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I beat Lenna's Inception! And by that I mean I got the ultra-bad ending where I didn't blow on the cartridge and died instantly, lol. I went and watched the other endings afterward Generally I enjoyed my time with it, though it kinda overstayed its welcome -- maybe it was also knowing that the next game was on the docket, but with the 8th dungeon, I basically understood its gimmick, got 90% of the way, then after an hour felt frustrated enough when I wasn't making progress that I looked up how to clear it. It was cool to use the glasses to wrap around, but it felt kind of finicky in a bad way that it seemed to also require exploiting the one-tile drag scrolling, which seemed just a bit too much for me.... As I mentioned previously, the glitchy aesthetic of the last part of the game was a bit of a headache so that was also pretty much a driver to just push through. I also have to nitpick the clunkiness in selecting and using items in a Zelda-like game where you might want to try a variety of tools but have to keep going to the menu... For the story and end so I definitely called the Undertale-like narrative going on. To me, the disparate parts - morality/pacifism, metafiction with game data, etc., didn't necessarily hang together in the most cohesive ways, and it felt like a contrivance that it basically requires a second playthrough for the good ending. Even though I had issues with the macro-level stuff, I think there's enough on the micro level to appreciate -- the character work with Lenna and Paige particularly was quite fun and if you enjoy puns, this'll deliver. I enjoyed the experience overall though and I hope more people do this game club!
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Jul 8, 2020 08:13
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:I basically understood its gimmick, got 90% of the way, then after an hour felt frustrated enough when I wasn't making progress that I looked up how to clear it. That was a little bit more perseverance than I managed! I set it down there and haven't come back yet. I did enjoy my time with it, but don't feel particularly inspired to hit the random button and go again.
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Jul 8, 2020 08:55
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One thing I do want to reiterate is how much of a bop the whole soundtrack is, and having both 8-bit and 32-bit versions of the entire thing is just a cool deal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbkrhkBJ9dQ
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Jul 8, 2020 10:23
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ok so the game for the next two weeks is Pikuniku so go nuts about it I'll update the second post with links to the start of each games discussion
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Jul 9, 2020 00:21
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I loving love the pikuniku soundtrack
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Jul 9, 2020 00:45
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Anything to know about Pikuniku before going in? Edit: ok got it. Also I immediately respect a game that features DS4 prompts on the PC 
CharlieFoxtrot fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 06:06
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Free money is basically everything you need to know
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Jul 10, 2020 06:26
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Anything to know about Pikuniku before going in? I'd buy that for a dollar? I guess I get my money back by pushing the triangle button????
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Jul 10, 2020 09:10
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Greetings friends and posters! You may have noticed I've done a poor job stewarding this thread so far, so I'm going to change it up some. I think that my original plan was not really realistic with how people game and post around here, so here is my new idea: Rather than a game every two weeks, I'm going to pick (or we can vote or w/e) a theme or genre for a month or so and everyone can post about that. Play or replay games if you want or just talk about stuff you've already played. I think going bigger for longer will give a lot more breathing room for conversation, and it will be less to manage and less stress to finish things in a small amount of time. For this first month (11/24 to the endish of December) I'm going to go ahead and pick adventure games. Further, I'll nudge it toward the Lucasarts style and their progeny, though if you want to talk about the lesser Sierra games I won't try and stop you. A brief thought to get things rolling: I've been thinking about Loom a lot recently, and I really need to replay it soon because so much of the imagery has stuck in my head since I played it as a kid. It's a shame we never got any of the sequels to it, I would have loved to see more of this world. I didn't realize it until well into adulthood but I was an extremely anxious kid who loved video games, so sometimes stuff like Doom was just too much. I appreciated adventure games like these because they sometimes gave the illusion of hostility or dangers but I knew that nothing bad could happen to me so even at my most dire I still could play these. Also here is some real cool unused poo poo from Monkey Island that just came out: https://gamehistory.org/monkeyisland/
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Nov 25, 2020 03:21
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I am all for this and I think I am going to play some Wadjet Eye games, maybe starting with The Shivah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EN6eVFspKw
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Nov 25, 2020 19:07
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Cool, bookmarked
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Nov 25, 2020 19:20
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I love veegees (video games)
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Nov 25, 2020 19:21
