Messages

Congratulations at creating:

An adventure game that managed to make me stop playing Thief Gold for several hours in a row,
An adventure game whose gameplay is different from the usual traditionnal point and click adventure game,
An adventure game I wish there will have a sequel for it.

Bugs, visual glitches and feedback:

Spoiler

If you keep summoning Muggit (who was hilarious, BTW) back and forth, he'll move a pixel closer to the edge of the screen, do this several times and he'll eventually completly disappear behind the edge of the screen.

The animation sequence when you shoot the fighter with the spears trap is rather shoddy and unsynchronized: the spears are shot, then the fighter goes in the middle of the screen and die.

The save/load menu has no scroll bars, and since the game rely heavily on loading and saving, constantly losing previous savegames and being able to work with only 6 savegames (3 of which are hogged by the autosaves) really sucks.

[close]

A clock to tell the time remaining until the next hero arrives would be a nice addition. That or simply letting the player decide when to summon the next hero.

[Evenwolf and Ryan:]

Sorry for this wall of text, I put my reply to Evenwolf and Ryan on the top, tips for magintz are just below.

Evenwolf and Ryan:

But everybody else - I can't explain the joy they received from playing it because I honestly can't empathize.   Just rolling dice over and over and leveling up mindlessly.

Some people like the roleplaying aspect, other loves battles that are a bit more tactical than your usual computer or console RPGs, for other, it's the cheer freedom to be able to do anything you want, put in a gaming context (imagine how it would be to play an adventure game with a text parser that would react and/or generate a funny answer for litteraly everything, actions or dialogues, you supplied it, not a single unrecognized word or verb). Personally, I like all aspect of the game.

In term of interaction, you are not limited to killing every monsters and leveling up. You can interact with every objects in your surrounding, and get a reaction from the GM for it. Most obstacles won't be monsters in a tabletop RPG, and all of your stats, skills, spells and items can be used outside battle as well, you can cast spells on your environment, not only on monsters, you can sneak past obstacles, solve them intelligently or creatively, you can use diplomacy or bluff to escape tricky situations, you can create overkillingly complex traps to kill monsters (not unlike those in Scooby-doo) or Rube Goldberg devices to solve other situations, you can desguise yourself or ask a minion to do it for you, or, you know, you can just slay the crap out of the monsters if that's what you really want to do.

In term of storytelling, you don't have to play the mandatory PC with spiky hairs and killed parents/girlfriend a game is forcing you to play, you can play absolutly any character with any physical aspect, sex, morality, personality, flaws, qualities and quirks you want. You are free to do absolutly anything you want morally speaking (as long you don't badly ruin the GM's campaign), and affect the story accordingly or suffer the consequences, good or bad, of your acts. Sometimes, interactions from players end up creating big subplots the GM hadn't envisioned at first, sometimes players take the ball tell the story themselves by talking and interracting with others, for the joy of the GM, who can sit back and become a spectator. Storytelling and multilinearity in video games might be more advanced nowaday, but it will never beat a game where a GM and his PCs tell the story directly.

The only limit to what you can do in a tabletop RPG is your imagination and what your GM is willing to accept. I read something on Slashdot once, which sum very well the level of freedom you can have in a tabletop RPG:

My character is standing watch one night while the rest of the party is sleeping. A lone goblin approaches.
Me: I toss a marshmallow to the goblin
*DM looks at we strangely for a moment*: the goblin pokes the marshmallow with his spear and then sticks it into his mouth
Me: I cast Enlarge on the marshmallow.
*everyone falls out of their chairs*

A tabletop RPG, with serious players and a good GM is all you need to show how primitive video games are in term of interaction, storytelling, interactive storytelling, freedom and non-linearity.

magintz:

I can't really help you if you want to be the GM, but if you are only a player, I'd say the first games will be about introducing the campaign and the characters. I doubt you'll go that much into the rules right away, also, the GM will most likely manage all the rules needs for the first few games.

