback of the game is its fourth and final section, which seems a little rushed. Here, you’ll lose Gurra and will be able to play only with Frasse. Due to this, you’ll be limited to a much more conventional adventuring experience, and the quests will become much more linear and simple. You’ll realize what a big part of the game the interaction between the two characters was, and how bland a game with only one lead protagonist feels. Not only that, though; you may feel that the last part of the game doesn’t have that innocent, playful spirit of the first three segments.

The defining moment of the game came early for me, when, as Frasse, I climbed on a branch and took a nap. The atmosphere was very peaceful and lighthearted. As I waded through the story, I never feel threatened in any way. I engaged into snow fights when I was supposed to look for the Peas, and even encountering the big bad dragon was just an excuse for sledging. This changed in the last segment of the game, where I uncovered a dark plot, after my own life and freedom was threatened. Frasse had to resort to quite destructive activities, and Gurra had to attack someone. I felt that the disconnect between the first three segments and the last one was great enough to hurt the integrity of the story.

Fortunately, all other elements of the title were nearly perfect. As I mentioned before, the puzzles and the use of two characters were fitting, and the writing was excellent. Characters themselves were very well developed and believable. The author has realized that the scope of the story was very small, and he wisely decided against any character development throughout the story. While some may claim that this makes Frasse and his friend one-dimensional, I was very grateful for having no distracting underlying side stories.

The production value is very fitting. All backgrounds are hand-drawn, and all graphics are large enough to convey the feeling of a light, comfortable adventure. In fact, none of the graphics is in any way threatening, and I would expect many parents have their children try this game out. The music blends in well, and never gets overwhelming.

All in all, Frasse and the Peas of Kejick is an excellent independent adventure game. I really admire the author’s self-control to keep the adventure simple and focused, even though he had enough opportunity to overload it with puzzles or a more complex story. The game conveys a feeling of comfort and playfulness, which puts it into a stark contrast with all the dark or overly realistic titles out there. And despite the disconnect between the final section and the rest of the game, the story remains very engaging and likeable, also thanks to gentle humor. Frasse and the Peas of Kejick is a well-polished game that fully deserves your attention.

Independent Adventuring - March 2006

2006-04-17T00:42:00.000-04:00

March was a month of few games and even fewer news. Even though many of the titles were great, also thanks to a great set of challenges in the monthly AGS competition, there were a few games that left lots to be desired. Still, with several titles featuring lengthy gameplay, and a brand new adventure creation engine, one could have plenty of fun.

Niche news
Probably the biggest and yet most overlooked news of the month was the release of DizzyAGE, a game creation engine that allows its users to create games based on the popular Dizzy series, which ruled the ZX Spectrum world. The engine features a very impressive help file, and it’s apparent that it’s been thoroughly tested and polished prior to its release. By the end of the month, there have been three Dizzy games released. In addition to DizzyAGE, SCI Studio VGA was released, which allows users to create games resembling those from Sierra On-Line’s SCI era.

The commercial release of the month was Scratches, which immediately generated a slew of reviews. The game was covered by Gamespot, IGN, PC Gameworld, Gamezone, Gamefreaks365, The Quandary, Digital Entertainment News, Game Chronicles, Adventure Gamers, Game Over, Amped News, Gameboomers, Game Plasma, Bovine Conspiracy and Plain Games. Scores ranged from 39% to 100%, with the majority in the upper seventies and lower eighties. The Quandary also reviewed Tears of Betrayal, and the March issue of Adventure Lantern covers Hope Springs Eternal, Clink, Last Half of Darkness and Delaware St. John 1. Independent Gaming posted short reviews of Alfa Dream, Spooks and Stan Ames 1. The next commercial release of a independent adventure will be Barrow Hill, which has gone gold by the end of the month, and would sell for $25.99.

Adventures
2010: World of Chaos. There are bad games, and then there are games that are so awful that you don’t know whether they are meant as a joke or not. Despite he author’s insistence that he was serious when creating this title, I’m still inclined to think that 2010 was meant as a parody of an over-the-top, very bad game. The graphics are terrible enough to have their own distinct character, and the story, which has you play a private investigator as he tries to chase a terrorist, seems to have been written by a seven year old. The game’s only redeeming feature is the very good original music. Still, you should try this title, if only to see how an excessively bad game looks like.

Aescplega. This is quite a unique game, which takes place in Anglo-Saxon (pre-Norman) England. You play a villager who got his weapons stolen, and now he has to acquire new ones and find the thief. The story is very linear, with new quests being unlocked only after the previous ones are solved, but this does not detract from the game’s quality, which is tied to its unique setting. Puzzles, on the other hand, can often be on the frustrating side. They require some guesswork, especially when it comes to finding objects, and even though you’ll have the benefit of a linear gameplay you may end up being stuck in places. In addition to nice graphics and a very appropriate soundtrack, the game uses old English words from time to time, and those who want can translate them using the included glossary of terms. It is clear that the author is quite passionate about the topic, as he also included several riddles in Old English, with their translations and solutions. The game abruptly ends before the main story line is complete, but the author promises a sequel. I can’t wait.

Alfa Dream. You fell asleep and woke up in your dream. Even though the beginning may have been a little overused, the rest of the game isn’t. The dream you wake up in is quite weird, but also strangely logical. Each room has its own architecture, and each character you meet has a purpose, and together they create a seamless world. Part of this harmony between locations can be attributed to a very nice graphical element: a sort of animated noise, which overlays the screen. On the downside, this causes the game download to be enormous, considering its short gameplay. The production value unfortunately suffers from an absolute lack of sound (the author admitted that he tried to include it but was unable to come up with anything good enough) and language problems. In the latter case, the problem is not as much grammar as the failed attempt to translate a little philosophy into English. Puzzle-wise, the game is relatively easy, even though it does contain some dead ends. In this respect, the only thing I was truly frustrated with was the lack of clearly marked room exits. The backgrounds are so well drawn that often you won’t know where you can go. Overall, this is a very interesting first attempt at an adventure game, which will initially cause admiration for the graphics. Once the novelty wears off, however, the lack of sounds and the inability of the author to communicate his ideas a little more clearly may be in the way. Still, if you don’t mind the large, 40MB download, you should by all means try this game.

Death of an Angel. The author, a veteran of MAGS game competitions, has gained certain reputation at creating games with original stories, characters and interface, and this title is no exception. You play an angel who needs to find out why another angel died. The story itself is quite clichéd this time; the moment I entered the last chapter I knew what would happen. However, the interface is once again very unique and appropriate to the game, and the writing is not all that usual for adventure games. The title is heavily scripted, and some of the puzzles are rather obscure, but with the exception of one, which requires more musical knowledge that I have, they are doable. The graphics suffer from a font I found nearly impossible to read, and the music can get quite annoying. It features a song on a loop, which makes it very easy to pick up when it ends and starts playing again. The first two dozen of times I could bear listening to the song, but then I just had to turn off the sound to keep my sanity. Still, it is a very well done game, especially considering it’s been created in a few weeks.

Fallen Angel. An angel falls on a piece of floating rock you call your home. Apparently, it’s paralyzed, and you need to find a way to save it, with only very little information to work on. To make matters worse, your game world was probably designed for a much larger game, as most locations will not let you enter, and those that will are almost invisible on the map, courtesy of very small hotspots. Once you find those two locations you’ll run into the next issue, heavy and sometimes unnecessary scripting. As a result, new options will appear only after you finish a certain task, and you’ll easily get frustrated because you won’t realize that whatever didn’t work previously may work later. To make matters more confusing, the game opens many questions, such as how comes you are so familiar with a robot who you weren’t supposed to have met previously, why there is a dead body with a radio, and much more. Overall, I was left with mixed feelings about this title. On one hand, the scripting and pixel hunting present a relatively frustrating gameplay; on the other, the production value shows great effort.

The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship. Just as the title implies, there won’t be any doubt that you’re playing an adventure game. Throughout the gameplay, you’ll be reminded of it over and over again, as you steal things, stuff impossibly large items into your inventory, and do other adventure-related nonsense. Not that it hurts this game in any way; in fact, it adds a great deal of personality. TGTPOACS (sorry; I won’t spell the name out again) is a superb title, which offers very good graphics and music, but more importantly, a host of very original characters and four different paths to take. This last thing alone will let you play this title for longer than some commercial adventures I’ve seen. Unfortunately, due to this, there are a lot of useless items you’ll collect. Because of this, the first part of the game, common to all four paths, plays more like an adventure game simulator where you wander around, talk to people and collect everything you can. It does not have a storyline, and you may feel a little lost. Here, the jabs at conventional adventure gaming are very welcome: they lighten up the mood, and ease the frustration of some of the less obvious puzzles, such as asking a character the same question eleven times to get further. Once the fork in the story occurs and you select one of four available paths, the game picks up and offers a very professionally designed series of puzzles, leading to one of the four ultimate conclusions. If you play one game released in March, make it this one.

Piratess. You play a female pirate on a quest to do something. The game is very disjointed, not only divided into three parts that never really come together, but even has end titles before the last part of the gameplay. The puzzles can be quite obscure, and you’ll suffer some frustration from non-skippable text. Presentation-wise, the game is limited to a few simple tunes and sounds, and the graphics are all over the place, with black-and white screens, relatively good room graphics, oversized characters and more. All in all, it looks like an experiment by the author to learn scripting, with features like a timed task and dialogue trees, and not as a full game. At the end, the author admitted that he released the title unfinished, and that he wouldn’t care whether the game was playable. Neither should you care about downloading it; there are many better ones available.