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Hey so, coincidentally, I just finished playing an adventure game about a week ago: Bad Mojo! It's a bizarre FMV game about a scumbag scientist who's in the midst of embezzling a whole bunch of money when he gets turned into a roach through the power of a magical amulet. He then needs to adventure through multiple rooms of a bar/apartment to make his way back to the amulet to become human again. I don't think this game is a popular one, and probably the reason why is that it's incredibly disgusting. The building you're in is not maintained like, at all, and there's tons infestations, food spilled all over the place, paint, grease, and grime just all over the place. I think it's partially to make the game more visually interesting, but it's also used to block off where you can go by leaving large seas of grease and paint that you can't travel. What most impresses me about the game though, is the sense of environment. It's a game where you're playing a roach across 2D screens from a top down view, but it conveys the idea of a 3D environment impressively well. As a cockroach you aren't really confined to the floor, and frequently you'll climb up a table leg to the underside of a table, to the top of the table, and up the wall. you'll frequently get camera angles that show the rest of the room from a high vantage point, and you can very frequently make your way across the entire room to get there. I'm sure part of this is that being an FMV game, they didn't have to meticulously construct an environment out of nothing; they set up one filthy room, and then take a bunch of pictures that serve as the individual screens. The game's plot also revolves around the environment; as a roach you don't really have an inventory, but you'll crawl over a whole bunch of newspapers, faxes, and personal effects that reveal the general backstory of you and your landlord. Probably where the game fails most is in puzzles, though it's pretty decent for the most part. Again, you're a roach, so the most you can actually do is push objects around. One early game puzzle, for example, has you push a cigarette butt into a spider web to burn the spider living there so you can pass. A lot of the time these are pretty simple or easy enough to figure out, and you also frequently get hints through a dead lady who possesses random animals to give you prophetic clues. There were just a few spots here and there where I had an idea of what I needed to do, but the hotspot for actually being able to do it was small enough that I completely missed it and wandered around clueless for a bit. There's also one puzzle right near the end of the game that's complete bullshit; you have a place where you need to input a number, and another spot where you can find that number, but they're not related at all. It's like if you needed to find and input a computer password, but get the password from a random newspaper article. All in all though, I had a lot of fun with this one. It's bizarre and unique, and frankly I love FMV games. There's just something about the acting in them that's so memorable.
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Nov 25, 2020 19:54
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FMV is so cool and I wish it was a bit less niche. FMV and disgusting are both on my list of possible topic ideas!
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Nov 25, 2020 20:20
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Gonna take advantage of the intersection of this and the Steam Sale (Hades is not an adventure game btw)
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Nov 25, 2020 20:26
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I'm nearing the end of Roki and I have to recommend it 100% for whatever price you can get it. It was made by two former Guerrilla Games staff and I went in expecting something more narrative focused but it's an honest to god Monkey Island 2 scale inventory based adventure game on top of being absolutely gorgeous.
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Nov 25, 2020 20:37
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I thought it might be of interest to other people, so I checked what is available on PC Gamepass that might fit here. There are probably some edge cases I've excluded but these seem to be relevant ones: Machinarium Grim Fandango Remastered Day of the Tentacle Remastered Full Throttle Remastered Kathy Rain Oxenfree Night in the Woods
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Nov 26, 2020 04:56
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I didn't love oxenfree. It's not a bad game, and not too long so it's not a big list to try it. It kept coming close to something I'd really love but I guess it didn't sell any part enough for me.
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Nov 26, 2020 05:11
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Relax Or DIE posted:I didn't realize it until well into adulthood but I was an extremely anxious kid who loved video games, so sometimes stuff like Doom was just too much. I appreciated adventure games like these because they sometimes gave the illusion of hostility or dangers but I knew that nothing bad could happen to me so even at my most dire I still could play these. I can totally relate (except stuff like original doom still is too much sometimes). That kind of "non-aggressiveness" sorta disappeared from games for a while I think till indies reminded us that games don't have to be about sticks.
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Nov 26, 2020 05:22
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Im in. My excuse to play Full Throttle
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Nov 26, 2020 06:11
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I never played Grim Fandango before. I mostly made it to the timeskip without having to use a hint file, but I was never going to guess exactly what they wanted me to do with the fire beavers. Now I'm trying to get my next set of plot coupons to get on the boat. So far I love the dialog and the world is amazing. The game itself is... not as good. Still fun, don't get me wrong. The puzzles have a bit of moon logic, but thehre honestly quite solid overall. The real annoyance is that I can't repeat most of the dialog hints. I've accidently clicked through a few pieces of dialog, and I just want to be able to repeat it.
