[chapter11studios]

Emily- very entertaining article. It really rings true, too. I had a similar experience playing the first 2/3 of Syberia at my family's cabin in the middle of the woods in Maine, then finishing it at home literally 2-3 months later (with online hints). It's amazing what all the other distractions will do.

[Two birds]

Same here. Excellent beginning, had me all grins, then the end was sad and kind of depressing, thinking, "It's so true!"

Over the course of a week this summer, I played 1893: A World's Fair Mystery at a beachhouse. It was a lot of fun.

Perhaps we should form an adventure gamer's summer retreat. Any hints you get you have to cajole other players into giving you.

[Jake]

This article is great! I miss playing adventuers in a vacuum. Or near as possible at least. Monkey Island 2 was the first adventure game that I played (well, liked enough to play for more than a couple days), and it took months for me to get through it. Even with my friends all playing their copies along with me at their houses. A couple weeks in one friend finally broke down and called the LucasArts 900 number hint line, only to discover to his dismay that my brother solved the puzzle back at our house (putting the rat in the soup) while he was on the phone.

I miss those times but I never have enough time for them anymore. Any adventure game I play, with very few exceptions, I play with a walkthrough only a step or two from basically sitting in my lap. I want to solve some stuff on my own, because it's fun, but if I ever get really stuck I can't be bothered at this point - I just need to beat the game and see what happens. That's better than putting two weeks of my evening-time into it only to get so with the thing that I have to put it aside and never complete it. What a waste.

[fov]

I'm so glad others can relate! I was thinking I might be the only freak with this problem.

I sometimes say I'm not going to play a game without any hints, and then when I get stuck I just turn it off and "give it time" -- which is surely how I handled getting stuck ten years ago. The problem is I often don't turn it back on, or when I do, it's been so long and I have so many other things going on that I forget what the storyline is. I have been *this* close to finishing Broken Sword 2 for months and months, and don't feel like it because I can't remember why I'm wandering around in that temple...

I will be bringing my laptop home with me for Christmas... maybe I'll load up MI2.

-emily

[prodigal_son]

Hey everybody! Long-time reader, first-time poster, you know the drill.

I have to say, this article was great, very good job Emily. It brings back a sense of nostalgia for the good old days, when I used to spend ridiculous amounts of time solving crazy puzzles on my own. But it felt so satisfying, didn't it? Too bad life keeps getting in the way now, like you said.

I remember the first adventure game I ever played was Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, back when I didn't even know what the internet or a "walkthrough" was. No wait, that's a bad example, because I actually put that game away because I couldn't figure out how to get the robot to open the bloody door in Atlantis. I had to go into a library to go online (and this was about two years later) to look at a walkthrough! But I did GET to Atlantis on my own, that counts for something, right?

-Mark

[Mattsius]

Great article, Emily. I wish I had a laptop so that I could escape everything like that.

Originally Posted by Jake

I miss those times but I never have enough time for them anymore. Any adventure game I play, with very few exceptions, I play with a walkthrough only a step or two from basically sitting in my lap. I want to solve some stuff on my own, because it's fun, but if I ever get really stuck I can't be bothered at this point - I just need to beat the game and see what happens. That's better than putting two weeks of my evening-time into it only to get so with the thing that I have to put it aside and never complete it. What a waste.

Sadly, I can relate.

[fov]

Originally Posted by Mattsius

Great article, Emily. I wish I had a laptop so that I could escape everything like that.

You could just <gasp> unplug your internet connection!

.........Nahhh. Who'd do a silly thing like that?

Hey Mark! Welcome to the forum!

emily

[Mattsius]

Originally Posted by fov

You could just <gasp> unplug your internet connection!

<gasp indeed> Don't say that. Better yet, don't even think that! What if it doesn't work when I plug it back in afterwards? What if my firewall wants to pull down a very important security update and can't when I've unplugged it? What if a hacker uses that security flaw to immediately take control of my computer when I get back online? What if small green men come to abduct me and I can't call for help?

