[Daventry]

My favorite memories of adventure games are of me and my 2 brothers huddled around my Dad every night for 3 weeks as he made his way through King's Quest 5. We were his "logicians" giving him tips and advice whenever he got stuck.

The day my Dad came home from work and surprised us with a copy of King's Quest 6 was a very special day. Again we huddled around him every evening after school and chores, and journeyed through the green isles together.

My parents let me and my two brothers stay at home once when they went to visit my Grandmother for the weekend. I remember they rented a SegaCD and "The Secret of Monkey Island" from Blockbuster to keep us entertained and occupied while they were out of town. I think we called the Lucas Arts tip hotline every time we got stuck. Of course we weren't going to volunteer that information to our parents when they got back. My mother was stricken when they got the phone bill! Can you say grounded? LOL The game was awesome though so I guess it was worth it!

Daventry

"The spirit of adventure will never die!"

[FlightlessWings]

That's really sweet. My parents arn't into games, they're boring. I don't really have any memories like that...oh wait! Just remembered one! When I was young, me and my best friend put a tent up in the back garden, put a tv using extention cord with power from the greenhouse and we played on the N64 in the tent until the wee hours of the morning. That was fun. We used to play Zelda and 007. Hehe

[misslilo]

I can really point at one single incident I loved more than others back then

Back in the old DOS days, I was all alone being interested in adventure games and computers.

All alone I figured out how to get all those great games to run the best way possible - and what a thrill it was when I finally did it, lol.

I fondly remember all those late late nights fiddling with the autoexec.bat and config.sys etc....
Aahhh... and all the wonderful dos commands.

[inm8#2]

ahh, this could be a great thread . . .

i fondly remember playing the vga remake of king's quest 1 with my brothers

[AndreaDraco83]

I remember the long nights totally awake to finish Sins of the Fathers, and the ending where I actually cried . Then came The Beast Within where I desperately tried to save Von Glower, and then, I remember the four days marathon to finish Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, aided only by coffee, cigarettes and brains.

But I can also mention, on a more social note, the way me and a couple of friends of mine played together at Myst, one focusing on a particular world and then passing subtle and snotty hints at the others

But to me, adventure gaming had always a personal thing. I'm way too social in every other regard of my life, and to have a little nooks only for me feels nice

[Kazmajik]

Going way back, I remember the feeling when I got a new Infocom adventure game, and just that feeling of anticipation on opening the box, and then all the steps before I even started playing: formatting a couple of floppies, one for a copy of the game, the other for saves, getting pencil and paper together to make a map, and then going into those incredible worlds: Zork, Enchanter, Cutthroats, Wishbringer...

Then several years later, discovering all at the same time: King's Quest IV, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest. All the feeling revived and then some.

Some random moments: Finally getting Rosella to the top of that awful staircase, and listening to her play the organ. Putting the bridle on the unicorn. Sneaking past the Stygian witches. Coming out of Genesta's castle into the daylight.

Or, in Leisure Suit Larry 3, discovering that you can walk around wearing that ridiculous showgirl costume.

Most of my fondest memories are of playing the games with a couple of friends, having beer and snacks, and all of us trying out different solutions to problems, especially the text parser games, and laughing at the results of our silly commands. I loved the Gabriel Knight games so much that I had to play them again with other people, just to show them how amazing they are. I started out showing GK3 to a friend who was bored at first, not being into games much, and by the end she was as enthralled as I was the first time I played it.

Too many good memories to name.

[Squinky]

I enjoyed playing through my new DVD copy of Sam & Max: Season 2 last night.

[Akril]

I vaguely remember watching my dad playing LSL1 and 2, PQ1 and KQ3 in the early 90's. I replayed a lot of these games years later with my little sister, and when she and I were fooling around in KQ3, she started walking up to the black cat around and typing in "kick cat" over and over again. As she was retyping this for the sixth or seventh time, Manannan suddenly appeared and she frantically started deleting the command. Playing KQ7 for the first time was also a happy experience.

Myst was probably the first adventure game I actually played through on my own. I remember getting so excited when I raised the submerged bridge in Channelwood. There was also the time when I was mucking around Myst island, climbed one of the poles holding up the power cables and was surprised to hear a loud clunk instead of the usual unimpressive click when I pulled the switch at the top -- of course, nothing could have prepared me for the shock I got when I clicked on the spaceship's door and it hissed open. I remember this event pretty vividly because a family member was watching me do this.

[tastebud]

Those sound like some fun times Daventry. Unfortunately, my childhood memories aren't quite as jovial. Only with reluctance and dread do I look back to the times a blood stained chef with a butcher knife chased me around a mansion while I was wearing a pink ballerina dress. That's the stuff nightmares are made of.

[Daventry]

Beautiful memories all... uh, even yours Tastebud, if you're into that sort of thing!

Akril, the story of your sister trying to quickly eliminate the evidence of her pet abuse when Manannan showed up was hilarious.

I really want to have a Gabriel Knight marathon. In fact whenever I finish The longest Journey (it really is a pretty long journey), and Broken Sword 4, I think I just might.

FlightlessWings, playing Zelda and Goldeneye all night in a tent outside must have been AWESOME! I remember playing both those games when they came out. I remember wanting an N64 so bad when they first came out and how I had to wait because the stores were always out of stock. When I finally got it I was so excited that for the first year that I owned it I would place it and all it's accessories back in the box, (styrofoam and all), after every play session to keep it like new! (Sounds obsessive I know, but it was one of the first systems I was able to buy on my own after moving away from home.)