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Nov 26, 2020 07:12
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Because of the sale I'm going back and finally cleaning up all my unredeemed Humble keys. I have found at least one point and click adventure game so I have to make a note of it here lol (from June 2018 if that is helpful to people) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CewTYloQSt0 Edit: oh man another one (from the January 2019 bundle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_hcj9CC0is I could also play Chapter Three of The Journey Down but not the previous ones? (May 2019 bundle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NCv7eqOc8c Oh wow these are popular games in these bundles, how did I miss all of these State of Mind (September 2019 bundle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD4xH_606vg 11-11 Memories Retold (November 2019 Bundle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szaxxU6j3D8 Whispers of a Machine (January 2020 bundle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D4ZMe6AtQk Truberbrook (April 2020 bundle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV0_ZN6HNzQ CharlieFoxtrot fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Nov 26, 2020 |
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Nov 26, 2020 08:03
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Barudak posted:Im in. My excuse to play Full Throttle I was going to finally play Primordia but maybe I'll play this instead....
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Nov 26, 2020 08:07
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If you are a current Humble Choice subscriber, you have access to these adventure games: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Deponia Chaos on Deponia Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars: Director's Cut Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror: Remastered Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon Broken Sword 4: The Angel of Death Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse The Whispered World Special Edition Tiny Echo Anna's Quest
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Nov 26, 2020 08:30
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Ok, Full Throttle First things first; pixel art is rough in this day and age but the "new graphics" is that ugly looks like painted thing and it just doesn't work for me. I dunno. Maybe it'll grow on me as I progress. The second thing is the timing of the first achievement popping up is :chef's kiss:
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Nov 26, 2020 15:05
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Full Throttle According to the save file Im 33% done so wow this is a short game. Its also so much a mess I kind of need to talk about two separate but colliding issues that have made this a bit clunkier than I‘d want. . Issue 1: Its an old game, I get that. Its clearly near the end of the "dumb cursor" era, so you only have four verbs to work with but it still sucks. Contextual/smart cursors are a gol-darn revelation when you try playing a game this way. I know it cuts down on ambient writing but honestly, I don't care when Im fumbling through figuring out what Im supposed to do. A very petty example is early on you need to use the "mouth" verb to solve a puzzle because, yes, you use your mouth to do the action but that verb is for talking otherwise and also to get to that point youve clearly already solved the puzzle so its just weird "verb me daddy" to solve the puzzle. Issue 2: The update sort of updates your controls. But only when you are in the modern graphics options. If you're in classic, you can't access the updated controls so if you want to play original graphics with update controls you're just flipping back and forth between the two constantly. They also added a critically needed feature for consoles to instantly move your cursor between hotspots exceeeeept movement hotspots don't count. It also gets "stuck" leading you to believe you've seen all a screen has to offer when you haven't. This meant I missed an item in one area because I didn't know it was interactable and got stuck on another screen because I didn't know I could go another way. In modern mode you can push a button to show all the interactables on screen which is great because I was stuck on a puzzle trying to figure out where the hell I needed to go because a background object you can't otherwise do anything with is needed to interact with. This is lovely, except again, how to move between screens isn't highlighted so I still got stuck like a fool. Issue 3: Tim Schafer loving loves throwing a secondary gameplay that sucks and is uneeded into his game. Thanks for the nonsense combat, my dude! Issue 4: the update graphics are really ugly in some places and made by a confused person. The dirt ditch and then hill on the other side where the farmland starts you see on the side of highways across america is rendered as a wall of rocks on both sides of the highway in HD mode. Voice Acting is perfection though and the plot is fun and stupid.
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Nov 27, 2020 03:52
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Full Throttle Ok, Tim, please. Please stop. Never again mix genres, just don't its not working for you. This game was PC Gaming's Game of the Month??? 86 aggregate score? I was alive and gaming in 1995 and this wouldn't have been ok! Instead of getting more worked up about that I want to talk about the story, or, how its kind of a mess. Like don't get me wrong it works fine in broad strokes and such but the character of Maureen/Mo just whiplashes around it feels like there was a massive re-write between the first zone of the game and the rest of it. Its honestly been really jarring and Ive only got 30% of the game left so I dunno if it'll really address that ever. Dialog is fantastic in the optional bits, which is a little annoying since they're easily missed, but overall this extremely basic story has enough charm in it to keep me going and finish this off.