That being said, if you truly end up liking the group and consider playing on a regular basis, I suggest you get a copy of the Player's Handbook and read all the revelent parts for your character (classes, races, feats, skills, items, battle mechanics, and the 100 pages or so related to spell casting in case you happen to be a spell caster) as it's going to help you in leveling your character, tell you what you can do and what you cannot do, and speed up the battles as you won't have to ask other people what to roll during battles and won't try to do things that cannot be done in the rules (and you might be able help other people with their rolls and the rules).

If your character isn't created already, I suggest you ask some info about the campaign to your GM, in order to be more useful in the game. If most of the campaign will be spend in the wilderness, you might want to play a Ranger or a Druid who are more useful in that kind of environment. If a lot of the action is spend in an urban setting, a Bard or a Rogue might be more useful than a Ranger. In a dungeon however, all character classes are equally useful.

Also, ask the other players what classes they are playing in order to be more effective in the game but also that everyone feel equally useful. A party of 4 players generally only need a meat shield, a spell caster, a healer and a skillful guy and one of them need to be a diplomat. While having more than one fighters or spellcaster never hurt as these come in different style and flavors, having two Clerics or two Thiefs in a small party will makes both players seems less useful as they will share their role with somebody else.

Here are some tips I suggest you to follow anytime you play with a completly different group:

Before the campaign begins, check what the other players are looking for in the game. All players are here for fun, but the idea of fun vary from player to player, some players love to roleplay, other loves to roll dices, some loves the tactical battles, some loves to escape situation intelligently... It's important that you don't just love one activity and aren't alone in your group to love an activity because there are chance you will be bored anytime you aren't doing what you like to do. Sometimes entire sessions are spend roleplaying, sometimes entire sessions are spend battling or sneaking past monsters... A good group should try to reach a common ground about fun, and players should learn to love more than one activity in a tabletop RPG. If your group like roleplaying but you don't, try at least to roleplay a simple, one dimentionnal character, so you aren't completly left out when other players are roleplaying.

Also, for the first campaign, I'd suggest your character to be about the same alignment as the other players' characters. In a party of good characters, players who play a chaotic evil character who kills and robs absolutly everyone in sight, PCs included, tend to be annoying, get in a lot of arguments in their own group and become loner or just give up the game altogether. On the other side, in a party of players who have no problem bending the law for their advantages, people who play stick-in-the-butt paladin who police everyone, PCs included, tend to be annoying as well. All players having the same alignment, either all goody-do-gooder, all law bender or all jerks (as long they don't backstab each others) will reduce the amount of argument and bickering between players and also help to create this party family feeling. If all player's characters aren't of the same alignment, I suggest that your character is of the same alignment of the majority of the other players' characters. It is easier to be in the group than be the loner of the group.

Also, if you know and are friend with every other players, I'd suggest, if it's the first game for many players, that you ask your GM if it's possible to not have to roleplay the characters introduction, and just use the "You are a bunch of childhood friends who decided to go on an adventure!" introduction careless of how illogic it might be, it's generally the easiest way to create a party family feeling.

This whole party family feeling is important because it's when you reach this state that fun begins. When players and characters feel like a family rather than a bunch of loner forced to work with each other, jokes, running gags and funny situation between PCs abound, you don't mind dying for another player or saving their butt from tricky situation even if it's their own stupidity who put them there in the first place, more importantly, when players have a lot of expericence as a family under their belt, it is easier to play characters with clashing personalities in later campaigns.

>where is the "Either you keep Au Naturel, either you remove my games from the database as well" solidarity?

I actually went as far to request this exact thing yesterday (I'm 'Turquoise Daffodil', I made the game 'Defender of RON' six years ago). I'm astonished by the fact that this game even sparked such a debate. I can't see any harm in it whatsoever.

Yes, but you are the only one who proposed that. Would 7 or 8 more persons follow you and surely the idea that their database become as holey as a swiss cheese would make them reconsider.

This whole controversy on the RON forum has to be the craziest, most engrossing and addicting to read forum thread I ever read recently.

