I think I liked the setting, but aside from that I only remember bad things about it. A stupid bug, horrible voice acting (at least in German) and you couldn't skip dialouges. Well, you could skip, but you would still have to wait until the characters finish their animation in silence.
Hrm, dunno if I should replay it...
I adore Gray Matter, even with all its flaws and troubled production, the story and characters felt personal in a way games rarely do. If memory serves, the cutscenes were just painted storyboards because they ran out of money to produce them.
I think I liked the setting, but aside from that I only remember bad things about it. A stupid bug, horrible voice acting (at least in German) and you couldn't skip dialouges. Well, you could skip, but you would still have to wait until the characters finish their animation in silence.
Hrm, dunno if I should replay it...
Yeah, Keepsake requires a lot of patience. Especially two of the last puzzles require way too much walking back and forth which takes forever (I actually suggest using a walkthrough for that one seasons puzzle, it's really not worth it to figure that out on your own).
But I liked the puzzles before that. And the extremely somber, melancholy atmosphere is exactly my jam. I really liked exploring this huge, complicated castle. It really felt like a (weird) place people once lived and finding out what happened to them was enough of a draw for me to finish the game.
The voice acting is not particularly great in English either, but acceptable. The developers were French, and they probably did not oversee the translations personally.
Now that I finished Gray Matter, let me talk a bit more about the not so flawless gameplay.
What irritated me most is how highly scripted it is. The game has a pretty clear idea of what you do when. Hotspots can change on the fly and can appear out of nowhere and sometimes you end up wandering, what you missed to trigger the next thing.
It can even skip some things; suddenly you have an already faked ID in your pocket.
Dealing with items is also a bit inconveniant. Instead of the usual drag n drop you have to right click on an item, to take it into your hand. Then use it with left click on hotspots or other items. But right click is usually "look at" in inventories, so I ended up misclicking quite often.
If you hover over a hotspot, it needs a second before the description of it pops up, what is a bit annoying.
But on the other hand I like how varied the gameplay is.
Most of the time you control Sam and do the usual PnC stuff, but additionally you follow a treasure hunt, to get into the famous magic circle Dädalus. And this riddle stuff is really fun.
Her being a magician is also part of the gameplay; you have to perform magic tricks on certain occasions. The cursour will change for that and you have to select the right trick from her book and follow the instructions. Super simple, and sometimes too many in a short time, but nevertheless a nice touch.
And for some chapters you play Dr. Styles. He's far more the analyzing type, working on his experiment and has a different perspective on things. So playing him feels nicely different from Sam, while the characters in other games often feel like one and the same.
Also a neat detail: The loadingscreen and design of the inventory changes a bit, matching the character you're playing as right now.
I already expressed my love for the story - I really can't stress that enough, although the ending feels a bit rushed. But I really, really love it. And I think Styles' apparently only imagined burns are a very interesting setpiece.
Next to the cutscenes I also like the backgrounds in the game, with some pretty lightening.
There is a little portrait of the character speaking next to the subtitles, which don't look too good. The shadows of the characters are also bad, and their animations look quite clunky. But it is laudable, that nearly every actions is animated at least.
With up to 12 hours I'd call the length above average, and it is never boring during that time. I really fell in love with it a second time and rock my desktop with Styles' style now.
Welp. :O
Kathy Rain is free for 24 hours on steam, I completed it and liked it, it is not the best point and click ever but for me it was a 7 or 7´5 game, it is worth playing.
Picked this up when it was free, and finally got around to playing it the other day. It was a lot of fun. Kind of short (4 hrs), so not sure I'd be happy paying $15 for it, but at $5 that'd be a great way to pass an afternoon.
The first had similar thrilling music already. Beautiful. Man, will it ever be released?
I really hope it comes boxed and DRM free, as promised on their page. I would double dip the first one, if the remastered wouldn't be Steam only, just for the wonderful feature to be able to skip dialogue. <3
Finally Roses does Nancy Drew. Hope she does more!
I completely unironically love the Nancy Drew games. So let me start with the negatives to get this out of the way:
The storylines are usually extremely cheesy and the gameplay is absurdly inconsistent. Some puzzles are genuinely brilliant and really interesting and complex, so prepare to take lots of notes. Some puzzles are just too obtuse or infuriating for their own good. And some puzzles are really just needlessly wasting your time: unfortunately there is a recurring, somewhat sexist theme of Nancy having to do chores for everyone.
