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If ben wrote flash games, he'd make tiny little awesome but short prototypes that leave you yearning for more but never develop any of them beyond the prototype stage.

As for the game in question, I don't know, no art games caught my attention as much as Passage and Blueberry Garden. Too often art games makers forget that games are made of rules, goals and decisions, or they simply try too hard to make it artsy, that game felt a little bit like both. But the swing scene was awesome.

Better than the movie? With Kirk Douglas? Whose face bears a scary resemblance with Marv from Sin City?

Very funny game with a great concept, but crashed on me halfway through.

Yes, for me too, when I enter the kids' room, before the video plays. The game will be updated in the next two days.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/11/11/hes-a-bit-spineless-octodad/#more-43830

If you're not laughing out loud and downloading this game after reading the tagline and watching the video, there is something wrong with you.

- Edit -
Note: The game is not bugfree, if you happen to have a sucky internet connection or limited bandwidth it may be better to wait until it get updated a couple of times before downloading.

Alternatively, if you are good at designing games and programing but average as an artist, you could make other games than adventure games. Games that shine by their gameplay and work just as fine with retro or simple graphics, like VVVVVV or Abbaye Des Morts. Just create several prototypes, find one that is fun and have lot of possibilities for extra mechanics and build a full game out of it. Heck, with the right contacts you could find an artist willing to take care of the graphics for you.

Because the way I see it, commercial adventure games with photograph for background is a niche among the niche that is indie adventure games*, making it hard to earn a living with them, unless if enormous efforts were spend on them, defeating your reason to use them in the first place.

* Which is a niche among adventure games in general**
** Which is a niche among video games in general.

I played this game three times but I finished it only once. I believe there is a walking dead if you kill the vampire without asking him everything there is to ask about the mermaids, ice and sunken ship.

The plot, atmosphere and soundtrack were awesome, the game's only flaw is the battle system, it's alright at the start of the game when you fight thugs, hitmen and zombies, but it breaks apart around the end of the game or during tough encounter, when abusing the pause menu to spam spells/grenades on the bosses is necessary to win. Man, how long it took us to figure out how to get rid of that cortex bomb, fun times.

there's always the cheat mode!

Nah, I was already feeling bad for nuking choppers and bears with artilleries, there's no way I'll use the cheats to skip a mission, I'll wait until an updated version is posted. Or until I get tired of having that folder on my desktop if no updated version is ever released.

It's been a while since games looking like Larry Vales and Rob Blanc were produced. Is this a manifestation of this phenomenon?

People simply keep improving themselves, we've got the tools, we've got tutorials, skilled artists are spending time on the C&C forum telling people what to do and giving them advices to improve their craft instead of keeping to their own, even kids nowadays, I mean, the old fogies responsible for Rob Blanc and Larry Vales grew up on MS Paint, kids nowadays grow up on photoshop and flash and can draw much better stuff than I could at their age with the tools I had. There are plenty of recent AGS games who would looks like Larry Vales if they were made with the same tools we had 10 years ago.

They're no longer available for download on their respective websites, but I have the Gesundheit and Pleurghburg soundtracks in my mp3 folder. You can also find the AGDI's various soundtracks on Quest Studios and the Merry Christmas Alfred Robbins soundtrack on Hillbilly's website.

What a trip down memory lane. I've just realized that the program which I'm using right now to play music on my computer (Ashampoo Media Player) is the same program I downloaded 9 years ago to play the Pleurghburg soundtrack because the clunky old version of Winamp I had back then couldn't handle .xm files.

Spoiler

Finishing mission 6 (the one where you must lose all your troops) is impossible. Every time an enemy attack my troops, the next time I click on one of my units, Peces will tell me I'm attacking my own troops and the mission will be a failure.

I tried to bring all of my units as close as possible to the enemy base, then ending my turns without touching any of my units afterward, the enemy destroyed them all by 18th turn, captured the very last city I owned by 23th turn, and the mission was still a failure. Do I have to lose all my units or lose as many units as possible?

Pressing the ENTER key during a message from your commander or a private will end your turn and you will see the enemy moving his units under the messages.

Also slightly nitpicky, but it's possible to attack helicopters with artilleries, and it's also very effective. If all those RTS I played told me the truth, doing so should be impossible or hardly effective at all.

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50% C&C, 50% Civilization (with non-useless artillery for once), 100% awesome!

I really dig the Starcraft-ish soundtrack. I'm currently on mission 4, and I keep doing stupid mistakes like forgetting to refuel choppers and mistaking infantry and sappers, leading to disastrous attacks but I'm loving it so far. I also love those oblivious generals, I feared there would only be one of them but I was pleased to see the Damn Commies have their own too!

A tiny glitch, the score screen said I finished a mission in 24 turns but I think (I'm not sure) I finished it on my 25th turn.

Spoiler

Also, during a bear attack, the bears are treated like the defenders while it should be the other way around, it's the bears who ambush your guys, not your guys who ambush the bears. The problem with bears as defenders is whenever your artilleries are ambushed by bears, since the artilleries are considered as the attackers, and when artilleries attack, the defender cannot counter, the bears are torn to piece without doing any damage to your artilleries.

BTW, those bears are hilarious. My guys are torn to pieces yet I just can't stop giggling every time it happens.

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Downloading!!!

That improved cellar background is mind blowing, and so is the screenshot with the flashlight on your site. I just can't wait to get my hands on this!

The second part of that Gretel and Hansel flash adventure game was released earlier this month.

The game is cool but not without its flaw, notably when it come to finding one more lousy coin to buy the last item and I'd have preferred if the solutions to the inventory puzzle weren't spelled out loud so often, but it's still a fun game, so play it.

It's rather gory and totally not safe for kids, you've been warned.

Had you guys seen the Minecraft space program?

That's not true at all. The sequels were full of true adventure game style puzzles and the original AITD had nasty death-traps lurking behind every corner. I'd say the gameplay style was pretty much consistent throughout the whole trilogy, or at least very similar.

I didn't get that impression. While in AITD1 several fights could be avoided and plenty of monsters were actually puzzles in disguise, AITD2 pits you against 5 guys with guns right off the bat and several more are waiting for you at every turn in the maze, this before you encounter your first puzzle. Puzzles are secondary to combat in the sequel, in the original they were at the forefront.

Daminit Anian! I did not need to be reminded of that!

Go play the original AITD, Gilbet! The sequels were action games with key/lock puzzles in between, the original was an adventure game with battles in between and was much better than the sequels. It had some pretty awesome puzzles too.

How could I forget Sanitarium, it's a must play.

Like Dave Grossman said, at one point adventure games shifted from puzzle games with stories to story games with puzzles. Demonic Dollhouse felt more like a puzzle game with story, it's fine if you like these games (like I do) but I understand that not everyone will like them. In adventure games, rewards come in the form of expending the story, meeting new characters, exploring new locations and/or finding jokes hidden all over the place. An adventure game without rewards is a bit like one of those challenging and punishing platforming game, many like them but many do not too.

Regarding the game, I thought the game was cool if a bit short, I agree with jkohen regarding verbal feedback, more verbal feedback (hints, jokes, etc.) would have been nice. If you were to make a sequel, with more demons and in a bigger house, I would play it right away but I know I'm in the minority so I'm not holding my breath. Keep up the good work, I can't wait for Death Episode 2!

I stumbled on a bug:

Spoiler

If you use the sword on the beam in the living room, the Demonslayer will tie the rope to the beam and kill the demon. And this even if you did not take the rope yet.

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Nah, the game was short so it wasn't a problem.