Is RON a company, a franchize, a commercial product? Why all this corporate speak about administrative staff, copyright, legislation and lawyers and what not? Isn't RON a community effort? Who these people are to decide which game is accepted and which game isn't? Isn't that the role of the big RON rules and the community (by referencing to past chapters in future games, de facto canonizing them)?

That may sound as harsh and/or completly out of line, and I apologize in advance in case it is, but as an outsider and totally ignorant of RON community's politics and history, I have two questions:

One: If RON is a community thing, what prevent anyone, who disagree with the current "administration" from creating their own RON games database, including all games, even those banned for trivial and/or hypocritical and/or pseudo-administrative reasons? (as long you get the permission from the creators to put their games on this second database)

Two: You're probably trying to solve this matter diplomatically right now, but where is the "Either you keep Au Naturel, either you remove my games from the database as well" solidarity?

I thought community projects like could be a kind of asset, but when I see the amount of red tape and hypocrisy involved in the current situation, I'm wondering if it's such a good idea after all.

It was the oldest fanmade adventure-project (founded in 1996!) and got outdated by the relase of the superb Zak McKracken - Between Time and space.

In our point of view there is no real place on this planet for a second Zak McKracken sequel and since the other team did such a great job, we decided to close our afforts for this project.

I hope the real reason behind the cancelation was the usual lost motivation, being busy with real life and the project was simply no longer being worked on reasons rather than what is said on their website, else it's most certainly the lamest cop-out reason I ever heard for a project.

What next? "Fountain Of Youth cancelled because Lego Indy is just plain AWESOME, but don't worry, 80% of the FOY material will be used in Roger and the Fountain Of Youth"?

I stopped to watch The Simpsons 2 years ago. After the 10th season it's simply no longer the same. The series used the be serious and believable, it used to be a social commentary on the family, when Marge or Homer got this close to cheat on each other or when divorce was around the corner, you believed it, you can't say the same for the latest episodes. Humor was great back then, it was subtle and intelligent, sometimes you watched reruns and spotted a joke you didn't see the last time, nowadays it's all slapstick and dumbed down jokes. Most characters stopped to be characters just to become stereotypes and memes, the "A-ha!" "Excellent!" "Disco Stu loves disco!" to squeeze once in every episodes.

Personally, I would be alright with them continuing the series and me no longer watching them if it wasn't for the fact the Simpsons is one of the few things which, even if I ignore it, still affect my life somehow: on the sole cartoon channel over here, the latest unfunny episodes hogs 2 hours of air time every single days for 3 years now. Two hours everydays which could be better spend with new cartoons series or the older, better Simpsons episodes, and it's not going to change anytime soon. So, yes, I wish they would pull the plug on the show, or make it as good as it was before, or at least, that my cartoon channel could take a hint and stop airing those bad episodes so much.

South Park on the other hand kept getting better as the series progressed, everytime I watched an episode like Chinpokomon, Free Hat, My Future Self n' Me, or Good Times with Weapons I suddently found the previous episodes boring. And the same "2 hours of Simpsons a day" cartoon channel hasn't aired a new South Park episode since the 10th season, go figure.

I stumbled on this today and while I am not a big fan of Infocom I figured some of you might be.

http://waxy.org/2008/04/milliways_infocoms_unreleased_sequel_to_hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galax/

In a nutshell, somebody managed to aquire a complete backup of Infocom's shared network drive from 1989, containing, among many other things, the source code to all released and unreleased Infocom's games, including Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, an unreleased sequel to HGttG. Two playable prototypes are available in the article.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. If they go down that road, how long until those "knee-deep treacle" (to use Ultra Magnus' metaphor) turn into road blocks entirely? How long until companies pay ISPs to slow down their competitors' traffic?

Also, I find the "people will just change to another ISP" a magical solution. If a lot of people nowadays forgot the era of dial-up, a lot seems to forget that ISPs aren't grocery stores, rural regions often have only one ISP available, and changing to another one when you aren't happy with yours isn't an option.