You can often tell that these games were cranked out at an alarming rate (around 2 per year), because there are cut corners everywhere (from animations to plotholes to unrefined play mechanics).
But even with all that said, I find these games charming and entertaining as hell. You can tell that the developers really cared, even if they had to work under less than ideal conditions. On the other hand those conditions regularly lead to some absolutely baffling choices that just add to the entertainment value for me. You just never know what crazy absurd thing to expect next, even if you begin to recognize some familiar patterns over several games.
If you play the games in release order you really start to get drawn in and can't help but cheer on both the recurring characters and the developers. These games live in their own little (bizarre) world and it's a really fun place to visit.
Edit: If you want to get started with Nancy Drew I recommend getting them on Steam. Start with a game that is NOT part of the "Nancy Drew Collector Pack" (to avoid paying twice) to see if this style of game is your thing. Then if you want more I recommend getting the collector pack on a Steam sale, because it is a really good deal for 20 games:
I made a list with release order, steam id and three letter code:
Code:
## Steam-ID Code Title (Platforms & Release Year)
01 SCK Secrets Can Kill (PC 1998)
02 STF Stay Tuned for Danger (PC 1999)
03 615770 MHM Message in a Haunted Mansion (PC 2000/GBA 2001)
04 615780 TRT Treasure in the Royal Tower (PC 2001)
05 615730 FIN The Final Scene (PC 2001)
06 31890* SSH Secret of the Scarlet Hand (PC 2002)
07 31850* DOG Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake (PC 2002)
08 31820* CAR The Haunted Carousel (PC 2003)
09 31840* DDI Danger on Deception Island (PC 2003)
10 572740 SHA The Secret of Shadow Ranch (PC 2004)
11 31830* CUR Curse of Blackmoor Manor (PC 2004/DVD 2007)
12 31880* CLK Secret of the Old Clock (PC 2005)
13 31810* TRN Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon (PC 2005)
14 31800* DAN Danger By Design (PC 2006)
15 31900* CRE The Creature of Kapu Cave (PC 2006)
16 31930* ICE The White Wolf of Icicle Creek (PC 2007/Nintendo Wii 2008)
17 31860* CRY Legend of the Crystal Skull (PC 2007)
18 31920* VEN The Phantom of Venice (PC 2008)
19 31910* HAU The Haunting of Castle Malloy (PC 2008)
20 31980* STF Ransom of the Seven Ships (PC 2009)
21 43600* WAC Warnings at Waverly Academy (PC 2009)
22 42230* TOT Trail of the Twister (PC/Mac 2010)
23 200080* SAW Shadow at the Water's Edge (PC/Mac 2010)
24 42220 CAP The Captive Curse (PC/Mac 2011)
25 202670 ASH Alibi in Ashes (PC/Mac 2011)
26 210230 TMB Tomb of the Lost Queen (PC/Mac 2012)
27 220420 DED The Deadly Device (PC/Mac 2012)
28 226820 GTH Ghost of Thornton Hall (PC/Mac 2013, iPad/Android/Kindle Fire 2014)
29 572730 SPY The Silent Spy (PC/Mac 2013)
30 572720 MED The Shattered Medallion (PC/Mac 2014)
31 572710 LIE Labyrinth of Lies (PC/Mac 2014)
32 572700 SEA Sea of Darkness (PC/Mac 2015)
33 MID Midnight in Salem (PC/Mac Release Date Unknown)
Nancy Drew Dossier (Hidden Object Games)
31870* Lights, Camera, Curses (PC 2008)
42200* Resorting to Danger (PC 2009)
Remasters
42210* Secrets Can Kill Remastered (PC/Mac 2010)
* Part of the Nancy Drew Collector Pack on Steam
Sam & Max, the self-appointed Freelance Police are the stars of video games, comics, & an animated TV series. These roguish scamps doling out swift, blunt-force justice are now the posable action figures you never realized you needed.
Oh god, I played that game. It is just so... German. And completely impossible without a walkthrough. I remember actually screaming at that game when I looked up what I was supposed to do after being stuck for hours.