Sky Adventure. You have crashed on a floating island full of angels, and you need to repair your ship. The island offers plenty of challenges, though, such as the lack of stairs (after all, angel can fly), and a grumpy old tree that doesn’t let you gather any wood needed for the repairs. This game features background graphics, which I liked very much. Unfortunately, the title also contains some of the worst language (grammar-wise) I’ve ever encountered, and some of the puzzles are not intuitive. It is a worthy MAGS submission, but not all that great.

Sven Gordan Paranormal Parody. If imitation is the ultimate form of flattery, parody is not far behind. The maker of the Ben Jordan series must be very happy to learn that a second game making fun of his work was released, and this time the result was much better than the first title, Ben Jordan: Paranormal Warrior Within. This game starts out similarly as the original, but at several spots it makes certain deviations to develop a few jokes. I personally found the production value even better than the real Ben Jordan 1, with very cute graphics and an appropriate soundtrack. Unfortunately, the title also was a little shorter and much easier, but it should still entertain you for ten minutes or so.

Water Quest. You came home, and you are very thirsty. And now you are looking for some water. This seemingly simple premise sends you through a series of photo backgrounds, very poorly marked transition zones between screens and illustrations that are not up to par, in order to find a way to get your water running again. The game is the first attempt of a new author, and in its current stage it is not very appealing. Due to the backgrounds, the download file is relatively large, but the graphics are poor in their pixilated form. The story is quite confusing, and some of its twists are illogical. The good news is that the author has been paying close attention to feedback and has been improving the game, and this leads me to believe that his next effort will be much better.

Where did Sam Go? This is a very short game based on Sam & Max, with mixed-in characters from the Monkey Island series. You play as Sam, with the goal to find Max who got lost in a wacky-looking house. The author admits that the game is incomplete, and as such you should have absolutely no problems finishing it: it only takes two items to do so; the rest of the things you find (even those you can’t pick up) seem to serve no purpose. The graphics and music are appropriately crazy (in a “happy” sense), but the current game length and difficulty level leave a lot to be desired.

Interactive fiction
Showtime at the Gallows. Texas Chainsaw Massacre never read so good. You play a washout everybody used to make fun of because he was always scared of everything. But when faced with a real maniac who just took apart our friend limb by limb, you must pull yourself together in order to survive. This is an extremely well written adventure, which suffers from only one problem: the majority of the time you will be waiting. This is not a big deal, though, as you’ll keep being entertained by the text, as it scrolls by. With the exception of a few over the top clichés (abusive father whom your mother later killed), the story is very gripping, and won’t let you go until you die. Or maybe make it out alive, after several attempts.

Other games
With the release of DizzyAGE, a whole new world of arcade adventures has opened up. Until now, I only covered non-adventure games created with AGS in this section, but from now I’ll include arcade adventures as well.

Dizzy and the Emerald Eye. This is the first Dizzy game created by other than the author of DizzyAGE. It is longer than the other two games released last month, but not as polished. This time, Dizzy has agreed to help a troll find a certain gem, and to do this he must go on a series of FedEx quests, jump till your fingers hurt and take care of his cash problem. The game plays relatively easily, with some tasks being obvious even before you are made aware of them. The biggest downside I’ve encountered is a very frustrating sequence of jumping on clouds across several screens, which can get quite repetitive as you hit the wrong jump button or let your character fall through a cloud over and over again. Still, it should kill your boredom for an hour or two.

Dizzy and the Healing Potion. Daisy is sick, and you need to collect ingredients for a healing potion. Even though there are only three, you’ll face several obstacles in collecting them, in particular non-obvious exits from some of the screens. Still, this is the perfect introduction to the world of Dizzy, as it offers very believable characters and no possibility of injury or death. I’ve had a blast playing this little title.

Dizzy and the Mushroom Pie. Dizzy is locked in a cave, as he tries to collect some mushrooms for a pie. This game is a rather rude awakening for those who played the previous game first, as they may get killed almost instantly. Fortunately, the game is not all that difficult, and it introduces some advanced elements, such as coin collecting and avoiding monsters. The story suffers a little from a lack of introduction, and unless you read the short introduction on the Web site you won’t necessarily know what you are supposed to do.

March has featured some great games. In particular, The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship and Alfa Dream offered some eye candy in addition to good gameplay, and Death of an Angel and Aescplega were very original, each in its own way. Even the few weak titles, such as Piratess and Water Quest didn’t spoil my mood, especially after I was made aware of DizzyAGE and the games created with this new engine. Let’s just hope that in the following months we’ll see more Dizzy games being added to the always great lineup of independent adventures.

Delaware St. John 1 review

2006-03-12T15:50:00.000-05:00

A new hero joins the pack of supernatural detectives, and together with his faithful female sidekick dares to go where nobody went before. Actually, the last part is not true; there were people who went there before, but somehow forgot to return. Thus begins the first episode of a projected ten-part adventure series, and so also starts this review.

You play Delaware St. John, a supernatural detective who must hate his parents for naming him after a state known mainly for being the top choice for new companies’ incorporation. But since Indiana and Dakota were already taken, there weren’t too many choices left. I mean, who in their right mind would name their son “New Jersey”… Anyway, back to our story. Just like so many others before you, you tend to have some strange dreams, and you decide to find out what they mean. So you begin a career as a investigator of all things mysterious, hire a female sidekick to help you from a safe distance and build up some sexual tension, and off you go to the cursed manor.

Delaware St. John is trying very hard to be clichéd. However, this is just a screen to confuse the player and keep him in the dark, until the surprise trap springs and you’ll find out that the game is quite original. True, we’ve had so many mystery hunters before, and we’ll have many more in the future, but this guy sounds and feels very authentic. I guess it’s partially because of the writing and voice talent, but I didn’t feel like I was playing another derivation of the same theme; instead, Delaware is a real person with his own joys and troubles. It also helps that his sidekick, Kelly, sounds as authentic as him, for the same reasons.

The game is portrayed in a first person view. It all takes place in a manor, where you move and turn around in steps, instead of a smooth movement. While this may be somewhat confining, it also allowed the author to incorporate some scripted events, such as ghosts appearing at exactly the right moments. In addition to a very meager inventory, you’ll have at your disposal a communication device, called VIC, which allows you to take pictures, record sounds, and to communicate with Kelly, who can download your recordings and analyze them. This allows for a few unique puzzles. Unfortunately, the VIC will be used much less often than you may wish for, and contacting Kelly when you have nothing new to report (this will happen quite often, since you’ll never know when is a good time to contact her, and because each picture snap and sound recording will get her on-line) will yield the same response.

The puzzles are relatively easy, thanks to a very linear script. There’s almost nothing you can do before solving a particular puzzle, and thanks to the fact that there will be very few items to pick up, you won’t have any issues with the inventory, either. A few times you’ll need to solve a riddle, but even those are on the simple side. The game also features a few timed sequences, which even I didn’t have a problem with (a rarity), but they do detract from the feeling of mystery.

I wasn’t too impressed with the puzzles or interface, but the atmosphere has left me grounded in front of the monitor until I finished both parts that are included in the Midnight Manor release. The author claimed that he wanted to create a movie-like atmosphere, and he greatly succeeded in this. While it’s not as perfect as that in Dark Fall, the scripted events enlivened the otherwise abandoned manor, and I grew to like the characters and become interested in their fates. The story is very tight, and the graphics and music were appropriate.

One big downside of the game, however, was its length. The box contains two parts of the series; the latter being unlocked once you finish the first episode. Unfortunately, both parts can be finished within a few hours, and at $20 this title is quite pricey. Where Dark Fall offered an atmosphere that invited me to replay the game several times, Delaware St. John is much more story-based, and once I finished it I didn’t feel like going back to it. Taking into account the short and easy gameplay, but also the great atmosphere and authentic characters, I feel that this is a great, albeit overpriced, game.

Pros: Authentic characters, atmosphere, writing, voice acting

Cons: Game length, difficulty

Independent Adventuring - February 2006

2006-03-05T22:25:00.000-05:00

February was a month of few titles, but many of them turned out pretty well. Some were very professionally done; others were quite inventive in their interface or setting. And yet other titles showed off the AGS engine capabilities for non-adventures. Unfortunately, last month also saw the release of one of the most morally questionable adventures I’ve ever played.

Niche news
First of all, I would like to point out two things I overlooked in January. First, there is a new magazine replacing The Inventory, called Adventure Lantern. February marked its second issue, which spanned almost 120 pages, and contained a review of Apprentice 1 Deluxe. The game scored 75%. The second overlooked event was the release of the January issue of AGS Ezine, which reviewed Da New Guys (90%), previewed Natally Buchanon and the Amulet of Kings and featured an article on inspiration in adventure games. The only other independent adventure review was that of Just Another Point and Click Adventure at Adventure Gamers. The reviewer liked the humor and the engaging storyline, but wasn’t too impressed with spelling and grammar.

In the world of commercial independent adventures, the news were mixed. The good news is that Scratches went gold and was expected to be released on March 1. It would sell for $19.99. In addition, Delaware St. John Volume 3: The Seacliff Tragedy was announced. The third part of the Delaware St. John series will allow the players to explore the world both from Del’s and Kelly’s perspective for the first time. In not so good news, Project Joe, an adventure that has been in the making for quite some time, has severed its ties with Bad Brain Entertainment, which was supposed to publish the game. Last but not least, Visionaire, a game creation software, was updated to version 2.7.2. The new version is focused primarily on bug fixes.

