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The “Casual” tag on the Steam page.

     
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dumbeur - 17 May 2018 04:18 PM

The “Casual” tag on the Steam page.

I wouldn’t worry about that. Other games like Machinarium, Syberia, Myst(!) also have “Casual” tags.

     
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Oscar - 17 May 2018 09:10 PM
dumbeur - 17 May 2018 04:18 PM

The “Casual” tag on the Steam page.

I wouldn’t worry about that. Other games like Machinarium, Syberia, Myst(!) also have “Casual” tags.

And as for which games have the ‘Adventure’ tag…

Oh well. At least there’s now a ‘Point&Click;’ tag that’s more helpful. Mostly.

     
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Oscar - 17 May 2018 09:10 PM
dumbeur - 17 May 2018 04:18 PM

The “Casual” tag on the Steam page.

I wouldn’t worry about that. Other games like Machinarium, Syberia, Myst(!) also have “Casual” tags.

Yeah, maybe because Atrus had his casual dress on from the start.

     
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Well, I was going to be a little harsher on Darkside Detective until I noticed that tag, due to the simplicity of the puzzles, so in that way, I think the crowd-sourced tagging may have worked this time.

But I agree, Myst being listed as a “Casual” means at the very least they miss the mark by quite a distance sometimes.

It does raise a question though, that has likely been asked and answered on here before:  what makes a game casual?

     
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TimeQuest

Back in the early 80s, Roberta Williams created an illustrated text adventure for the Apple II called Time Zone. The premise was simple: a time machine lets you visit a series of locations on Earth at various points throughout history—so that you can collect lots of items and solve lots of puzzles. There’s something naturally appealing about the notion of moving through time and space, interacting with historical figures, and bending time to, say, steal perfume from Catherine the Great to give it to Cleopatra. But the game was also overwhelming, with too many locations mostly full of empty screens, and dragged down by dubious logic, countless dead-ends, and an unclear end-goal. Frankly, it was a pretty bad game.

Released a decade later by Legend Entertainment, TimeQuest could have had the tag-line “Time Zone—But what if it didn’t suck?”. And while it has its share of flaws, it’s a pretty enjoyable game.

The premise is very similar: 6 locations, 9 dates, and lots of famous historical events—10 of which have been tampered with by an evil time traveller (whose master plan never makes much sense). While having to visit all 54 combinations might seem overwhelming, the game keeps things manageable in several ways. First, you always visit the exact same 6 locations at different time periods, and so the layout stays similar, while giving you the pleasure of seeing them slowly evolve throughout history. Second, many time/locations have entirely self-contained puzzles, letting you feel like you’re done with them and can check them off the list.

Still, it’s definitely a game for people who like taking notes (I ended up with four full pages). There’s a joy in that, as you slowly fill out the grid of available times and locations, and begin to see patterns and connections emerge. One of my favourites puzzles was figuring out what the deal was with all those messages our nemesis left throughout history.

TimeQuest is however not without flaws, the biggest of which (beyond a handful of dubious puzzles) is the disgusting amounts of dead-ends. Between the items you can miss and never get back, and the fact that time passes with every action you take (until it’s too late to avert the event you’re trying to change), you’re constantly saving and restoring, hoping you didn’t screw anything up, especially around the ten major events you’re trying to correct.

To be honest, it’s almost always clear when you’ve screwed up and should restore (the game doesn’t feel like it’s actively trying to trick you into a dead-end), but it’s still annoying and takes a toll after a while. One long puzzle chain (involving the crown of Charlemagne) which intertwines two major events in wacky ways should have been one of the game’s highlights, but instead ends up feeling frustrating and unpleasant because you’re save-scumming so much and constantly afraid of getting punished for experimenting—which is the exact opposite of what you should be feeling when playing an adventure game. And frankly, what’s the point of having a time machine if you don’t get infinite do-overs?

Overall, I enjoyed TimeQuest. I’m glad I played it, over a quarter-of-a-century after its release. But I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone; the execution doesn’t fully live up to the premise’s fun. I wish someone would set out to make “Time Zone or TimeQuest—But what if it was really great this time?”

3/5

     

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Last finished game : OneShot.

It’s very retro (best played in windowed mode, apparently), but still has a pretty nice style.
There’s a kind of quiet dispair, or perhaps a kind of nostalgia, permeating the story and characters, which makes it very immersive and sweet, and the gameplay is pretty slick, with some very clever ideas. It’s also quite short.

