An Adventure Christmas

[Snarky]

I've somehow always felt that adventure games go great with Christmas. Maybe it's getting them for Christmas presents when I was little, or maybe it's just that winter is a time for sitting inside by the warming glow of the computer.

In any case, on the plane back home for the holidays, I sat next to a guy playing MI2 on his tablet (the new version; it looked pretty good, certainly a lot better visually than the new graphics for the first one). He was stuck near the beginning, trying to catch the rat in the box. He gave up after about ten minutes trying to close the box at the right moment. I couldn't help him; it's been too long since I played it, though I'm pretty sure you need to make some sort of trap, maybe with a stick and rope?

For an even more adventure-y part of the holiday season, we did a Secret Santa gift exchange in my office where we had to make the presents ourselves. I made the closest thing I could get to a paper-based adventure game. It ended up as a kind of multimedia choose-your-own-adventure book, with pictures, audio (using a digital pen that would play recordings when you tapped on particular parts of the page), very simple dialog puzzles and a couple of minigames. I'll get some pictures of it after new year, and maybe see if I can port it to AGS.

Have you had any adventure experiences happen to you this holiday season? Any adventure-game-based Christmas memories?

[Technocrat]

I remember getting my mother the entire Monkey Island set (when that consisted of three games!) for Christmas, we spent most of the day playing through those.

At AdventureX, one of the presenters mentioned that Christmas is not a good time to release independent games, apparently! January is the new Christmas.

[m0ds]

Although I didn't get many games at Christmas (there was always other stuff I needed more) I do remember most Christmas' would be spent having fun in adventure-y related ways, and that's a process that's kind of stuck. Getting older I find it harder to get in the spirit as early as I used to and beyond drinking alcohol and seeing friends and family Christmas isn't much more for me - but it's always one of the most pro-active times of the year for me in terms of working on and releasing things.

It could be more due to the weather keeping me in and what not, but Xmas is just a fun season for these kinds of things. I do remember getting Grim Fandango one Christmas and that was great. Of course, AdventureX happened this year, so I am experiencing what I call the "4 weeks of Christmas". Sunday 1 was Adventure X, Sunday 2 will be Xmas day, Sunday 3 will be new years day and Sunday 4 will be my birthday... then for the rest of the year, do sweet F-A. 

But yes, glad you're having an adventurey Christmas Snarks

[Ali]

Winter always puts me in the mood for adventure games (more than usual I mean). I think it's probably getting games for Christmas too, but I have particularly strong Christmassy feelings about Abe's Oddysee, Siberia and Morrowind. (Not all traditional adventures, but all great games I played a lot at Christmas time).

The paper based choose-your-own-adventure sounds amazing, I hope it was appreciated!

[NickyNyce]

Christmas is pretty special and depressing for me actually. My birthday is on Christmas, which makes it pretty darn special, but the birthday party part is always missing. Friends are always out with family celebrating the Holiday, while I'm at home with family. Being at home with family is not terrible, but it's not like being out with a bunch of friends going crazy. I have spent some X-mas eve's at the bar...that always helps.

But I must say, all my life I grew up playing adventure games around X-mas time, and this always helped keep me busy. I plan on doing the same this year, it's the one thing that I never want to change.

May everyone have a very Happy and adventure filled Christmas.

May your stockings be stuffed, your beer glass be full, and your brain buzz with the thoughts of how the hell do I open this damn door with no handle.  

[miguel]

Although it was 20 degree Celsius today during the day (from 10am to 5pm +-) where I live, Xmas is a good time for adventure games. GOG and Abandonia are my favourite places to go this time of the year, beside the forums, of course!
I'd love to see some AGS games released on the following days!

This year I have my own game (the Dagger2) nearly finished, it is being tested and I'm adding cut-scenes and animations.
I'd love to offer it to everybody here before the 24/25th but can't be sure of it.

I'll finally finish The Last Express this Xmas, I'm trying to do it without a walk-through but  that seems impossible!

Merry Xmas to all and good adventuring!

[Snarky]

For an even more adventure-y part of the holiday season, we did a Secret Santa gift exchange in my office where we had to make the presents ourselves. I made the closest thing I could get to a paper-based adventure game. It ended up as a kind of multimedia choose-your-own-adventure book, with pictures, audio (using a digital pen that would play recordings when you tapped on particular parts of the page), very simple dialog puzzles and a couple of minigames. I'll get some pictures of it after new year, and maybe see if I can port it to AGS.

Here are some scans of the book. I decided that I wanted it to be completely hand-made, and drawn/written directly on the final pages, to give it a more personal feel. That's why it's all done in pencil.



The first page. There are 8 "screens" in the game (see the tabs on the side), and 24 pages of text (kind of like an advent calendar). The pages are loose because I didn't have time to bind it all together; that's TBD:



The map provides access to the different locations (though some screens can only be reached from another location):



(Yes, I know I screwed up one point of the snow flake.)

Most puzzles in the game are dialog puzzles, but there's also a couple of others, like a jigsaw puzzle (pieces backed with post-it glue so they won't fall out). The game uses a digital pen, so that when you tap on the dialog line you want to select, it plays the response through a little loudspeaker.



Most of the others in my office are casual adventure game fans and enjoy handcrafted stuff (one has a purple tentacle papercraft model), and they had fun with it.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Nah, consoles (specifically the NES) are more memorable to me during Christmas since computers were hard to get and expensive at that time.  The only reason I even got to play games like Maniac Mansion initially was because my best friend's family was well off and bought him a commodore 64 when it first debuted in the US, otherwise I probably wouldn't have had access to a computer until the 90s.

In fact, I played through most of the early adventure games at his house (Monkey Island 1, Maniac Mansion, Fountain of Youth) and I didn't have my own computer until 1992 when I got an Amiga 1200.

[cat]

In fact, I played through most of the early adventure games at his house (Monkey Island 1, Maniac Mansion, Fountain of Youth) and I didn't have my own computer until 1992 when I got an Amiga 1200.

I new that FoY has been in the works for quite some time, but I wouldn't consider it "early adventure games" 

[m0ds]

Ha! 

[Armageddon]

Nah, consoles (specifically the NES) are more memorable to me during Christmas since computers were hard to get and expensive at that time.  The only reason I even got to play games like Maniac Mansion initially was because my best friend's family was well off and bought him a commodore 64 when it first debuted in the US, otherwise I probably wouldn't have had access to a computer until the 90s.

In fact, I played through most of the early adventure games at his house (Monkey Island 1, Maniac Mansion, Fountain of Youth) and I didn't have my own computer until 1992 when I got an Amiga 1200.

You know, Maniac Mansion was on the NES?