The AGS Awards were announced. Ben Jordan 4 has won the best game award, as well two other major awards. The remainder of the major awards was divided between Prodigal, Cedric and the Revolution, Emily Enough and Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment. Mind’s Eye and Stargate Adventure shared graphics awards, and the Best Music award went to Apprentice 1 Deluxe. No, I Am Spartacus! received the dubious Booby Prize.

Adventures
Automation. You managed to break the containment unit that housed your robot prototype, a result of years of research and negotiations for project funding. Instead of giving up and exploding in rage, as any self-respecting scientist would do, you decided to salvage your project. This game takes place in a single long scrolling screen, where you operate on its top half, and your goal is to lead your robot through the bottom. The puzzles involve opening doors, transporting the robot through various obstacles, and finally lifting it up to the second floor. They are not too difficult, but sometimes require a little finesse (kicking objects), and at least in one instance some pixel hunting. The game features excellent graphics and animations, and a very appropriate soundtrack.

Clip Goes to Town. This is the first attempt of the author, and it turned out to be relatively good, especially in its production value. You play Clip, a boy who has nothing to do, and so he decides to wash his father’s car (I wish I knew someone who, when bored, would iron my shirts). He needs to go to the town, in order to get some car shampoo. The game is very linear, with a few easy puzzles, and shouldn’t take you more than ten minutes to finish. Sometimes, the feedback is not that good, with item names sounding unfamiliar (“bootleg”, for example, instead of “moonshine”). Still, this title is a nice first attempt.

Frasse and the Peas of Kejick. This is one of the cutest and best games I’ve played in a while. You are a blue ball of fur who decides to go for an adventure. For this, you need to enlist the help of your green, handless friend, as well as the occasional advice of other characters. It is difficult to describe the story, as it would spoil the gameplay, but suffice it to say that it is the standard fairy tale fare, albeit very well told. The challenges you’ll be facing are varied, and some of the puzzles will be very hard, thanks to certain lack of logic. This is somewhat offset by the two-character play, where each character is very unique. Your primary character has hands and thus can hold and manipulate inventory and climb ropes. Your secondary character, on the other hand, is smart and thus can communicate with others much better. He can also kick things around, which can become useful. The good news is that the game is extremely linear, and so figuring out what needs to be done won’t take you all that long, but thank to the lack of an obvious solution, you may not feel satisfaction from overcoming some of the obstacles. The bad news is that on some screens you can scroll left and right, but the player won’t get an indication of this, and some important clues may be overlooked. The production value of this game is very high, with simple yet very cute graphics and a very good soundtrack. Despite the sometimes illogical puzzles, I can recommend this adventure to everyone.

Heart of Abraxas. You find yourself in a dark room, unable to move. You don’t remember much, and you need to figure out how to get out of there. Even though this is the premise of lots of other adventure games, the rest of this title will not be as familiar. Heart of Abraxas is presented in a first person view, with panoramic surroundings. You’ll be able to turn all the way around, with the backgrounds shifting seamlessly, but you won’t be able to move from the spot. The story and puzzles are out of the ordinary, and the game’s atmosphere greatly benefits from the soundtrack. My only problems were the inability to save, and the fact that the first thing the player would have to do is to access the inventory; something that took me a few minutes to figure out.

JWB Games Demo Game. The author of this game describes it as “unfortunately, very bad”, and he’s not far from the truth. This title features so many typical mistakes that I’m almost convinced the author did it on purpose. Whether it is poorly drawn objects on photo backgrounds, which leave no doubt what to pick up, very bad sense of humor (or at least totally incompatible with mine) or scripting problems that include original German texts in certain places, this title reeks of a premature release. Still, one has to admire the author for unleashing this Demo Game on the world, with the promise of doing so again in the future. He promises that the next game would be much better, and I certainly hope so.

Mickey Mauser. It is not often that a game begins with a long disclaimer, apologizing to anyone who could possibly be offended while playing it. The reason for this is that you play a Nazi mouse skeleton, bent on conquering the world. The author may be happy to know that I wasn’t offended. In order to take over the world, you’ll need to get outside first, but the mouse hole is guarded by a cat (or its paw, to be more precise). The game is relatively short, and even though it features good graphics and sound, its lack of animation and game stopping bugs have left me disappointed.

Spooks is a very fine first attempt at creating an adventure game. You play a little ghoul girl who gets a goldfish and needs to find out how to keep it alive. That is, after she learns what “alive” means. Most of the game takes place in the Land of the Dead, in an amusement park. The graphics are presented in grayscale, which is quite atmospheric despite the fact that the colorful text gets somewhat in the way. A few times, the graphics backfire, when some items or hotspots are not readily recognizable. The game features a whole host of unique characters, and even though most of them play a very limited role, all are connected to puzzles in one way or the other. Speaking of puzzles, I found some of them to be quite inventive, while others were bland. There are plenty of cases where you need to deliver an item to a certain character, and so you’ll end up running in a big circle (the way the screens are designed it is indeed a circular path), doing FedEx quests. At the end, however, the game gets into a more adventurous mode, and despite the sad ending (I grew to like that little cynical ghoul) you’ll feel pretty satisfied once you finish.

Stan Ames, Private Eye - Episode 1 - Murder Incorporated. Let me start by saying that this was one of the most stomach-turning games I’ve ever played. There are no limits to art, but in some cases I’m not prepared to see and enjoy as despicable scenes as I’ve experienced here. You can pick your poison: tortured and murdered child, raped and murdered teenager, or (for me the worst part) having to kill an innocent bystander in order to solve a trivial puzzle and continue in the game. The readme file warns that the game contains gore, and that it should not be played by anyone below 17, and I would advise you to take the warning seriously. You play a private detective who investigates the disappearances of a group of scientists who worked in a large multinational company. In addition to the puzzles, which involve a great deal of pixel hunting, the game also features a few timed sequences, including a shootout action game towards the end, which I’ve been unable to complete. The production value is quite high, with very good isometric graphics and character animations that go beyond the usual standing and walking, and the music is very atmospheric. I can recommend this game for those with a good stomach; everybody else should stay away.

Interactive fiction
Building. Looking for improving your English? Look no further: with sentences like this, Building is the perfect game for you: “A garrulous display of floodlights spray up from the ground floor like failed fireworks, casting writhing shadows from the dense bushes that ring the building except where the sidewalk splits them asunder.” I personally don’t know how talkative floodlights may be, but that’s beyond the point. This is one of those text adventures that try to overwhelm you with complicated environmental description, which can be doubly confusing in this game, where you seem to suffer from a memory loss. It doesn’t help that you tend to pass out and reappear in strange places, with all your inventory missing. In this game, you are trying to rediscover yourself, as you explore a seemingly abandoned building process, but soon you give up on playing, as even with the new information you learn you’ll stay as confused as before.

The Makeshift Magician. You have learned a few magical tricks, and soon you got your first performance in front of about twenty children and their mothers. And while you need to entertain the children, it is their mothers who interest you more. This ADRIFT game takes place in a single room, with a slightly unfamiliar interface. As is the cause with so many other adventure games, you seem to suffer from amnesia, and can’t even remember what tricks you were supposed to perform. Once you remember you’ll need to figure out what items are needed for each trick and how to perform the trick, without any prior information. Fortunately, even the most general commands seem to suffice, and the game will soon be over once you learn its mechanics.

Other games
AGS-Invaders. This is a well done Space Invaders clone using the AGS engine. The game is very simple, both in terms of gameplay and interface. The graphics are very clean, and the sounds are appropriate. The only downside of this title is the somewhat awkward collision detection, which will cause you to get hit when the enemy ship or missile is still about half a ship length in front of you. Still, for those looking for some quick and short entertainment, this game will do its job well.

Dangerous Lands is an ambitious attempt at creating a large RPG/strategy game using the AGS engine. The game feels and plays similarly to King’s Bounty, a precursor to Heroes of Might and Magic, with you traveling the land, fulfilling various quests and facing bands of enemies. Unlike these games, however, in this title you are limited to a maximum of eight soldiers of four types. The author claims that there are over 50 quests and 30 different monsters, and I’m inclined to believe him, even though I failed to finish the game. Unfortunately, one of its biggest drawbacks is the lack of balance, with the first two hours or so the hero facing relatively easy battles, only to come across enemies that would decimate his army, and which must be defeated in order to access the remainder of the game. In addition, I found other problems as well, especially the sometimes busy battle screen, where units can move on top of each other, which makes it impossible to target the right unit, and an absolutely atrocious English. Still, this project has an enormous potential, and I’m hopeful that the author will continue polishing it for a better release.

All in all, I was quite happy with the February crop of games. One in particular, Frasse and the Peas of Kejick stands out as a very good and quite long adventure game, and has all the elements for being highly visible in next year’s adventure awards. Others, in particular Spooks, Automation and Heart of Abraxas were very entertaining, and the latter two also featured quite innovative game mechanics. Yet another well done game, Stan Ames 1, suffered from very questionable writing; a rarity on the independent adventuring scene. With only a few disappointing games and several good ones, February turned out to be great for adventure enthusiasts.

Independent Adventuring - January 2006

2006-02-26T14:45:00.000-05:00

January offered a mix of very good games and titles, which were a disgrace to the adventure gaming community. The latter suffered mainly from interface problems; graphics didn’t seem to be an issue anymore. In fact, last month one of the games made a huge step out of the ordinary, delivering very unique and highly effective graphics. The game was Life of D. Duck.