If ISPs can't handle nowadays' bandwidth needs, they just have to stop offering services they can't supply and slow down their higher speed services until they can handle it again, but the internet should be left unfiltered and uncensored.

Sierra also released several adventure games for kids: Pepper's Adventures In Time, Mixed Up Mother Goose and EcoQuest 1 and 2. As your nephews grow older (10 - 12), I suppose they will be able to play harder but user friendly games like Torin's Passage, Day of the Tentacle, Goblins 3 and the Monkey Island series. It's not AGS and might be harder to find but you may be interested.

Because I know there's some Commodore 64 fans here, and Indiana Jones and Dizzy fans too, behold what would have been the greatest game in the universe had it been released 24 years ago:

Joe Gunn!

The game in a nutshell: explore the Crocodile King's tomb, avoid traps, solve puzzles and steal the riches for fortune and glory!

The latest version, including bug fixes and german translation, can be found on the creator's website, in the Programs section.

1) Cascade Failure. Basically, it's the classic "Evil AI" thing, but with a spin - you play as the computer. So, of course, for the player it will seem as if the crew was slowly spiraling into madness... now, where WAS that termination robot?

I like this idea of playing an omnipresent, omniscient HAL kind of AI. Controling other machines and having to prevent humans from unplugging you has a lot of potential in term of story, dialogue, puzzle originality and gameplay.

This is some great stuff, now I wonder what kind of graphical surprise we'll find in DNG2 when it will be released!

BTW, could you upload the video somewhere else, like rapidshare or a similar website? I would like to save this one on my HD instead of downloading this gigantic video everytime I want to watch it.

Hearing "Ron Gilbert", "Monkey Island", "Adventure/RPG" makes me all fuzzy inside, but it's the "Diablo" part I worry about. The game will need bucketload of awesomeness to compensate for a 1 millions mouse clicks, item, gold and XP grinding gameplay.

I think we're going by different definitions of "cartoony" here. Zak McKracken uses a very different style than Gobliiins.

True. I had Zak's Boss in mind when I wrote that one.

Cartoony shading and cartoony - er, shapes, geometry?

In my previous post I was discussing the shapes and geometry. I suppose we'll have to define what we're discussing here.

If what we are discussing is the animation style or the shading rather than the shape and geometry, then I would agree that high resolution brought cartoony animation and cartoony shading. Like it was previously said, with an increase of resolution, pixel animation is hardly feasible anymore. You are no longer editing a few pixel and filling the holes, you must work with limbs, bodies, the whole character, instead of pixels, you also need more views in order to have a fluid animation. I suppose at that point it was more efficient to animate with cel animation or faux 3D.

So yes, high resolution brought cartoony animation and cartoony shading, but not cartoony geometry or shapes, these were here way before high resolution arrived.

I don't think the cartoony feel is related to the high resolution. A lot of games were graphically cartoony before high resolution arrived: Discworld, Sam and Max, Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion, DOTT, Leisure Suit Larry, etc.

Even the Monkey Island games, if you look at them carefully, had cartoony characters: Meathook, the 3 Headed Monkey, the cannibals... It also had characters of all size, from Largo Lagrande, to the pirates at the spitting contest, to Stan and Lechuck who were rather tall, to the giant arm coming out of the hidden alley door on Phatt, to the governor of Phatt Island himself.

If a game like Indiana Jones, Shadow of the Comet or Laura Bow was made in high resolution and had cartoony graphics, then I would ask the same question as you. But the thing is, the few dead pan serious adventure games that were released during the high resolution times, like Broken Sword or The Last Express, managed to remain serious and realistic visually speaking, and most games that people accuse of going cartoony with the arrival of high resolution were family friendly, humoristic, borderline or already cartoony visually speaking, in the first place. Using the latest animation techniques and high resolution to their advantage, to add more expressions to their characters and add more visual jokes, was simply the most logical step forward.