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Nov 27, 2020 16:45
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A lot of the messiness of Full Throttle comes from a chaotic era of LucasArts. Despite being a critical success Monkey Island wasn’t a hit and MI2 probably the worst performing game by Gilbert’s description that caused a change in the company from “don’t lose us money” to “Star Wars is making all the money, do that.” Full Throttle was hated by the execs so the concept was retooled over and over to basically become a cut down action-FMV adventure. It sold so well that the company greenlit two sequels, both character action games, but adventure games “died” in the late 90s and they moved to all Star Wars.
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Nov 27, 2020 19:12
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This sold really well? What? The executive meddling makes a lot more sense to explain why there is a terrible attempt at roadrash thrown into it. Im not trying to be rude but this is a huge mess of a game and not in the "they bit off more than they could chew lets see a sequel" kind of way. I totally get that the aesthetic is really different from the average anything and I really do dig that (and some of the music is fantastic) but I am clearly way out of line with the tastes of 1995 gamer. This game is basically I think affirming I like the visual novel style of adventure game a lot more than this.
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Nov 28, 2020 00:12
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I played through the first act of Primordia and I like the setting and story so far, but the adventure game part seems just kind of...there. I suppose it does tie in decently well to the characters being trash-pickers but I felt like I ended up with a lot of vaguely similar electronic parts in my inventory. I haven't gotten suck outside of one time I didn't realize there was a screen transition in certain place, though.
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Nov 28, 2020 00:20
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Doing this month's club I feel like poorly conveyed screen transitions are a solid 50% of old adventure games difficulty
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Nov 28, 2020 00:38
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I can't disagree, so topical question: What adventure game puzzle got you stuck for the longest? I think as a kid I was stuck on the whole loogie contest thing in Monkey Island 2 for months
Red Alert 2 Yuris Revenge fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Nov 28, 2020 |
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Nov 28, 2020 00:58
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I’ve been playing (and am about to give up on) Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, a 1997 Japanese adventure game that only got an official English release this year. It’s ~weird~ and ~zany~, with mismatched art styles (Monty Python-looking claymation characters standing next to Golden Sun-looking ones, for example) and lots of non sequiturs. And it’s hard to explain. You play as a kid who gets sucked into a video game RPG, wherein you can only stay awake for a certain amount of time before getting a game over. Your goal is to repair the RPG “hero”’s genocidal thirst for experience points by finding the creatures he’s slain, reading a short paragraph about them, and then using that paragraph to figure out where their “soul” might be hiding. You gain “Love” for reuniting the souls with their bodies, which you use to level up and increase the amount of time you can explore before having to return to a bed. It’s got Undertale DNA for sure (the Wikipedia says that it was a Toby Fox who convinced the devs to finally release it in the West) It’s good, it’s interesting, it’s often inscrutable. Here’s an example of a puzzle: In the pawnbroker’s shop, we find this animal’s corpse.  To get his spirit to appear, we... wait until evening, when the pawnbroker apparently drops down into his room for a quick smoke? 
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Nov 28, 2020 01:57
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Barudak posted:This sold really well? What? The executive meddling makes a lot more sense to explain why there is a terrible attempt at roadrash thrown into it. 1.5 million copies which is for real like more than every LA adventure game before it combined and probably the best selling point and click adventure game of the 90s if you don’t count Myst. And Brøderbund/humongous, like Pajama Sam ate everyone’s lunch. And I agree, I love these old games for how economical and interesting they are with limited resources but I never hesitate to flip open a guide when I’m stuck which usually came down to obfuscating information more than a puzzle actually being obtuse. Leading to the question, the hardest “puzzles” were always figuring out there was a screen transition which ends up getting hidden in the background. Happened multiple times in Sam and Max when the screen won’t scroll until you’re like near the absolute edge but graphically the room looks like a single screen. I’ve even encountered this in modern 2D adventure games it’s so annoying!