Niche news
January was a month of reviews and adventure engine upgrades. Delaware St. John 2: The Town with no Name was reviewed by three sites. The Quandary found the atmosphere to be great, but the puzzles too few and easy. Just Adventure largely agreed, but the reviewer saw the game to be good enough for an “A” rating. Adventure Gamers was also very happy with the atmosphere, but the review considered the game to be too short for its price. Four Fat Chicks praised the atmosphere of another game, Hope Springs Eternal, but criticized the low difficulty of play and abrupt ending. The First Mile, a new text adventure, received a “C” rating from Just Adventure, after the reviewer criticized clichéd puzzles and design problems. The Quandary found Force Majeure II: The Zone to be only average, and gave it a three out of five rating. The site also previewed an upcoming game, Keepsake.

Adventure Game Studio was updated to version 2.71. Despite the low version number (the previous version was 2.7), the update features lots of improvements and fixes, such as sprite compression and new string support. The entire changelog can be found here. Another editor, Point and Click Development Kit was upgraded to version 2.

Scratches and Keepsake found publishers. Scratches will be published by Got Game Entertainment, while Keepsake will be released by Dreamcatcher. Tears of Betrayal, a new adventure game was released for $32, and soon it will earn the distinction as the adventure game with the worst interface in the past few years. Pinhead Studios announced a new project, Nearly Departed: The Story of a Reluctant Zombie. The graphics will be made by John Green, who was responsible for graphics in The Lion King game, and who currently illustrates Disney Adventures Magazine. And if all this is not enough for you, Just Adventure has published an excellent feature containing interviews with the best known current independent adventure developers.

Adventures
1213, Episode 2. Our bandaged hero is back, in the second installment of the 1213 trilogy. As it is customary for the game’s author, the title is full of great writing, subtly hinting at the origins of 1213, as well as the motives of his tormentor. The game is primarily a platformer, with few adventuring elements, but the atmosphere is pure adventure. It is as captivating as the first part, and I found it marginally easier, thanks to enemies that have the good habit of dying much faster.

1213, Episode 3. Finally, 1213 meets his nemesis. And his maker. And his teacher, and a few other characters from his past. You’ll learn who you truly are, and what you were meant to do. This game features two alternate endings, the second being available only after you finish the game the first time. And there lies the problem. Unlike the previous two games, you’ll be now facing enemies that refuse to die, and your only option will be stealth and lots of acrobatics. I’m an adventure gamer first, and my reflexes aren’t good enough to even finish the action sequences in the latest Broken Sword game, thus I don’t really know how the game ends. One of the battles always got the better of me…

24 Hours is a short, well-done game where you play a student who needs to write an essay. Unfortunately, as a typical teenager you need three things to survive: food, sleep and fun. The author has incorporated these three factors into a sort of power bars, which you always need to keep from filling up. As a result, in addition to finding your inspiration, writing your essay and dealing with an overweight repairman, you’ll need to carefully balance your sleeping time, stress reduction and eating in order to be well rested and ready to write your masterwork. I found this game to be quite fun to play, even though it took only three attempts to find a good combination of actions to allow me to complete my task on time.

A Knight’s Pursuit. This is a very short one-room game where you play a knight about to go see the king. To do so, however, he needs his robe, shield and sword. The game features a squire who carries your entire inventory, very nice graphics and no sound. It is nice, but not spectacular; I’d like to see the author develop something longer, while keeping the same features.

Christmas Quest: The Best Adventure Game Ever! The good folks at Adventure Gamers have graced us with their own game. You play Dork. No, really; that’s your name. And you’ve gotten The Best Adventure Game Ever for Christmas, but before playing it you need to create the right Christmas ambience. This is a short, fairly straightforward game full of deliberate clichés and jokes at the expense of other adventures. The one, which poked fun of the latest Broken Sword game, was by far the best. The music and graphics are cute and appropriate, and the only gripe I’ve head that the text was sometimes difficult to read, thanks to white-on-white letters.

The Family Treasure. By all accounts, this is a very good game, if I am to paraphrase people on the AGS forums. Unfortunately, I was unable to move from the first screen, even after following the instructions of people who successfully finished the game. I attribute this to an awkward interface, and possibly some pixel hunting. The graphics and music are very good, but I personally found the game unplayable. Correction: After some help from people who finished this game, I was able to move throught the obstacle that stopped me, and finish the title. The obstacle was a problem with scripting: one part of the game was telling me that I assembled a required objectm while another was telling me to assemble it. Once I was over this hurdle, the game was very smooth and well balanced, offering a good story and puzzles. With one other exception the feedback didn't give me problems anymore, and after finishing the game I can recommend it to everybory else.

I’m Only Sleeping. The latest addition to the Reality on the Norm universe is quite a good one. The game features Simon Jones, who wakes up from a nightmare and can’t get back to sleep. The fact that the Grim Reaper is sitting downstairs and watching Gilligan’s Island doesn’t faze him, though… The title features quite good humor and a specific soundtrack for each room, while adopting the existing templates for the Jones’s house. Every fan of the series should try this one.

Infantry Division 1338. This is a short, team-based adventure game where you have four characters, and each is necessary to solve some of the puzzles in order for you to advance. The game takes place in Vietnam during the war, and your mission is to rescue your general. The game reminds me strongly of the Hot Shots movies, with its inept general and very weird cast of characters. The puzzles are quite challenging, but not impossible, and the graphics and music make this quite a fun title. Too bad I’m so sensitive to poor grammar, though…

Life of D. Duck. This is a superb medium-length adventure where you play a duck, which wants to make some oat porridge. The game is relatively straight-forward, but still requires some thinking, as some of the puzzles are more on the obscure side. What makes the title really good, however, is the very unique graphical style. Objectively, the graphics could be described as terrible, but I really liked them, and I felt that they were consistent throughout the game. The graphics are also very original and quite funny, and as somebody who draws a lot, I found them quite professional. All in all, the developer managed to deliver a solid title with great production value.

Lonely Night. The author of this game has a long history of creating adventure games that are not exactly the common sort. So far, she’s always managed to surprise me with a much better developed story than what I’d expect from MAGS entries, and this game is no exception. You play a retired police officer in a wheelchair, who experiences something of a déjà vu, when a burglar invades his home. Being wheelchair-bound adds a whole new level of challenge to the game, which will draw you in with a lengthy and good intro, and a very interesting setting. Unfortunately, the graphics could have been better. They may be pretty, but they also require lots of pixel hunting, as some items you’ll need are only a few pixels in size.

Mordy 2: The Mirror of Truth. The second installment of the Mordy series is enormous in size. Download size, I mean, even though the gameplay length isn’t too bad, either. This time, you find yourself on a planet that features everything in 3D, including all the characters. You need to find a certain item for the local demon, in order to get finally home. The graphics are much improved in their 3D form, and so is the music, which features some original tracks. The title is full of jokes at the expense of other games, ranging from fellow adventures to Counterstrike. All in all, I found the game very engaging, albeit a little on the easy side.

Rude Awakening. This is a short game with a sub-average production value. You wake up (or so it seems), stuck in your room without a way out. You know what you need to do… The title does offer one unique puzzle solution, but that’s more than offset by the lack of sound and stale graphics.

Santa’s Sidekick is a poorly made adventure with good graphics. The game can be quite frustrating, thanks to very small hot spots that transport the character to the next screen, and thanks to an absolutely unresponsive action icon. Despite the fact that my character recognized many objects when he looked at them, he was unable to use any of them. After walking through two empty rooms and clicking on everything multiple times, I simply gave up. The Readme file indicates the current version number to be 0.2; I’d wait for the final version before trying to download this title.

The Tomb of the Moon. You are an Indiana Jones clone in this short, but quite well done adventure game. You need to solve a puzzle in a small temple, in order to get a “priceless” artifact. The game features simple, yet effective graphics and a quite interesting soundtrack.

Veteran Rampage. You are a retiree, enjoying the quiet afternoon, when some kids outside start making noise. So you pull out your gun and shoot them all. This is the premise of the ultra-short, poorly drawn thing, which I’m very reluctant to call an adventure game. With the exception of a few clicks, you won’t need to do anything.

Other games
FIFA International Football 2004. I’m always eager to try new games from the maker of Duzz Quest, but this time I’ve been a little disappointed. This game features one- and two-person play, but even that doesn’t save it from its quite poor interface implementation. Despite my best efforts, the best score I achieved was losing 26 to 2, and I still haven’t figured out how I scored those two goals. Controlling the ball is quite complicated, thanks to a very fast computer, which takes the ball from you every time you change directions.

January was a month of good news and a few good titles. Unfortunately, it also featured a few sub-par games. This time, however, the production value stayed way above average, and instead it was the scripting that hurt those titles. I remain very hopeful, though. For me, it indicates that new authors are playing with adventure engines, and that soon they’ll deliver much better titles.

Independent Adventuring - June to December 2005

2006-02-26T12:44:00.000-05:00

Independent Adventuring column is back, with a double-sized collector's issue for the same price. Well, not exactly: this issue is about six times as long as my usual columns, thanks to the fact that I've missed half a year of postings. So get yourself some popcorn, a large soda, sit back and enjoy the show...

