Adventure Gamers - Forums

You guys were right about Shiver: the Poltergeist. You really had to get the CE edition to salvage the story of the game. I’m glad I did get it because this was a surprisingly good story. Finally a male protagonist. Practically all Casual games use female protagonists, and because of that female baggage comes along. Like the protagonist worried about getting dirty, or not being strong enough. -_- I’m just glad for what small part your character played in the game, he sounded like a capable person. Why do the female protagonists in these games fulfill the feminine stereotype?

Its funny, somehow when developers use a male, the character himself comes off as more ‘Common Sense’ and ‘Get er dun’. Which makes sense and works for the player better than ‘Like, OMG, I’m glad I used that wrench to open that electric box. Def don’t need this thing anymore. Its sooooooo useless’. Female Protagonists are like an indirect creation of ‘Valley Girls’ without the annoying talk that is.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUT at least adventure games have strong Female Protagonists. Maybe its the fact that casual games target the female housewife population (does that say a lot about the underlying intelligence?) than genuine macguyver type of people(admit it, thats who we are).

What? I’ve played several HOGs with male protagonists who won’t pick up something in the mud because their hands will get dirty, or don’t want to brush a spiderweb with their hands.

It’s not some sexist plot, it’s because the game developers still want you to find that one item that works for that specific thing and then lose it and pick up a new, similar item for the next totally similar thing. The protagonist’s excuse is just that, an excuse for why you can’t just use the knife for everything.
There’s still only a few casuals that let you keep an item for several uses and gives you a likely argument for what happened to it (you used the knife to break open a drawer, now it’s broken and you need to find a new sharp object)

I just finished Sacra Terra: Kiss of Death CE where the protagonist constantly argumented against using her bare hands on spider webs because they were too strong to break. While the male protagonist in the bonus game insisted I get a shovel to get some dirt of a plank and a light source for every sort of dark area where I could clearly see something to pick up, because he refused to stick his hand in.

Sacra Terra: Kiss of Death has to have the stupidest intro for a game I’ve ever seen; “ooh look an old magic book with an incantation to summon a succubus. There’s no way that will work, so lets read it out loud.” But I still found it enjoyable. It’s kinda the same old Alawar model, I recognize it immediately, know what I’m in for and how the game works. The puzzles are still easy, though some might be on the tedious side and the gameplay and artwork is good. I breezed through the game in about 4 hours.

There was one minigame in the bonus game I skipped, because it was just too tedious, but otherwise enjoyable. The bonus game was fully-featured and explained a bit more about a side-character and the ending, which was a bit confusing during the play-through.
Was saddened by the low amount of extras, just some backgrounds and some concept art. Has to be one of the smallest offerings in a CE I’ve seen in a long time.

All in all, enjoyable, a bit easy and had a silly story, though with a rather capable protagonist. Not even hell could scare her from her mission.
3.5/5

I never gave this a great deal of thought. Without doing an in-depth analysis, I would guess that about 75% of the casual adventures I’ve played have female protagonists. About 10% are identified as male, and the remaining 15% are gender neutral.

I could go through all the games I have purchased from BFG to derive an exact count. But a survey of games residing on my desktop makes me believe my estimate is accurate.

That said, in general, once I start playing a game I could care less what the is the gender of the character/protagonist I’m playing.

There are some exceptions. If I’m playing Poirot in Death on the Nile, for example, it’s hard not to know your character is male. The same can obviously be said for any Nancy Drew game.

If you played Grim Tales: The Stone Queen, if you hadn’t played any of the previous Grim Tales games, you wouldn’t know until the end of the game that your character was female.

Perhaps a good question would be: Would knowing your character was male or female influence your decision to purchase a game. For me, no. But I’m guessing some of the BFG reviewers would have a different opinion.

Panthera - 19 March 2013 07:08 PM

What? I’ve played several HOGs with male protagonists who won’t pick up something in the mud because their hands will get dirty, or don’t want to brush a spiderweb with their hands.

It’s not some sexist plot, it’s because the game developers still want you to find that one item that works for that specific thing and then lose it and pick up a new, similar item for the next totally similar thing. The protagonist’s excuse is just that, an excuse for why you can’t just use the knife for everything.
There’s still only a few casuals that let you keep an item for several uses and gives you a likely argument for what happened to it (you used the knife to break open a drawer, now it’s broken and you need to find a new sharp object)

Read the other posts. Its not just about sex, its the fact that the characters seem more feminine, even the male characters. Though when there is a character we want to be, the developer usually uses a male character for some reason. Furthermore we are also talking about the ‘faceless/sexless’ characters with obvious characteristics that lean toward the idea the character is actually feminine or if you want, homosexual. lol

Monolith - 20 March 2013 02:50 AM

Its not just about sex, its the fact that the characters seem more feminine, even the male characters.

I wouldn’t go quite that far. But I will agree that it’s not about sex. If it were, only male protagonists would be able to scale walls like a Navy Seal. When Angelica Weaver does it does it make her less female? When it comes to dirty hands, dirty water and spider webs, casual games are an equal opportunity employer. NOBODY wants to do it until he/she finds the perfect tool, glove, bucket or broom.

It’s the nature of the game, so to speak.

Monolith - 20 March 2013 02:50 AM

Read the other posts. Its not just about sex, its the fact that the characters seem more feminine, even the male characters. Though when there is a character we want to be, the developer usually uses a male character for some reason. Furthermore we are also talking about the ‘faceless/sexless’ characters with obvious characteristics that lean toward the idea the character is actually feminine or if you want, homosexual. lol

Hmm.. I see no constructive way we can continue this argument so I’m just going to say; I don’t agree with anything you said in that post. The male protagonists are almost always portrayed as strong father/husband figures, and HOGs feature many very strong females, for example the Mystery Trackers series or the Women’s murder club series. The scaredy-cat nature and “I don’t like dirt” puzzles are silly game design, a flaw I wish more HOGs would iron out, but does not have such a huge influence on the protagonist’s personality for me.
I have played some HOGs where I’ve been so annoyed by the protagonist that I want to slap them, but most feature strong-willed protagonists that go through quite a lot of scary and dangerous things without whining about it or often even mentioning it.

I hope you like it. That is whenever you decide to get it.

I do not have an I-Anything. Phone is Android, and tablet is a Fire HD.

Personally, I would probably not play or review a game that was available only on a single platform.

That’s not because I don’t think the game might be worthwhile. It’s because I don’t think someone ought to have to purchase another $500 piece of hardware in order to play it.

Now if the game was subsequently released for Android, PC and Mac…..

If you get it though, write the review. I’m sure there are enough “I” users here who might want to play the game.

Didn’t it originally say ‘Mobile devices’ and not just ‘i-Something’? Its going to come out for the android too.

rtrooney - 21 March 2013 08:47 PM

Personally, I would probably not play or review a game that was available only on a single platform.

That’s not because I don’t think the game might be worthwhile. It’s because I don’t think someone ought to have to purchase another $500 piece of hardware in order to play it.

That goes without saying. Exclusives tend to better. Not to mention this is no different than getting a PS3. There are plenty of great exclusives, especially on the iPhone. Not to mention, iOS has a better appstore than android, which includes ‘better games’. Name one game on android that was even great and was exclusive? They all tend to be mediocre.