I love hearing these stories people. Keep 'em coming!

Daventry

"The spirit of adventure will never die!"

[LadyLinda]

Zork Nemesis. I remember the first time I started to play the game, I was in such awe as to the visual environment. I spent many a day just roaming around looking at everything.

Grim Fandango. I was so caught up in the story and the characters that I cried at certain points and particularly at the end.

[Giligan]

My fondest game memory would be getting Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for my birthday. My fondest adventure game memory... I've got to say that that would be when I played Monkey Island 4 for the first time, couldn't figure out how to untie Guybrush from the mast, and gave up for a month. About then, it occured to someone to check a walkthrough, and so I when I played through all the Monkey Island games, I had a printed walkthrough firmly in hand all the way.

[rtrooney]

Fondest memories was when the GAMERS forum was alive and kicking at compuserve.com.

Sierra was the king of the hill. And every designer, Al, Josh, Jane, Roberta et al felt obligated to put in an appearance every now and then.

We had a chance to actually "talk" with the people that made the games we wanted to play.

That doesn't seem to be an option anymore.

Think Gatorlaw tried to do something similar in this venue. Must not have worked out.

[noelbruton]

Playing '7th Guest' for the first time. "What? Good grief! Computers can do THIS nowadays??? I thought they were just for running Lotus123..."

Cheers

Noel
Arberth Studios (game developer, 'Rhiannon')

[Daventry]

Ahhh yes, 7th Guest. I still remember walking through stores like CompUSA and really any place that had demo PC's out on the shelves. They all seemed to have 7th Guest playing on them for customers to try out. I would wander over and play the demo while my parents shopped. LOL. Wanted that game bad.

Daventry

"The spirit of adventure will never die!"

[Lasus]

I started playing adventure games when they were all text (Infocom forever).

My first graphical adventure was "Mystery House". It was just line drawings but it was amazing for its time.

I worked at the game until I finally got to the telescope in a tree at the end of a maze and saw the trapdoor to the attic. So full of pride I went back to open the door and discover who was the killer.

However the door was locked !!!! I kept going over all steps of the game trying to find a key. I was about to give up when I looked in the hole where a candle had burned the rug and there was the key.

Since then I have played many adventure games but finding that key was the best memory I have.

[cwapitm]

I too used to sit and watch my dad play adventure games. We'd work together to try to figure out the puzzles. The internet was very new at the time and there were no walkthroughs. I remember when we got especially stuck we found that some people posted questions asking for hints on particular puzzles. I believe this was on Prodigy because that's what we had. Sometimes it would take days to get an answer. So, we managed to get through games that way.

I also specifically remember my dad doing narration for games and he voiced what the characters were saying. I remember him doing it for SQV and KQVI before I got the talkie version.

Now it seems like today my dad has no patience for these sorts of games, and all he wants to play is FPS or his flight simulator game. So, I miss those fun times we had.

There are certain scenes from adventure games I'll never forget, like the cannibals from Monkey Island and the skeleton dance from KQVI.

I've also had the joy of being able to experience certain old classics for the first time recently, like Broken Sword, Grim Fandango, and Full Throttle. I knew right from the opening sequences that they would be wonderful games.

[gatherer3]

Good memories:
1. The Dagger of Amon-Ra while eating mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. This was my first graphical adventure and I got so scared when the Nazi character walked towards Laura Bow that I shut off the power to the power strip in a panic. (totally screwed up the game, by the way!)
2. Watching the cutscene of Gabriel Knight's motorcycle - the thrill of a blood streaked "Day 3" across the screen, the poem verses. It gave me such a sense of accomplishment!
3. The first memory of playing Hitchiker's Guide from Infocom at my friend's house as the snow was falling. I thank him for giving me the introduction to the best hobby around.

Playing my first ever 'proper' adventure game, Discworld on the playstation in 1995. What a game! People always complained that puzzle solutions were too obscure, like combining a ladder with a stocking or something similar. I actually love obscure things like that, and of course, the humour in it was great.

Other games that I will never forget as classics I loved, in no particular order:

The legend of zelda on the nintendo master system.
Another World on the mega drive.
Flashback on the mega drive.
Super Mario on the nintendo master system.
Doom on the playstation

Zork Nemesis
Zork Grand Inquisitor.

[Gledster]

This is an AWESOME thread. Thanks for creating it.

My best adventure game memories are all connected with my Dad. He used to own his own small computer business and on the holidays I'd spend a day or two at his office. To keep me amused he occasionally treated me to a game (as it used to take me AGES to complete them it was actually quite a cheap way of keeping me entertained).

When he didn't have much on he'd help me through them as well. I remember playing Space Quest 1 and 2 at his office with him reminding me to "Examine" everything . He knew how games worked! We both actually felt a sense of accomplishment towards the end.

This continued through the release of Monkey Island 1 and I too was caught and punished for ringing the 0898 hint line. Ooops. It DID get me past the cannibals though.

I also remember my Dad coming home after a LONG day at work only to have me nag him to clean 14Mb of space on out 21Mb hard disk so I could play Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender. Heee.

I could go on but I'd best stop.