Dear readers, I would like to thank each and every one of you for sending me your encouraging e-mails. I would also like to apologize for the long and unscheduled hiatus, and I feel that I owe you an apology. For the past several months, I have been spending all my time working on my MBA degree and looking for a job after graduating in May. The work was so time consuming that I cut off all my other activities, both social and my hobbies. Fortunately, I feel that I caught up with the real world again, and I hope I’ll be able to enjoy all the great independent adventures again.

Even though I missed several months, I haven’t stopped playing games, and in this issue you’ll find many games from the past half a year. Due to the sheer amount of the games covered, I decided on an alternative format, where I’ll post longer descriptions of those games that I liked first, and only then shorter paragraphs about those games that I considered to be sub-par. In addition, game news will be covered in an abridged format, so that they are better readable.

Niche news
Three game editors were updated. In June, AGS version 2.7 was released, which added object-based scripting, music file support and much more. The Adventure Maker was released in a severely limited, free version, which allows people to try the software out before opting for the full version. Hopefully now we’ll see more games created with this software. Wintermute 1.5 was released as well, supporting new video formats and more.

In very sad news, The Inventory, quite possibly the best magazine on adventure games, has been discontinued due to the lack of contributors and the editor’s commitments elsewhere. In addition, King’s Quest IX has been shut down by a cease-and-desist letter from Vivendi. Fortunately, a few weeks later the company granted the developers a fan license, and the game got back on track.

New commercial independent adventures were released as well. In particular, The Hauntings of Mystery Manor, which sells for $14.95, has joined the few other commercial games that were created with AGS. Delaware St. John Volume 1: The Curse of Midnight Manor, another commercial adventure, which sells for $19.95, follows the story of yet another Gabriel Knight wannabe, who fights ghosts in a haunted house, only to find out that he’s being hunted by a much greater evil. The game also features an impressive demo. As this column was being completed, a demo for the sequel, Delaware St. John Volume 2: The Town with No Name, has appeared, and the game went gold.

In other news, Yahtzee has published another part of his adventuring column, this time talking about stories in adventure games. Josh Roberts, the maker of the Rise of the Hidden Sun, has also published another of his Adventure Architect articles.

New game announcements
Awaken. From the makers of Shady Brooks comes a new, promising title.
Destinies. A new indie game, whose developers have recruited Jonathan Boakes of the Dark Fall fame.
Dilemma. A futuristic adventure by 4Reign Studios.
The Dreamstone. A new adventure from the maker of Last Rose in the Desert Garden.
Isles of Derek. This is a spiritual adventure, involving the religious oppression of otherwise God-fearing people.
Lunar Deep. A first-person adventure with 3D graphics, made with Adventure Maker.
The Stone of Power. A sequel to the expansive Five Magical Amulets.
The Urthona Revolution. Yet another game from the maker of Last Rose in the Desert Garden and The Infinite Ocean.

New reviews
The Butler Did It! – Just Adventure. B+.
Delaware St. John Volume 1: The Curse of Midnight Manor – Just Adventure. The review has been revised to A.
Final Destination: The Secret of Larson’s Folly. Another positive review, which found the only fault with the game in the reviewer’s unmet expectations.
The Hauntings of Mystery Manor – Four Fat Chicks. A largely positive review, which praised the graphics and story.
The Hauntings of Mystery Manor – Just Adventure. A.
The Hauntings of Mystery Manor – The Quandary. The review has criticized the relatively short gameplay, especially in light of the price.
Hope Springs Eternal – Just Adventure. B+.
Hope Springs Eternal – The Quandary. 3/5.
Isles of Derek – Gameboomers. A-.
Jessica Plunkenstein and the Düsseldorf Conspiracy – Adventure Gamers. Praised the story, but didn’t like the graphics.
Jessica Plunkenstein and the Düsseldorf Conspiracy – Gameboomers. Loved the story and atmosphere, criticized interface and graphics.
Nick Bounty 2: The Goat in the Grey Fedora – Adventure Gamers. Praised the humor, but found the game to be too short and easy.
Robotragedy – Adventure Gamers. Very positive, but criticized the language.
Shady Brook – Four Fat Chicks. Loved the atmosphere, but criticized the graphics and a constantly nagging copyright screen.
The White Chamber – Adventure Gamers. Praised the story and graphics, but found the gameplay and some puzzles to be weak.

Independent adventures

Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment. If there is such a thing as a perfect game, this one gets pretty close to it. Made by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, the mind behind the Rob Blanc series, 5 Days a Stranger and many other great games, this title is a highly playable mix of short arcade games, an epic adventure and a trading simulation. Early into the game, you get kidnapped by a bunch of aliens, and after you fail to kill yourself you decide to do the next best thing: save the universe. To do so, you need to trade various goods between planets in the best Dopewars tradition (especially those who played Space Trader for PalmOS will find eerie similarities here), battle pirates and space monsters (and occasionally the authorities), and slowly sink into the story, which offers several superb twists. The story itself deserves your full attention, as it is very engaging and logical. The writing features very intelligent humor throughout the game, and even the repetitive jokes never get old. Combined with superb presentation excellent game balance and a very intuitive interface, not even the relatively easy puzzles and the occasional lack of direction detract from this prime candidate for the Game of the Year title.

Anna is a short, albeit very well crafted game. It takes place in an artificial intelligence lab where a malicious virus has disabled your computer, Anna, and you need to get it back on-line. The game is worth the download for its long intro, but also the interface, graphics and puzzles are unique enough to give it a try. Too bad the author didn’t have the time to add a soundtrack to this already excellent title.

Buna Wants Beer is a short, but very cute game about a man who decided to buy some beer, as soon as he got some money. The graphics are very nice, and even though the puzzles are very easy, I really enjoyed them. This was partly because the game featured pictures instead of words in conversations, which made it easy to follow (and solve) even for my little brother. I sincerely hope the author would use the same approach in the future, because I see a lack of adventure games for the younger generation.

Caverns. Rarely have I played such a weird, and yet amusing game as this one. You play a naked character, which falls into a hole in the ground, and now he has to find a way out. You’ll get killed way too often, and will have to replay the entire game over and over again. Fortunately, the gameplay is carefully balanced: it takes a while to figure out what to do next, but replaying the sequence is a matter of a few seconds. The great graphics further enhance the game quality, but the real value lies in a very special feature. At the beginning, you’ll be able to switch between two names for the game – “Caverns” is the regular game, while “Vaginas” is its special mode. In the special mode, Sigmund Freud appears and comments on all your actions. You’ve got to try it to see the true genius of the author.

Crave is an excellent adventure with a simple problem: you don’t know your ultimate goal. Still, the graphics, humor and special features make it a must try title. You play a beautifully drawn and animated stick figure in a hotel, apparently trying to pick up girls but in reality trying to find out more about the owner of the place. Your character is quite funny when describing objects he finds, and so is the narrator who takes over from time to time. Special features include X-Ray vision, which is not only used to check out the girls, but also to solve various puzzles. Speaking of which, puzzles can be quite challenging, as they are not always the most logical ones, but with a little persistence the game can be finished.

Jessica Plunkenstein and the Dusseldorf Conspiracy. What started as a school project has developed into one of the largest downloads of the year. Thanks to full voiceovers and a relatively long gameplay, this title clocks at 120MB, zipped. You play as Jessica, a very independent young woman, who gets a severe case of mistaken identity, and instead of entering a training program for future wives you’ll end up saving the world from an author of very bad musicals. The voiceovers were a very pleasant surprise for a free AGS game, and especially Jessica sounded very authentic. Unfortunately, they just about offset the very eclectic and poor graphics. The good news is that the game features some of the best humor of the year: very intelligent, quite subtle and often biting and cynical, just as I like it.

Last Rose in a Desert Garden. The author of The Great Machine has graced us with yet another game. And while the presentation could not be more different – a 3D rendered first-person adventure game instead of interactive fiction – the message is the same: war is hell, and people, while not being inherently evil, are susceptible to dehumanizing training. In this game, you play a lone wanderer in a post-nuclear world, exploring a seemingly abandoned military base. Having been ripped of all emotions by your decades-long hopeless quest for finding other human beings, you are now filled with hope that someone has survived. The game mixes several graphical styles, from landscapes rendered in Terragen, through photos, to 3D internal environments. You’ll come across only very few easy puzzles, mainly involving computer terminals and entering codes. I recommend the game, though, for another reason: the very poetic and touching writing.

Lost in the Nightmare is one of the most atmospheric independent adventures ever. This is a horror story involving a fired police detective with a haunted past, as he looks for three missing campers near a small town. The campers seem to be somehow connected to a ritualistic murder of two girls, and together with a menacing legend, pregnant damsel in distress and other unique characters, they create a very authentic and quite scary world. The author has talent for beautifully drawn backgrounds, and especially for story editing. The edits and changes in scenes are of professional quality, and add further to the very compelling gameplay. The music and sound just add further to the already nearly perfect game, and even the single negative factor, poor English, doesn’t detract from the game too much. The author claims to be only seventeen; if it’s so, he’s on his way to be a great adventure writer.