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Nov 28, 2020 02:10
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That you can go back to your crashed plane in Hugo 3 at the start and that its full of stuff stumped me for so so long. In hindsight very stupid but at the same time it cutscene makes you leave that area and impresses on you an urgent search the next screen over which triggers a point of no return so, you know, not totally stupid. I got stuck in Myst trying to enter the rocketship world because I played most of the time with the sound off and couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I actually just brute forced the room with the green book, came back the next morning and turned on the sound to hear the dialog, and beat the game that way and got the true ending purely because I couldn't get the last red and blue pages. Sam and Max constantly crushed me with the screen transition thing. I remember just abandoning all pretense really early on of playing for myself and just leaving a guide open. In this play through of Full Throttle I got stuck at figuring out there was a screen transition to the crane control room and its unmarked by both the " snap to interactable areas" and "highlight things to interact" buttons. Nearly got stone walled immediately after because you can't go back to the dumpster in the first area the same way you did the first time. Later I gave up on playing blind due to the fertilizer truck puzzle because a) that doesnt make sense why what you need to do needs to be done b) what you do makes no physical logic Edit: Laffo the final puzzle in Full Throttle is walk left to scroll the screen to reveal the thing you need to interact with, walking in any other direction kills you. Barudak fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Nov 28, 2020 |
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Nov 28, 2020 05:03
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By technicality the adventure game 'puzzle' that stumped me the longest was getting passed the awful awful combat sequence in the Lure of the Temptress. It basically took 15-20 years to pass for GOG to give it away for free at a point where I wasn't a flailing idiot child. See halfway down this LP update for an appropriate amount of disdain for it: https://lparchive.org/Lure-of-the-Temptress/Update%2014/ It's a good game other than that. I remember being super wowed by the fact some NPCs would wander around independently of you and some puzzles involve enlisting other characters who'd follow you about too. If you have it languishing in your GOG account and have a stomach for the old school I'd give it a shot.
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Nov 28, 2020 09:50
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Jay Rust posted:I’ve been playing (and am about to give up on) Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, a 1997 Japanese adventure game that only got an official English release this year. It’s ~weird~ and ~zany~, with mismatched art styles (Monty Python-looking claymation characters standing next to Golden Sun-looking ones, for example) and lots of non sequiturs. And it’s hard to explain. I only needed a guide for a couple of spots, I didn't realize the shopkeeper sold stuff in his room at night, for example. but i think the game is best when you just wander around and discover stuff. it was really cool when i was in the scientist's lab and i tapped by a vacuum hose mouth and suddenly i found an entirely new area of the game e: you'll definitely want a guide for the rocket parts, make no mistake about that The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Nov 29, 2020 |
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Nov 29, 2020 06:34
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Full Throttle Well I got all the achievements but not sure if thats as much an endorsement of the game so much as its brevity. In all honesty I liked it, but its kind of coasting on its voice acting, [a e s t h e t i c], sound design, and relative ease. Its got such a jumbled mess of half-baked stuff like the entire "open world" section, having a dedicated kick verb, and the absolutely god awful demolition derby portion. It weirdly reminds me a bit of freddi fish (favorite adventure game from the era, lets fight) in so far as realizing simplicity helps a lot, but not as good. Something I will say I love is the developer commentary included on it as that was a really fascinating and fun way to play as well. If you like the game Id really recommend it as its quite insightful and surprising how much they remembered. It made when I had to go back and complete some loose achievements quite fun. Not sure which one on the list to play next.
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Nov 29, 2020 06:47
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Barudak posted:It weirdly reminds me a bit of freddi fish (favorite adventure game from the era, lets fight) in so far as realizing simplicity helps a lot, but not as good. Well let me tell you about this game called Tsioque! It's styled after the Humongous games like Pajama Sam and Freddi Fish where it's about half one-screen puzzles, half-inventory puzzles, and heavy on cinematics and little microgames. It's a more challenging both because it's very minimalist in its approach to dialog and hints but also the good ol' "obfuscate screen transitions" issue but I found the puzzles genuinely clever and it's over in about three hours. If you have Humble monthly it's part of this month's package.
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Nov 29, 2020 15:32
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That looks wonderful, definitely putting that on a list to play whenever I own a computer again. I think Im going to fire up Grim Fandango and try and finish it this month as well since I got destroyed by the ticket booth transition screen as a kid. I will be playing open guide though, sorry not sorry.
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Nov 29, 2020 15:40
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