Adventure Gamers - Forums

I finished the Haunted Past demo, and decided to pass.  While I enjoyed some aspects of the gameplay such as moving back and forth between the real and ghost worlds, the story seemed kinda dull and exploration too linear.  I think the game had promise, but the execution just fell short.

Anyhow, after reading all the praise about it here, I’ve decided to use up my month’s game credit on Angelica Weaver: Catch Me If You Can instead.  I figured that I might not have given it a completely fair shake in the first place (and that was when I was just starting to get into these games and didn’t have much to compare it to).  I have to say, I’m really enjoying it, and the things that annoyed me the first time around aren’t as noticeable now.  We’ll see how this goes.

I’m curious about the Gamezebo reviews. We’ve commented in the past that “in general” the harder the game, the more negative the reviews seem to be on BFG. How do you find the Gamezebo reviews? Do they follow the same path, or are they more tolerant of “serious games”?

I used to be a member there, but haven’t visited the site in well over a year. Just curious.

Anyone play and enjoy the Torment of Whitewall? I had beaten it last night and I thoughraly enjoyed the production values. It felt like a really short adventure game. Why? Because so many of these casual games lack the feeling of life. In Whitewall the animated 3D rendered characters add so much.

Its a short game, but it wasn’t terrible. It was good if not really good. I’m starting to player the Missing 2, which is developed by the same folks. Getting the same vibe and it really helps the experience. A new casual dev i’m keeping an eye on.

Aside from that game, i’m FINALLY starting to get into Dark Parables 4. The intro absolutely drew me in. Great art and inspiring direction.

I’m just about finished with Nightfall Mysteries: Curse of the Opera. I understand why Interplay gave it such a lukewarm recommendation. It’s not very good. It is the first game published although it is the middle game in playing sequence. I guess this was the game Vast Studios used to cut their game-development teeth.

It is basically a HOG. Like the other two games, the designers seem to have gone to extraordinary lengths to hide many of the objects. There are also several scenes where you are tasked with finding mutiple instances of the same object. (These scenes brought back memories of Madame Fate, which I didn’t care for at all.)

The voice acting is fairly good, although not quite at the same level as the other two games. Each “conversation” is accompanied by a voice-balloon-style subtitle. They are a bit irritating and can’t be turned off. That said, it’s a fair nod to game players that might be hearing impaired.

The background graphics are quite good. But as a whole, I’m going to give graphics 2/5 stars. The main characters are quite cartoonish. And the HO scenes have no sense of scale. I.e. the ladybug is the same size as the dinner plate. If the designers had made the HO scenes more compact, e.g. a tabletop instead of an entire room, or if they had chosen different objects it might not have been such a glaring fault. But, this was their first game.

Puzzles were fair, but very poorly executed. None came with any kind of explanation as to what the goal was. Some could be guessed because something similar had been seen in other games. Others could be intuited from character conversation. More than a few made no sense whatsoever.

So, I bought this game because of basic curiosity. “How did my character become part of the game trilogy?” Now I know. And, even though I will probably finish the game, I really don’t want to. As mentioned above, it’s just not that good. Very similar to my opinion of Phantasmat2. Overall 1.5/5 stars.

Monolith - 21 January 2013 03:56 PM

Anyone play and enjoy the Torment of Whitewall? I had beaten it last night and I thoughraly enjoyed the production values. It felt like a really short adventure game. Why? Because so many of these casual games lack the feeling of life. In Whitewall the animated 3D rendered characters add so much.

Its a short game, but it wasn’t terrible. It was good if not really good. I’m starting to player the Missing 2, which is developed by the same folks. Getting the same vibe and it really helps the experience. A new casual dev i’m keeping an eye on.

Aside from that game, i’m FINALLY starting to get into Dark Parables 4. The intro absolutely drew me in. Great art and inspiring direction.

I haven’t played either. I’m currently thinking of getting Kairo The review didn’t actually come out and say it is a casual game. But reading the list of attibutes sure makes it sound like one. Although $8 US for 3-hours of gameplay is a little high.

Welcome to our little corner of the gaming world.

Hi everyone, I’m back for a little while..

I haven’t played any HOGs the last few months, and I wanted to try some of the new ones, but there’s a bit too much that has been released since last time.
Hoping you could give me some recommendations for HOGs that have been released the last few months, I prefer Collector’s editions, so they could be new.

Looking at my game inventory I see my last played (and bought) games were Haunted Halls: Revenge of Doctor Blackmore (which I would describe as “meh, but at least I still remember it”) and Natural Threat: Ominous Shores (which I don’t).

I seem to also have tried the demos for: Whispered Secrets: The Story of Tideville, Death upon an Austrian Sonata: A Dana Knightstone Novel and Mystery Case Files: Shadow Lake, apparently without liking them enough to buy.