Maniac Mansion Mania - Episode 22: Presserummel. This is quite possibly one of the best games in the entire series. Even though the puzzles are very easy and logical, and the game lacks good humor, the writing and story are way too good to miss. You start out as Britney, who discovers the Green Tentacle in the house, and now needs to get to the Editor in Chief of the local newspaper, to sell the story. Once she manages to do so, you switch to Bernard, who needs to come up with a way to save the Tentacle. The story is very well thought out, and the writing and scripting further helps to make this title very engrossing. This episode is highly recommended.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 32: The Secret of Maniac Mansion. Released for the twentieth anniversary of The Secret of Monkey Island, this is another great episode in the series. This time, you play as Dr. Fred, trying to unlock the secret of the mansion, but something always stops you, be it the phone, the postman or other things. You need to find a way to isolate yourself in the room from where you can discover the fabled secret. The episode features good humor and excellent puzzles. These are not too difficult, but with careful scripting they remain very interesting, and they are never revealed too early into the story. Even though all action takes place in a single room, the author managed to cram in plenty of puzzles, inventory items and conversation to create a wholesome experience without the need to spread the game thinly over multiple locations.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 34: Helden des Tages. This is so far the best episode of the Maniac Mansion Mania series. The author has managed to write a story that includes several playable characters, each with its own back story and their individual paths towards one great finale. Furthermore, you’ll see plenty of new backgrounds, some new characters, and a whole bunch of great puzzles, marred only by excessive pixel hunting that is sometimes required. Despite this, Helden des Tages is an episode everybody who understands German should play.

Nick Bounty 2: The Goat in the Grey Fedora. The crew of Pinhead Games has delivered the long-expected sequel to the game that put them on the map last year. Nick Bounty is back, in a hilarious adventure where he needs to find a certain statue. In his quest, he’ll face murderous mobsters, an ancient civilization, a real monster and a very, very strange woman. Even though the production value has improved, with better graphics and excellent voiceovers, the game is shorter and much more linear than the first one, and sometimes the jokes feel a little forced. Still, it’s been a pleasure to play this title.

Prodigal is a very long game with beautifully drawn backgrounds and compelling writing. Your brother is in trouble with a mysterious cult, and it’s up to you to save him from its members, demons and other threats. The backgrounds and the cut scenes are professionally drawn, and not even commercial games would have been ashamed of the length of this title. Unfortunately, the story is being presented as a horror, but this is not supported by the graphics or writing. This makes it less authentic than if the author opted to aim a little lower, for a mystery story. In addition, character sprites stand out against the background as very simplistic, but even with those problems playing this title was fun.

Return to Civilization. You are a famous treasure hunter and tomb raider, even though you don’t look exactly like Lara Croft. Unfortunately, your team has left you in a hurry, and now you need to find your way out of the jungle. This title features very nice graphics and good soundtrack, but its main strength lies in its humor. The author claims that the game is a cross between Space Quest IV and Monkey Island, and he is pretty close to the truth, as the humor is outstanding. There is a special “easy” play mode, and you’ll die in countless convoluted ways, and will be rewarded with a fitting epitaph for each of your deaths. In addition, you’ll be able to participate in an Iron Chef contest, transform cannibals into more peace-loving people and do much more. The only thing I wasn’t too happy about is the fact that all characters are extremely one-dimensional, making them little more than puzzles themselves. Still, this game is fully worth your attention.

Sheet: The Art of Art. This is one of the few ultra-short games that are actually great fun to play. This title offers almost no challenge, no puzzles whatsoever, and the only thing the player will struggle with is the French accent of one of the characters. The main strength of this game lies in its minimalism, which was brought to perfection. Instead of creating a game that’s a mile wide and an inch deep, the author limited the screen to three simple elements, a single animated character (the other two are rather stationary) and a reduced interface. Here, the author focused on a very unique setting and a great little story, and added to it very effective graphics and a catchy music tune. I was very pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

Stargate Adventure is notable for its release out of nowhere, before a cease and desist letter could shut the project down (that said, finding a working download was quite a challenge). The game features very good graphics, true to the TV series. Unfortunately, it will appeal only to fans of the series: despite the fact that I’ve seen the movie and saw a few shows, I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do, or what was being said. The good news is that the game consists mainly of cut scenes with a few short adventuring tasks. I personally was put off by the story as well, which combined all the clichéd problems from the show – the threat of the greatest enemy, the President shutting down the project, an infiltrator in the base and others – into one plot. Still, if you are a fan of the series and can forgive these problems, as well as the lack of a soundtrack and a few error messages, you’ll enjoy the game.

The Winter Rose is a beautifully drawn fairy-tale adventure, which sets the player onto a quest to kill the ice dragon. Throughout the game the dragon will be a constant, yet distant menace, while a murderous gnome and treacherous terrain will make your life miserable. The game is well written, and I found it refreshing to be part of a relatively benign fairy tale once again. I was somewhat disturbed by the lack of dialogue trees, but other than that I really enjoyed this title, including its sometimes convoluted puzzles.

The Witch's Yarn is a very unique game. It all takes place in a single room, where your main character, a powerful witch, tries to live like a normal person. Instead of adventuring, you will be the director of a theater play. You will determine which person would enter the stage next, and what people would talk about. Depending on your choice, the characters’ mood changes accordingly, and this in turn affects the course of future conversations. Even though this title is aimed at a very narrow audience, everybody who is interested in novel approaches to adventure gaming should give it a try.

Zugzwang is a chess term, which means forced move. It occurs when one side has no good moves left, and is forced to make a move that would cost it an advantage or even a chess piece. That’s exactly the case in this superb game, which deals with chess. This is the story of two pawns, a white and a black one. Both of them want to get onto the board, but to do so, they need to learn the rules of the game. They do so by interacting with all other pieces and going through progressively more difficult chess puzzles, spiked with a little adventuring. The author, Richard Evans, has lots of experience designing games. In addition to a few commercial titles, he created three MAGS winners, including the highly original Magsic. This one can easily be one of the best he has done. Even though it is shorter and less difficult than some other games, most notably Crave, it features a perfectly smooth learning curve, which will appeal to everybody who played at least one game of chess.

1213, Episode I. As it is usual for the author, Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, this title is highly atmospheric and original. This time, the player is prisoner No. 1213 who one day finds his cell unlocked and a gun by his side. In a combination of adventuring and platform action, he needs to do…something. He doesn’t know who he is or why he is there, and it appears that the only way to find out is to face a certain mutant, also a former prisoner. In addition to great balance, the game offers very good graphics and a unique health meter.

Aazor: The Life of a Demon - Part I: The Beginning. It’s too bad that the developer didn’t hold off with this release until the game was finished. You play as a fallen angel, who now follows Lucifer’s orders. The game features very nice graphics and some good humor, but it’s hopelessly short.

Alien Time Zone. This is a short game with an unusual spin: you are always in the same location, but you can travel through time. The puzzles also include geological effects, and trying to decrypt some weird language.

Alone in the Night. A short entry into the One Room One Week Competition, this game has you locked up in a haunted house. This title is notable only for its digitized actor character animation and lots of pixel hunting.

Another Way Out. This is a very short game with a single puzzle, which doesn’t involve any inventory items. You should be done with it in a minute or so, and even the decent graphics and soundtrack won’t make you come back to it for another run.

A Walk in Da Tomb. The author claims this is the shortest game ever, and he may very well be right. Especially with the nasty bug, which shuts down the game almost immediately…

Awesmoe Quest is one of the most frustrating games ever. It begins as a very poorly made game full of spelling errors, but soon switches to a fake game editor with a MS Office paper clip imitation. Here, you get into a cyclical conversation, from which you can escape only through the good old Crtl-Alt-Del.

Balloon Face is a very short, very strange game where your goal is to float on your balloon to the Sun. I admire the author’s knack for dialogue and inventiveness; I hold his graphical skills in a somewhat lower regard.

Belusebius Arrival. The newest entrant into the Reality on the Norm series seems to be doing everything wrong. You start out by having amnesia, and until the end you’ll never know what you need to be doing. The game has plenty of empty screens, useless hotspots and voiceovers, very poor grammar, broken dialogue trees and poorly defined spots to exit the screen. I had to force myself to finish this title.

Bob Goes Home is a short game, full of scripting errors and too large cursor pointers, which has you locked in a school, looking for a way out. This is one of the weaker offerings this year.

The Bunker. A game where the player is shrunk and lost in a golf bunker. The gameplay consists mainly of wandering empty sandy landscape and from time to time running into talking skulls, until the player finds his way out.

Bunny Quest is a short game of “kill the bunny”. Despite the cute graphics and music, and the gory death, I found it too weird to recommend.

C.U.T.E. The Marvelous Adventures of Princess Marian part VII. The next part of the Princess Alba series requires only four clicks, nearly no thinking, and features a terrorist plot. The graphics are as cute as always, but I found the innocence and playfulness of the previous parts largely gone. Oh well, I guess world events affect everybody…

Cedric and the Revolution is an excellent game with great production value, and a very cute story and puzzles. You play a small elf who wants to start a demonstration against the king’s high taxes. To do so, he needs to help several people who would then join him. The author claims that he wanted to evoke a feeling of a LucasArts game, and with the graphics and puzzles he succeeded, even though the humor remained quite off.

Chalk’s Quest is an extremely short game that can be solved with a single click. Too bad; the graphics were kinda cute…

Chick Chaser. First of all, remember to save; you can get killed. Once you do so, you’ll enjoy this very funny and quite expansive story of love, break-up and picking up girls. Despite its name, the title remains very tasteful and on the funny side. The production value is also quite high, with good graphics and music, but the setting, a school campus, is getting a little old.

Class Notes is a short game where you need to find somebody to give you the notes for an exam tomorrow. The title was originally released in Spanish, and the English translation isn’t all that great, but bearable. The production value, on the other hand, is very high, mainly thanks to great graphics. My only gripe is that I wasn’t able to cycle the cursor, which after each action defaulted to walk mode.