[rio]

I really enjoyed the article too and its just too true. But what I really want to know is, did you find the Sierra easter egg? I've always wanted to hear a Sierra junkies reaction to that.

[fov]

You mean the one up on the ledge? I did find it, and enjoyed it very much.

[Mattsius]

Originally Posted by rio

I really enjoyed the article too and its just too true. But what I really want to know is, did you find the Sierra easter egg? I've always wanted to hear a Sierra junkies reaction to that.

I hope she did. That's like the best easter egg ever!

EDIT: Okay, scrap that.

[rio]

Yeah the first time I played it I hadn't yet played any Sierra games but a year or so later after I had wet my feet in Sierra I was reminiscing about TSOMI (probably during school, not sure) and laughed out loud after I finally made the connection. I got a lot of glares for that, but it was worth it.

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by Mattsius

<gasp indeed> Don't say that. Better yet, don't even think that! What if it doesn't work when I plug it back in afterwards? What if my firewall wants to pull down a very important security update and can't when I've unplugged it? What if a hacker uses that security flaw to immediately take control of my computer when I get back online? What if small green men come to abduct me and I can't call for help?

Hey, you've learned how to be paranoid... from me!

[Mattsius]

Originally Posted by deadworm222

Hey, you've learned how to be paranoid... from me!

You're a bad influence.

[EasilyConfused]

Great article, Emily. Really well written and interesting--and an unusual approach. (I was expecting the really stuffy "X years on, is MI as good as we once thought it was? Yes and no.") Also I was thought it was cool that you were honest enough to admit that after "resorting" to the WT you didn't feel bad, you felt like, why didn't I look at this hours ago? Anyway, mucho fun.

[fov]

Originally Posted by EasilyConfused

(I was expecting the really stuffy "X years on, is MI as good as we once thought it was? Yes and no.")

I think "stuffy AG article" is an oxymoron.

[EasilyConfused]

Originally Posted by fov

I think "stuffy AG article" is an oxymoron.

On this site it is.

As for some places, if you can't say anything nice . . .

[LauraMac]

I enjoyed that article so much...Sigh. I remember those days too, I have journals clogged with diagrams - pictures - notes to prove it. Now it's scraps of paper at best.

I did play DF 2 in a hotel room over looking London rooftops and nothing else really to do but play away on a laptop. It was bliss. It definitely is the distractions and way other activities have chewed up any bit of free time over the last 4 years. Definitely my patence level has shrunk with my available time. Damn this sux.

Ohh and Nice picture - ya cutie

[Marian]

Hi Emily,

I enjoyed your article too. I had a lot more patience with games in the "olden days"---looking back, it was really because I had no choice to be anything but. Those were the days when the internet and walkthroughs were nonexistent, and only a very few companies had a hint line (and those few calls I did make sometimes ended up costing a bundle). When I look back on it now, those games were a lot more satisfying for having solved them (largely) on my own.

Sometimes I ask myself why I can't go back and play games the way I used to, with a kind of patience and determination that I lack a lot of the time now. It's just too darn easy to give up after a few minutes of stuckness and resort to a walkthrough. Nothing wrong with doing that, but I do feel that I have gotten less out of some of the more recent games because I didn't really try that hard to solve something on my own. It's also probably because back then, adventure games were few and far between, and each one was just more appreciated by me for being something of an infrequent occurrence. So, it's also partly a problem of being jaded, I suppose. And thinking that I need to finish one up so I can get on with the rest.

Oh, well! So much for the trip down memory lane. Years ago my now ex-husband and our family rented a houseboat for a week on Lake Shasta. Hadn't thought about that until I saw your pictures.

[scout]

I was organzing my office the other day and found a bulging folder full of game notes. Hundreds of pages of notes. As I thumbed through them I couldn't believe how thorough I used to be. Like Laura, now it's a couple of teeny post-its if I'm lucky. I just can't be bothered to map out whole areas, draw pictogram after pictogram, keep lists, check them twice. I think gamers just reach a saturation after a while and get too overloaded to create yet another 30 page opus of notes.

In-game journals forever!!!

Cool article, Emily.