Shadow of the Comet has a marvellous story that gave me nightmares when I was a kid, it's spooky, the atmosphere is tense, you couldn't expect any less from the maker of Alone In The Dark, but the gameplay is flawed on so many levels, I'm not sure it has its place in this list. A great story can't save a game with abysmal gameplay. When I talk about remaking games that really worth it rather than remaking games that are perfectly playable and prefectly enjoyable like the Sierra or LucasArts games, it's games like Shadow Of The Comet that I have in mind.

Good to hear, Ponch!

I've always loved the Barn Runner series but the whole "You can't play Cyclone Alley because you weren't there at the time" deal bothered me. I'm glad to hear it won't happen again.

The Star Trek games shouldn't be listed either, as the main reason people play them is because of the "star trek" name on there.

Space Quest 2-5 can't be listed together like that, as they're widely differing games (and you left out #6). While space quest 5 is great, and 2 is very nice, 4 is not all that interesting and 3 is mediocre at best.

Both Star Trek games are essentially a much longer and non parodic version of Space Quest 5, a game that is featured in the list. Both Star Trek games offer an epic storyline spreading over 7-8 episodes, have lot of freedom regarding moral choices and method to solve the puzzles, present a good mix of ship fighting and puzzle solving, the CD versions of both games feature the voice of the original TV series actors and the games have a computer database that react to nearly any characters, ships, species and star systems featured the original series.

Your "Star Trek in the title" argument apply to a lot of Sierra games with "Quest" in the title and the Sierra logo in the opening scene, I find it rather hypocritical that the Star Trek games, which are easily of higher quality than Space Quest 5, should simply be discarded from the list because, according to you, the main reason people play the Star Trek games is because of "Star Trek" in the title, yet Space Quest 5 and several other Sierra games aren't discarded for the same reason.

I am not questioning whether Space Quest 5 should be in this list or not as Space Quest 5 is easily one of the better game produced by Sierra, but to discard the Star Trek games yet keep Space Quest 5 in the list, when both are essentially the same in spirit and the Star Trek games are easily of better quality, is the equivalent of giving Spaceballs an oscar and Star Wars a razzie.

_{Edit: Complete syntax overhaul}

Do you think they belong in the first 50?  If so, I'm in for some fun!

I don't know if they belong in the first 50, but these are in par with all the games listed here, much better in several cases.

Are there more you all would consider on par with commercial games?

Hard to say. Commercial games had big teams, budget and could create projects of such proportions that only a handful of indies games can compete with. It doesn't means the indies one aren't great, but I find it very difficult to compare a great commercial adventure game that can last for 5 days with a great indie game that last 3 hours.

That being said, a similar list for indies games would increase their visibility and serve as a good tutorial to those who haven't heard of them yet. And if it include games made with any engine, such list would help indie adventure games players to discover great games they could have missed.

Nice first attempt, I will look forward the final result as I am constantly looking for suggestions of adventure games to play.

If I were you, I would ditch the positions, sort the games alphabetically and make it clear that these are "50 Adventure games you should play" and not a "Top-50 list", because if it's a Top-50 list, you'll spend all of your time adjusting the games' positions in the list instead of adding new games. I would also remove the indie adventure games from that list and compile another list just for them because there are enough great commercial games and great indie games to fill two lists.

Second, unless if you combine the several games and their sequels into one single entry named "The <insert game's name here> Series", remove all King's Quest games from that list except King's Quest 6 because there is easily much better adventure games out there to avoid occupying the empty slots with mediocre games like King's Quest. Escape From Monkey Island doesn't belong in such list too.

Also if Syberia is the pinacle of adventure games produced nowaday, then I suppose most adventure games produced nowaday aren't very good because Syberia is hardly worth playing.

I would also suggest that you play much more adventure games before compiling such list. The games present in this list are mostly from LucasArts, Sierra and Revolution. Where are the Coktel Vision and Legend Entertainment games and every other great adventure games produced by other insignificant companies, games like Gobliins 2, Discworld, Superhero League of Hoboken, Star Trek: Judgement Rites or Flight For An Amazon Queen? Even Myst isn't there.

Edit: Changed "to occupy" for "to avoid occupying"