Dance Til You Drop. You play as Richard Simons, trying to rescue your business from going bust. The graphics are great, and so is the music, but the author has stuffed so many items into the single screen that you’ll end up pixel hunting a lot.

Da New Guys. This is a very well done adventure game involving a trio of wrestlers who are about to be split up and chased out of their apartment. Thanks to the meddling of The Brain, the dumbest one of them all, they have additional problems coming from other sources as well. The game features good graphics, music and humor; too bad that I’m not a fan of wrestling, and quite possibly I missed some insider jokes.

Dark of Night. You are taking a walk in a haunted garden, in the middle of a thunderstorm. It shouldn’t thus surprise you if you come across a skeleton who asks you to retrieve its leg bone… This game features absolutely stunning backgrounds and weather effects, which, unfortunately, require lots of frustrating pixel hunting.

Der Verschwundene Husky. This is a relatively large German-only game with decent graphics and superb voiceovers. The puzzles are the standard sort, there is no humor to speak of, and most importantly, there are several dead-ends that spoil the fun of the game.

Elf Motors, Inc. This is a small, cute game where you play a small elf who maintains a car engine. Something has damaged the engine, and it’s up to you to fix it and catch the culprit. The puzzles are very simple, albeit one is quite creative, the graphics are on the lower end and the music is sparse, and yet the story somehow manages to tie everything together into a quite good game.

Elfo: Rescue Crabby. Good graphics don’t necessarily make a good game. Such is the case here, as the puzzles are rather simple or illogical, and the game shows severe problems with hotspots. Using an item, for example, is a major exercise in patience.

Emily Enough – Imprisoned. Emily has just murdered her parents for not fulfilling her birthday wishes, and for that she got locked into a mental institution, run by a bankrupt drug company. Your task is to get out, by any means necessary, even if it means taking questionable drugs and tolerating men who stiff your underwear. Even though the game has a very interesting setting and good graphics, I found it a little too thinly spread and too few puzzles.

Escape from Maniac Mansion. Despite its name, this is a German-only game, released as part of the Halloween initiative of the Maniac Mansion Mania group. You came to the Maniac Mansion once again, to rescue your friend. However, in addition to your usual suspects, the undead family Edison, you’ll run into others from various horror movies.

ESPER: The Town on the Edge of Darkness. You are a paranormal investigator, hired by a man accused of murder. Your client claims to be innocent, as his victim was already dead when he attacked her. The author tried to create a spooky atmosphere, with watercolor graphics and good music, but the sprites aren’t too well integrated, which takes away most of its authenticity.

Exit is a short game with a long download. The title features lots of AVI movies, which makes the download longer, and which doesn’t help the gameplay too much. You are a figurine, trying to find your way out of a maze with strange physical properties. While the idea was neat, the lack of any information and feedback didn’t really motivate me to find the exit.

The Find. You found an abandoned space station, and now you need to get to the command center to find out what happened. The only thing that will slow you down in this very short game is some pixel hunting.

Gladiator Quest is a remake of an old Commodore game, in which you’ll find yourself in a Roman prison and want to escape. The game file even contains an old readme file from the people who cracked the original game. The title features very primitive graphics and a text parser, which may pose a challenge to some.

Guy Slug is the name of the game, as well as the main character. The task is simple: get the bartender tell you who committed a crime. The puzzles are relatively easy, and the graphics quite empty. Unfortunately, the game also includes a show-stopping bug.

He's Gone Historical. This is yet another game that takes place at school, shortly before a project deadline. And once again, you play the laggard. This time, however, you are hopelessly in love with the teacher, and for some reason even the most outrageous comments are tolerated. Production-wise, the game is below average. The graphics have certain charm, but there is no sound whatsoever. The puzzles are a little on the obscure side.

HiYah. You play a ninja here, with the task to steal the Queen’s jewels. The game, which features some of the weirdest character animations I remember, never really explains much, including why your character is only the third best ninja in the world.

In Limbo. This is yet another entrant to the One Week One Room Competition. You end up as a white blob in purgatory, and you’ll need to convince Death that you belong to Heaven. Despite the short gameplay, the title offers two endings, but even so it’s a few minutes long affair.

Into the Light. This is a short, experimental adventure game played in a first-person view. The problem is that you are blind, so the “view” isn’t really all that great, but the author has solved this problem excellently, allowing you to use all other senses on all objects you find. Unfortunately, some puzzles are a little obscure and too specific to certain cultures, making this game too frustrating to non-Americans.

I Think We Got Lost. Presented in South Park graphics, this looks like a very abridged version of The Blair Witch Project. The title, which includes full voiceovers, ends in the middle of the (lack of) action.

Knight's Quest III - Tides of Merania. This is quite a large game, which involves three characters on separate quests and a simple and effective system to transfer inventory items among themselves. The graphics are similar to those in the earlier parts, and the humor didn’t improve too much, but I was happy to see that the author kept improving on the story and game size.

Kong Over Baghdad. The evil chimp George has taken Saddam’s Cheetos, and so he recruited Ron Jeremy to get them back. The premise and graphics are something I’d expect from South Park; too bad the game is so short.

Laura Bow in: The Road to Murder. A murder has happened in the bus you were on, and now you have a short time to solve it before the police arrive. The game is rather short, and the puzzles relatively easy, but it’s still fun to play.

Legends of Mardaram. This German-only game features a weird, yet beautifully drawn 3D world and a first person view. Unfortunately, the story is rather clichéd, as you find yourself with amnesia in a prison, and even the quite unique characters and some voiceovers don’t breathe life into the relatively stale gameplay.

Long Expected Friday. A relatively difficult game, thanks to some pixel-hunting, it is unique mainly due to its graphical presentation. The title is displayed in an isometric view, with the main character standing in place and the backgrounds moving in the desired direction.

Magsic. This is an excellent game with a very unique setting (Van Gogh’s discarded ear) and interface. You play a musical note, on a quest to find your lost love. The game is choke-full of puzzles, most of which are based on music, and almost all of which make no sense whatsoever. Hardcore adventure gamers will love it, as do I, for its originality.

Magsic II. The sequel to one of the year’s most original games offers more of the same. The puzzles seem to be a little more minimalist, but tougher than the first, but neither graphics nor music have improved. Still, I’ve got to give kudos to the author for his inventiveness in puzzles.

Maniac Mansion Mania - Episode 20: Das Date 2. The ultimate task is to cause diarrhea to one of the characters, but in the end the player will struggle more with keeping his sanity. The title violates one of the main rules of good adventure game design and features non-skippable text.

Maniac Mansion Mania - Episode 21: Rettet Kanal 13! This is a very well done episode, which has you trying to save a TV station by increasing its ratings. Unfortunately, the only person who can do so is Bernard, who is not the most TV –friendly person.

Maniac Mansion Mania - Episode 23: Das verflixte Geschenk. A convoluted story, obvious puzzles and several scripting bugs haunt this game. Still, it’s interesting to experience being insulted by a birthday present.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 24: Time Machine. Britney has been injured, and you feel responsible. So you come up with the idea to build a time machine, stuff it into a DeLorean, and travel back in time to prevent the accident. The game features quite a lot of inventory, some interesting puzzles and even a side story.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 26: Zeitenwende. The government has decided to change the reality, but Dr. Fred has overslept and forgot to change. It’s now up to you to avoid a beating, and find a way to send Dr. Fred back in time. The game features some of the best graphics of the series, which allowed the author also to change some of the default statements to something more humorous, but I found the puzzles somewhat random.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 27: Hamsternator. Weird Ed has gotten a new hamster, which has unfortunately escaped and barricaded himself in the Maniac Mansion. You are there to help Ed to catch the animal again. This title offers some rather obscure puzzles and a very limited access to the Mansion again.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 28: Time Machine 2. Bernard has gotten lost in the time stream and landed in the 1960s. Now, he needs to get home, without altering the past too much. The game, as its predecessor, is choke-full of inventory items and thus puzzles of the more difficult variety, and even features two characters you can switch between. It is definitely one of the better episodes of the series.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 29: Flucht des Meteoriten. The purple meteor has once again landed, but this time on a small tropical island. The meteor police, however, are hot on its trail. I found this title to be one of the weaker ones, due to few puzzles and no humor, and not even the new backgrounds could save it.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 30: Remembering Zak. Given the abundance of new backgrounds and an interesting premise – a parody of Zak McKracken, I’ve had high hopes for this game. Unfortunately, illogical puzzles and multiple bugs have spoiled my experience, and unfortunately I must admit that this was one of the weaker episodes released.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 35: Wegbebeamt. This episode features some of the best puzzles in the series, as well as a whole bunch of new backgrounds (the rest is recycled from Episode 26). Unfortunately, the new backgrounds are lifted from other games, and don’t fit well into the overall graphics. Still, this remains one of the better titles in the series.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 36: Der Liebesbrief. Dave’s parents have left, and so he called Sandy over. He prepared everything, even hid his porn magazines, but didn’t count that an old girlfriend would contact him. Now he needs to keep Sandy from finding out. The title features some new backgrounds and a few puzzles, but nothing groundbreaking.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 37: Verabredung mit Dave. Sandy has a date with Dave, and needs to prepare for it. Unfortunately, she gets into a fight with her, after which you switch to playing Dave and trying to make it up to her. The game features an enormous new house, and maybe because of this it feels spread really thin.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 38: Rescue Mission. Bernard has developed a new security system, but accidentally got locked in his room. It’s up to his new friend to somehow get him out of there. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this game, but it failed to raise my interest. The puzzles are largely easy and straightforward, with inventory items rarely needed for more than one action.