You arrive in a dark cave, in the mysterious land of Mordavia... Gear up your hero and face your old foe, the insidious Ad Avis! If you feel overwhelmed by this quest, you can always chill out with a game from the Hoyle collection!
The ScummVM team is proud to announce support for the following games, which are ready for public testing:
Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (aka QFG4)
Hoyle Classic Games
Hoyle Bridge
Hoyle Children's Collection
Hoyle Solitaire
Both the CD and floppy versions of QFG4 are supported. Do note that the poker game of Hoyle Classic Games is not supported yet.
So, break out your copies, or buy QFG4 digitally on GOG, and grab the latest development build of ScummVM for your preferred platform. Any problems found should be reported on our Issue Tracker.
I gave not yet explored this thread, i am new here :)
In case you have not seen them, i love these 2 Ron Gilbert videos
One on Maniac Mansion, a post mortem of sorts
One on his journey, with the creative process and story telling as a thread
If you've already seen them... well... you can refill the pool i shan't budge, that's my punishment ;)
How is Thimbleweed Park? I passed on it before as I really didn't like Ron Gilbert's previous game (The Cave) and Deathspank wasn't exactly hilarious either.
How is Thimbleweed Park? I passed on it before as I really didn't like Ron Gilbert's previous game (The Cave) and Deathspank wasn't exactly hilarious either.
I liked it very much.
It had a lot of charm, the atmosphere was very nice and puzzles where good.
Presentation was idealized retro (like we think we saw things but much better in reality).
There were some bugs when i played and the humor not always worked on me, specially things like the sheriff and the coroner (i am not a native speaker, i guess i missed some cultural references). Bugs must have been solved quickly... the humor cannot be fixed to fit me like a glove, but that's alright.
A lot of the fun transpired though, think chuckles rather than laugh out loud.
It's more open in scope than maniac mansion, less obtuse, more accessible but it's still maniac mansion cross XFiles... There was a big gameplay surprise though, which was very nice.
How is Thimbleweed Park? I passed on it before as I really didn't like Ron Gilbert's previous game (The Cave) and Deathspank wasn't exactly hilarious either.
I liked it, it does some interesting things with the its multiple character mechanic, and the built in hint system is actually nice to use without trivializing the puzzles. The humour is pretty low-key, which I liked a lot. The town and the characters in it give the whole game quite a bit of character. And it looked really nice, as sweetmini says, idealized retro, with lots of modern effects on top of pixel graphics.
I didn't quite care about the ending just purely based on the narrative, a bit too self-referential for me.
How is Thimbleweed Park? I passed on it before as I really didn't like Ron Gilbert's previous game (The Cave) and Deathspank wasn't exactly hilarious either.
Thimbleweed Park is easily my favorite PnC game of at least the last 10 years, but I grew up on Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, so I'm sure that colors my opinion of it.
Thimbleweed Park is easily my favorite PnC game of at least the last 10 years, but I grew up on Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, so I'm sure that colors my opinion of it.
Anyway, I bought it yesterday, I haven't played much but so far I like it. I do enjoy other modern adventure games, but it's nice to back to the style of game where you go around picking up every object that isn't nailed down.
I love Thimbleweed Park, it's such a great refinement of the old scumm gui without taking anything away that made it so good.
Also the puzzles are awesome, I solved them all without a guide, and like 99% of them were logical. Getting the balance where everything makes sense in hindsight but isn't easy is very difficult but TP pulls it off.
Recently I played through The Last Door 1 and 2.
I like the creepy Lovecraft atmosphere they are creating, although some of the jumpscares seem a bit forced. And it's cool to see how well this really hardcore retro pixel graphic works.
The gameplay is ok, but nothing more. Often it feels too forced and scripted. Obtuse even. Most of the time it feels like a fetch quest as well. But they have some good ideas for puzzles nevertheless, especially in the second season. (E.g. the mirror world.)
I was a bit disappointed when I realized that the first season is exactly the same as the free to play version, although the discriptions says, it would have additional stuff in it. But those are only some short Extras, you enter through the main menu, and they have no real gameplay, just a bit story. The episodes themselves are just the same.
The second season has two different endings. But you can't save manually, and the game doesn't give you a checkpoint before choosing the ending. So you would need to play through the whole episode again, to see it. Nah buddy, not in the times of Youtube.