In case anyone’s wondering, there’s absolutely no combat or action sequences in there.

All in all a unique experience, for a very low price, so I strongly recommend it.

     
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I finished Overclocked: A History of Violence last night.

I don’t recall any particularly difficult puzzles (though one stumped me for a while) but the regression memory mechanism was innovative and fun for the most part.  The puzzles were still interesting enough to be fun without disrupting the flow.

The game’s real strength is its excellent production values, a strong, creepy atmosphere throughout (aided by a great soundtrack), mostly excellent voice-acting and a compelling storyline.

A sequel would be great but I’m looking forward to playing everything else by Gantefohr as I’ve read there’s a transhumanist theme throughout them.  It’s disappointing that State of Mind will have action elements but I may still give it a go on the strength of this game.

8/10

     

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Zork Nemesis

Never played any Zork game before.  I was very impressed by the music and sound design.  It helped make the experience very immersive.  I’m not sure how representative this game is of other Zork games, since I understand it’s the only installment made by this company (and obviously most of them are text adventures).  I’ll get to Grand Inquisitor at some point soon.  Some surprisingly dark and disturbing content for a Myst clone.  I can’t specifically recall any other adventure game where you have to decapitate a corpse and reanimate its severed head to get a puzzle clue.  At the same time, there was plenty of silly and absurd toned content as well.  Pretty standard Myst-like structure with 1 hub world and 4 other worlds you can travel too.  Most of the puzzles weren’t too difficult (well… some of the worlds had significantly harder puzzles than others).  For some puzzles it feels like I accidentally solved them just by trying random actions without ever understanding the reason why that was the solution.  Acting was overall very good.  I know I’ve seen that guy who plays Malveaux in some movies before.  I’m surprised I’ve never played this one before and would recommend it.

     

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russ869 - 24 May 2018 01:11 PM

I’m not sure how representative this game is of other Zork games

I’ve only played Return to Zork, Nemesis, and Grnad Inquisitor, but as far as I can tell Zork Nemesis isn’t representative at all of the other Zork games. Those are pretty silly (in a good way) when Nemesis is, as you said, quite dark.
It’s one of the best surprises I have had in my gaming life, as I was a Myst-hater back then and so let it sit in its shelf for weeks before deciding to play it and, as the story unfold, starting to love it.

Zork Grand Inquisitor is also an excellent game, but it’s very different, in terms of gameplay (it’s inventory-based) and, as I said above, in terms of atmosphere.

     
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I was about to say Nemesis was the least representative Zork game, but then I remembered…

Apart from Legends of Zork, Nemesis is the least representative Zork game - there’s some recognizably Zorkian background detail (musical instruments spring to mind) but the tone and flavour are a long way from the original games. Grand Inquisitor is much closer.

But Nemesis is a terrific game, especially considering when it came out. It predates Riven, but presents a much more story-driven take on the Myst style, and dials back the hyper-reality for a far less abstract world.

     

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Nemesis was darker in tone than the other Zork games but there was still some Zorkian humor there. It had a lot of atmosphere and a fairly strong story. Unfortunately there was also some extreme pixel hunting in places although I really liked the game in spite of that.

     

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Ninth - 25 May 2018 04:43 AM

Zork Grand Inquisitor is also an excellent game, but it’s very different, in terms of gameplay (it’s inventory-based).

Isn’t Nemesis also “inventory-based?”  It’s just you can’t open a menu that shows you everything in your inventory at once.  You have to keep right clicking to cycle through all the many items you are carrying.

     

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russ869 - 25 May 2018 02:42 PM

Isn’t Nemesis also “inventory-based?”  It’s just you can’t open a menu that shows you everything in your inventory at once.  You have to keep right clicking to cycle through all the many items you are carrying.

Hm, oh yeah, so there’s an inventory. Totally forgot about it…
It’s not really inventory based, though, because figuring out which object to use isn’t the issue. Most puzzles in Nemesis are about figuring out mecanisms by understanding the scattered hints, etc.
In Inquisitor most, if not all, the puzzles are solved using classic inventory puzzles (with a spin because there are spells).

Dunno if I’m clear…

     
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Ninth - 25 May 2018 05:32 PM


In Inquisitor most, if not all, the puzzles are solved using classic inventory puzzles (with a spin because there are spells).

Yes - the classic Infocom spell puzzles were one of the best things about Grand Inquisitor for me!

     

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