Maniac Mansion Mania – Episode 39: Erinnerungen. Released on December 31, this game has wrapped up a great year for Maniac Mansion fans. The Mania, which began in March, has yielded thirty nine regular episodes and a whole lot of specials, and this game serves to remind us of that. You’ll find all characters sitting around a campfire and talking about past events, and you’ll even get the chance to replay small parts of previous game. This is a really fitting ending of the year.

Maniac Mansion Mania: Day of the Dead. This is a hilarious Halloween episode where everybody in the town, except Bernard, turns into a zombie. The puzzles are not that special, but the author did a really good job with the dialogues, which he stuffed full of good jokes.

Maniac Mansion Mania: Halloween Special 2005. Wendy learns how to cast spells, and by doing so manages to upset a newly created ghost. The game features some good scripting and puzzles, but it took me nearly the entire game to figure out what was going on, and not until I read the game description I knew I was casting spells.

Maniac Mansion Mania: Horror. The green tentacle has unleashed a zombie to the world, and now you must stop it. This is one of the weakest Maniac Mansion Mania games, and not even two play modes save it. The game includes pixel hunting of the worst sort, failed joke attempts and a nasty scripting bug.

Mind’s Eye. This is a beautifully drawn and highly atmospheric game, which has the player locked in a mental institution, drugged most of the time. The warden hates you, and your mental episodes don’t help you, either. Unfortunately, in this respect the game may have been done too well, as I felt at loss about what I was supposed to do throughout the game.

Mordy: On Holiday. You are the typical clueless and stupid hero in a strange environment, which you can find in so many other adventure games. This time, your task is to find and kill the sender of hate mail to the local Yoda, in a very eclectic land with even stranger creatures. The game is quite well drawn, but I found the interaction and jokes quite forced.

No, I am Spartacus! This title is a mouse killer. You’ll need to go through a seemingly endless conversation tree, before you see the obvious, yet still funny conclusion of this little game.

Noisy Mountain has the player barely survive a car crash, but wake up without a single scratch. Something weird is going on, and you need to find out what. Unfortunately, this German-only game doesn’t give you any sense of direction; it simply unlocks new locations for you to explore without much of a feedback or explanation.

Otaku Rivals. Considering the size of the download, this is an impressive game. Your task is to capture a few anime characters, which have been released into the wild. The graphics are very good, and the puzzles quite difficult, especially for someone like me who probably missed all the jokes or character-specific information that would have helped me in my quest.

The Paramecium Complex. This is quite a unique game where you look through a microscope onto a Petri dish and try to rescue a culture of very unique bacteria. Unfortunately, with no feedback from the game, it is largely a hit-and-miss task.

Pixia: Rainbow of Havoc. This is a very random non-game, which has you wander through a poorly drawn world, listen to the random ramblings of a few characters and claim that Michael Jackson is the greatest musician ever. The title is not really interactive, and it ends as abruptly as it begins.

Prodigal 0. The author of Prodigal has released a short preview game, which involves one complex puzzle. It shows off the great graphics and atmosphere, but without the full game you won’t know what your quest is about.

Sammy the Sperm is a short game where you play a sperm on the quest to fertilize an egg. The game features full voiceovers, a few educational bits and a very hilarious ending. Too bad it was so short and easy.

Shemwood Plains. This is yet another locked-in-a-haunted-house game. This time, though, you’re presented with a top-down view and way too many find-key-use-key puzzles, which are only marginally more complex than those in the original Doom.

Silent Knight: Chapter 2 - The Conscience of the King. A much improved sequel to an already good game, this title features a whole host of great puzzles, including a part of an IQ test. Unfortunately, the graphics and humor remain as eclectic as in the first part, and even though they give the entire series its signature look and feel, I wasn’t very fond of it. Still, anybody who liked the first part will love the second one.

Simon’s Journey is a very good Reality on the Norm game, where you play Simon, Dave’s brother, who got locked out of the house. The game features multiple endings and some randomness, which allows for some replayability.

Slug Princess is a sub-game, which can be also found in the game Crave. The author has later released it as a standalone title. Here, you play a princess on the search for treasure, in order to save her mother. The author states that the game has been developed like an old-school adventure from 80s, including the typical pitfalls. He is right: the game has some abrupt endings, and it takes forever to “load”.

Soviet-Unterzögersdorf. With photographs instead of backgrounds and people animations, and with full voiceovers (Russian, for more authenticity), this game has an extremely high production value. However, the very weak story full of forced jokes has left me cold.

Space Adventure is a short, poorly scripted game with a generic character, frustratingly slow animations and poor grammar. Not recommended.

Spacewar (Episode 1 - The Crystal). An obvious Star Wars knock-off, this is a very short, poorly drawn and terribly animated title. Had the setting been more original, I would’ve recommended the game as a good example of a starting, promising developer, but this title, as it is, is not worth the download.

Spacewar episode 2 (Curien strikes back). The second part of the series shows significant improvement, especially in graphics and puzzles. It is still sub-average, also thanks to some of the worst grammar I’ve seen in recent months, but people desperate enough for more games and those who like to punish themselves by watching incredibly slow walking animations may give it a try.

Unfinished is a short and easy game without a real underlying story. You play an adventure character left to herself by her creator, who decided to take a break and catch some sleep. First as a woman and then as a fish, you just stumble upon items and events that help you go forward, without any particular goal in mind.

Non-adventure games

Akumayo’s AGS Chess is an attempt to bring a chess game into AGS. Unfortunately, the game does not have enough A.I. to check whether someone is performing more than one move per turn, neither it is smart enough to detect a checkmate. Needless to say, there is no computer opponent available.

Bear Story is a very well done arcade/adventure, in the best tradition of the old Dizzy games, which I still remember from my ZX Spectrum. You play a bear that was locked in his house by a bully, and he needs to find a way out. The story premise is rather weak, and the twists during the gameplay won’t make much more sense. However, this is offset by good graphics and an excellent combination of arcade action and the interface.

Digilawyer is an attempt at creating an interactive conversation. Apparently, the author considered lawyers and stock analysts to be incredibly stupid, as the conversation yields next to nothing. The idea was good, the execution very poor.

Hell’s Satans is a movie, made using the AGS engine. Even those who like the story may be a little frustrated by its very slow going and all the clicking that is required. Still, it was a good effort, and the story is quite extensive.

Javelin Catch is a short game of timing. All you have to do in this simple title is to press the space bar just at the right moment, in order to catch a flying javelin without getting hurt. This title is a nice past time for about two minutes.

Labyrinth is a good attempt at a role-playing game, using the AGS engine. The game is displayed in a first-person view, as you wander through a labyrinth, killing monsters and collecting items. Unlike many other similar games, this one even has a story and a way to win. Unfortunately, the stats system is not balanced well enough, preventing any kind of strategizing. Still, I enjoyed myself.

MIA. This is a very well done look-alike of Cannon Fodder, a tactical action shooter where you play a soldier (or an entire squad), visiting strange lands, meeting their inhabitants and killing them. Actually, the lands are always pretty similar and your victims always wear blue, but in addition to the enemies you’ll be facing hidden mines and other threats. The game also features weather and time changes, which together allow for a truly wholesome gaming experience, and once again show how much the AGS engine is capable of.

MOTLPAA. This is a nice experiment with the AGS engine, which features a large maze, viewed in the first person view. The maze features several textures, a map and a short task.

One is an extremely short board game, which should take you less than ten seconds to master and finish. ‘Nuff said.

Operation Novi. This is a small shooter of the Virtua Cop type, where you are stationary and shoot down enemies as they come at you. Each level features a unique boss, and from time to time you get new, more powerful grunts to kill. The game, which was created using the AGS engine, also features a relatively well developed background story and decent graphics.

Princess Marian VIII: Snow Fight! This is a short fighting game for two players on the same keyboard, where each player can walk around, gather snow for snowballs and throw them. The game mechanics are quite good, and so is the interface, allowing for some short-term fun.

Racing Manager is an attempt to create a Formula 1 management simulation with AGS. Unfortunately, the game gives zero feedback, and without a manual or a hint file even creating a racing team is nearly impossible, also thanks to the fact that there are no undo options.

Rapstar. This is a very professionally done game, as far as the presentation and interface go, but it lacks a compelling idea. You play a rapper, in a fight with fellow rappers. You’ve got to counter whatever they say, and if you are successful, part of their life force disappears. Naturally, the same happens to you if you fail. You’ll have three words under your command, and you’ll be able to combine them in any way you want. I never understood the logic behind choosing the correct answer. But then again, I don’t listen to rap.

Dear reader, if you managed to get this far, you have my undying admiration. The second half of 2005 has blessed us with so many independent adventures that just listing all of them took quite a while; reading all their description must’ve been quite a chore. A chore that I feel very happy about, as it means that there was plenty to play last year. As the authors and game editors get more sophisticated, the games get longer, more complex and more fun for the player. There have been several titles last year that I enjoyed more than most commercial games in the past five years, and there have been others, which I lost my sleep for. True, there were a few duds, but thanks to the strong community around independent adventures, their occurrence was largely limited.

I’m writing these closing lines on December 31, two hours before midnight. When I open a bottle of Champagne in two hours, I’ll be also toasting to the great year of adventuring we’ve had, and to an even better year of independent adventuring 2006.