I prefer horror/mystery games, but have also played fantasy/dark fairy tale games. I’m mostly swayed by beautiful art, good production design and well-designed gameplay (no lagging or too many unnecessary clicks..etc.).
I prefer a good, strong story, but that’s not an easy find with HOGs, so I can accept cliched stories or some plot holes. Though I can’t stand protagonists (me) who do stupid stuff I as a player know will screw everything up.

I liked Phantasmat, but see the sequel has gotten mixed reviews, think I should try it?

Edit: BTW Has anyone tried any sci-fi HOGs/casuals lately? It’s a genre not much used in HOGs, so I’m intrigued to see it grow. Has anyone tried: Forbidden Secrets: Alien Town? I tried reading back to see if anyone had written about it, but I couldn’t find it.

rtrooney - 22 January 2013 06:21 PM

Monolith - 21 January 2013 03:56 PM

Anyone play and enjoy the Torment of Whitewall? I had beaten it last night and I thoughraly enjoyed the production values. It felt like a really short adventure game. Why? Because so many of these casual games lack the feeling of life. In Whitewall the animated 3D rendered characters add so much.

Its a short game, but it wasn’t terrible. It was good if not really good. I’m starting to player the Missing 2, which is developed by the same folks. Getting the same vibe and it really helps the experience. A new casual dev i’m keeping an eye on.

Aside from that game, i’m FINALLY starting to get into Dark Parables 4. The intro absolutely drew me in. Great art and inspiring direction.

I haven’t played either. I’m currently thinking of getting Kairo The review didn’t actually come out and say it is a casual game. But reading the list of attibutes sure makes it sound like one. Although $8 US for 3-hours of gameplay is a little high.

I downloaded the demo of Torment of Whitewall. Because of interruptions, (furnace repair and dishwasher repair,) I only was able to play 35 minutes. Still, I liked enough of what I saw to buy it. (30% off sale at BFG today.) I report back once I’ve played it. I missed the reference to Missing 2. If that’s a reference to Missing: Island of Lost Ships, we will disagree on the merits of the game. I despised it! Reasons can be found in an earlier post. Which just goes to show that there is good discussion and different opinions about games. Which is as it should be.

Panthera - 23 January 2013 06:03 PM

Hi everyone, I’m back for a little while..

I haven’t played any HOGs the last few months, and I wanted to try some of the new ones, but there’s a bit too much that has been released since last time.
Hoping you could give me some recommendations for HOGs that have been released the last few months, I prefer Collector’s editions, so they could be new.

I suggest checking out Lake House: Children of Silence CE.  It definitely meets your criteria for graphics and story and was released right before Christmas, so you probably missed it.  It’s right up there with my favorites right now.

Panthera - 23 January 2013 06:03 PM

Hi everyone, I’m back for a little while..

I haven’t played any HOGs the last few months, and I wanted to try some of the new ones, but there’s a bit too much that has been released since last time.
Hoping you could give me some recommendations for HOGs that have been released the last few months, I prefer Collector’s editions, so they could be new.

Looking at my game inventory I see my last played (and bought) games were Haunted Halls: Revenge of Doctor Blackmore (which I would describe as “meh, but at least I still remember it”) and Natural Threat: Ominous Shores (which I don’t).

I seem to also have tried the demos for: Whispered Secrets: The Story of Tideville, Death upon an Austrian Sonata: A Dana Knightstone Novel and Mystery Case Files: Shadow Lake, apparently without liking them enough to buy.

I prefer horror/mystery games, but have also played fantasy/dark fairy tale games. I’m mostly swayed by beautiful art, good production design and well-designed gameplay (no lagging or too many unnecessary clicks..etc.).
I prefer a good, strong story, but that’s not an easy find with HOGs, so I can accept cliched stories or some plot holes. Though I can’t stand protagonists (me) who do stupid stuff I as a player know will screw everything up.

I liked Phantasmat, but see the sequel has gotten mixed reviews, think I should try it?

Edit: BTW Has anyone tried any sci-fi HOGs/casuals lately? It’s a genre not much used in HOGs, so I’m intrigued to see it grow. Has anyone tried: Forbidden Secrets: Alien Town? I tried reading back to see if anyone had written about it, but I couldn’t find it.

Welcome back. You’ve been missed. I’ll post some of my thoughts and recommendations.

Mystery Case Files: Shadow Lake....I didn’t like it. Or at least thought it was over-hyped
Phantasmat 2....Again, didn’t receive one of my better reviews
Forbidden Secrets: Alien Town....I liked it. Was in my top-10 for 2012 (I think there are a few reviews. Too bad you can’t search within a thread.)
Lake House: Children of Silence....Ditto above
Angelica Weaver: Catch Mw When You Can....My #1 game of 2012

I’m sure others will pop in with their recommendations.