For the first season, I needed around 3 hours. Second is a bit longer, were I needed around an hour, sometimes a bit more, for each episode.
I wishlisted it some time ago - they had me at "talking cat" :3
Wow, I had a lot of fun with Moebius: Empire Rising, while I actually expected to regret the purchase. Though it was more fun in an ironic way...
But first things first. The gameplay is mediocre, maybe even a bit worse. You mostly lead dialogues, your interactions are quite limited and tend to be simple. The bigger problem is, that the game is super scripted. Often he doesn't want to take an item with the explanation "I don't need this at the moment". And just a few minutes later you have to run back and forth to get it, cause now you need it. In the same way items can pop up out of nowhere and the possible interactions with a hotspot can change.
So sometimes you are just stuck cause you don't really get why he still won't to do X.
Nevertheless they have some nice ideas along the line.
The main character Malachi is some sort of Dr. House - an asshole, high on meds who's highly intelligent. You analyze objects and people, to guess their character. You judge certain aspects of them and have 3 different answers to chose from - with one of it being kind of a joke answer.
There are even bigger cases in wich you have to compare the biography of a person with different persons from history and this way narrow down, whom he/she resembles. This can be a bit tideous, but it is a nice aspect throughout the game.
The devs also made Coginiton, and I was often reminded of it. The clunky inventory is exactly the same, as well as the menu cursour. Erica's power can be compared to Malachi's analyzing too.
The main story is a little bit of bullshit and the characters and their actions often seemed unintenionally funny to me. It was quite entertaining in that regard already, but the main fun kicked in, when I started to ship Malachi and David, as soon as he came into the story. That made their cringy interactions even more funny. The game itselfs actually hints a bit at Malachi x David - but in the end goes absolutely nowhere with it. It's more of a nice friendship, that slowly builds up.
But it really adds a lot of fun to ship them, and I was even a bit disappointed, that they didn't go there. With the general story, you could have give them some interesting depth as well.
Are their feelings genuine or just part of the pattern? They could have some sort of selfdoubt about their relationship. And add a bit of drama with Malachi's once rule and whatever.
But well, that would may have lead far too far. Still they were what kept me invested, and maybe that is were the involvement of Jane Jensen really shows, when I think about my love for Gray Matter and its characters. I take the last one far more serious, though.
Help me out here fellas; I downloaded the latest build of SCUMMVM that runs Quest for Glory 4. I have at least 3 soundfonts that worked on earlier builds that I could use with Gabe Knight 1 to get better audio. Thing is, no matter what soundfont I choose, the audio doesn't change. What options do I need to alter to get soundfonts to run?
Help me out here fellas; I downloaded the latest build of SCUMMVM that runs Quest for Glory 4. I have at least 3 soundfonts that worked on earlier builds that I could use with Gabe Knight 1 to get better audio. Thing is, no matter what soundfont I choose, the audio doesn't change. What options do I need to alter to get soundfonts to run?
Help me out here fellas; I downloaded the latest build of SCUMMVM that runs Quest for Glory 4. I have at least 3 soundfonts that worked on earlier builds that I could use with Gabe Knight 1 to get better audio. Thing is, no matter what soundfont I choose, the audio doesn't change. What options do I need to alter to get soundfonts to run?
Options... -> MIDI -> GM Device -> FluidSynth (Also set your SoundFont here)
Edit Game... (after selecting QFGIV) -> MIDI -> Either uncheck "Override Global MIDI settings" or check "Override Global MIDI settings" AND set same SoundFont AGAIN
It could also be that General Midi is not yet implemented for this game. There was a similar problem with the Ringworld games, which supportet MT-32 in the original DOS release, but ScummVM does not yet (AFAIK).
I always love that Sierra jingle on the MT32. The first sign that sound had somehow leapt from the stone age to the modern age in one step. Crazy to think the MT32 came out in 1987.
It kinda feels like a lucasarts game that was made halfway between Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle. The vibe is more MM, though UI wise it's a lot slicker and comparable to DOTT. Like both you control multiple characters.
Humour is generally Gilbert's deadpan/dark humour like you'd see in MM and parts of MI/MI2. Puzzles are outstanding, I completed the whole game without a guide and there were very few puzzles I would deem even close to illogical personally.
