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What game have you just finished?

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Likewise, but I miss stuff…or forget stuff…pretty easily.

     

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Doom - 28 April 2021 05:15 PM
Bon - 27 April 2021 02:14 PM

Thanks for recommending TOHU, but I wouldn’t agree that the golden age of Amanita Design is behind us, because Creaks was great. A really good game for fans of 2D side-scrolling puzzle games; it has superb art and finely thought-out puzzles that were a delight to solve. In my opinion, their best game since Machinarium, and the first one in their catalog to rival Machinarium in terms of puzzle substance.

I am excited to play the “Happy Game” soon.

This is a matter of taste I guess, personally I found the Creaks gameplay too tedious and uninspired, too “artificial” compared to Amanita’s earlier works (basically a puzzle game where every level plays more or less the same). Their first adventures were more like interactive worlds with unique locations and some interesting mechanics thrown in, with Botanicula being my favourite - it was so much fun just clicking everything and watching how all five characters react to the environment, while puzzles also varied a lot. As for Happy Game, I’m still not sure what to make of it - from the trailer it looks like something in the vein of Chuchel (only horror-themed), and I’m not a fan of that game(

I understand what you are saying, Creaks’ gameplay is indeed more… “gamey”. It is Amanita’s only game that I know of that functions with a clear and comparably rigid set of rules governing the gameplay. Which is certainly one of the reasons I like it more than I like Botanicula, Samorosts and Chuchel, even though I have also enjoyed those games, too. I’m surprised that you’re not a fan of Chuchel, considering you are a fan of Botanicula’s gameplay model. I did play Botanicula almost 10 years ago, and Samorost 1 and 2 even earlier (still haven’t gotten around to Samorost part 3), but as far as I remember, Chuchel was also made in this style of gameplay. And, he is a pretty cute creature.

     
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Bon - 05 May 2021 03:26 PM

I’m surprised that you’re not a fan of Chuchel, considering you are a fan of Botanicula’s gameplay model. I did play Botanicula almost 10 years ago, and Samorost 1 and 2 even earlier (still haven’t gotten around to Samorost part 3), but as far as I remember, Chuchel was also made in this style of gameplay. And, he is a pretty cute creature.

Botanicula has a beautifully crafted world and intelligent gameplay. There’s no real world in Chuchel (the game even lacks backgrounds!), just this creature moving from one weird room to another. And since I don’t like this sort of modern cartoon humor when poorly drawn characters run around doing stupid things and screaming like idiots, the game just isn’t my cup of tea - especially since I know Amanita is capable of much better games.

     

PC means personal computer

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Just finished The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark which is a sequel to the 2017 Irish retro adventure. It is everything fans of the original could’ve dreamed of: same crazy settings, same huge pixels and same kind of meta-humour. I’m not a big fan of DD, so I had trouble recognising references to old cases and characters which are thrown into your face right from the start, while I also didn’t find many potentially good jokes all that funny. Once again I felt there’s just too much of everything, from various overused horror tropes to all sort of cultural references including sports, TV shows and video games, of course. Every character, location, every line of dialogue exist to make you laugh, and this gets tiresome. Still I enjoyed writing better this time around, there were some very memorable moments, especially in the last chapter. Gameplay-wise DD2 is also very traditional: there are 6 differently themed “cases” loosely connected by the main plot, each takes from 1 to 2 hours to finish which makes for some solid 10 hours of playtime. I’d say puzzles were also better designed, there are even some very original brainteasers, but at the same time the game relies too much on the old “collect x items” concept as well as many fetch quests while never making you really stuck, and this feels a bit lazy. But people play those games mostly for laughs and nostalgia, and DD2 satisfies all those needs alright.

     

PC means personal computer

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I finished playing 5 Dates, a really fun FMV game. All the websites list it as an adventure game and it’s one of the best I’ve played in the FMV category. Really funny and you learn allot about dating by playing it.

Highly recommended if you like Rom-Coms. There are puzzles, so you have to watch the videos and react carefully or it can be game over. Thankfully you can play again and correct your mistakes.

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I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.

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Adv_Lvr - 06 May 2021 07:35 PM

I finished playing 5 Dates, a really fun FMV game. All the websites list it as an adventure game and it’s one of the best I’ve played in the FMV category. Really funny and you learn allot about dating by playing it.

Highly recommended if you like Rom-Coms. There are puzzles, so you have to watch the videos and react carefully or it can be game over. Thankfully you can play again and correct your mistakes.

Heart

Had never heard of this until you mentioned it a few times hereabouts. This might be the game that will *finally* get my mom to do a game play through with me! Thank you!

***

I just finished Primordia.
All of the naysaying negative ninnies on the various websites that gave this game 5-6’ish scores are flat out wrong. Or, if not ‘wrong’, because opinions are just like another thing which everyone has and ought to be entitled to, reviewed by the wrong person…or is perhaps reviewing *to* the wrong audience. Because I can’t imagine anyone who enjoyed *any* of the best games from Sierra, LucasArts, Westwood, Revolution, etc—basically any of the *great* adventure games of yore—not enjoying Primordia.
I’ve voiced my skepticism/criticism about the sticky oil puzzle in the What Are You Playing Thread. That’s the only puzzle in a game that is satisfyingly loaded with puzzles that I did not enjoy, and most of them I enjoyed *immensely*. What a dialed in level of challenge! Even when stumped, I was never tempted to look at hints, because I *knew* the answer was within my reach, I just needed to work a little longer and harder until I’d finally grasp it.
The only area where I feel the game mis-steps is in some of the narrative choices. At times the story veers into heavy-handed religious allegory, which is too transparent to be intellectually stimulating and too undeveloped to be of value to the overall plot. I feel like perhaps the writers contemplated going in one direction before deciding to go in another, but ended up leaving remnants of the first direction in anyway, rather than rewriting so so much dialogue and story. This is all *not* a very big deal, and even as one who is sick and tired of such allegory in games and media, I still thoroughly enjoyed the plot as a whole, and **really really** enjoyed all of the characters.
Man, it’s so refreshing to play a game that, despite its dystopian aesthetic, still lets us play as and befriend well meaning and good natured characters. Even better, the ending is unabashedly optimistic! A legitimately happy and hopeful ending! I know that there are several different ones, but I feel like most of them will be positive.
Solid writing throughout, beautiful puzzle design, never loses momentum. The graphics can rightfully be called ‘drab’ due to the murky brown and steel gray colors, but they are also wonderfully detailed and appropriate to the world they are displaying.
My favorite puzzle might be

Fantastic all around. I am so happy I let my guard down and didn’t snark Primordia off as just another drab Matrix-Dune dystopian post-apocalyptic gritty piece of been-there-done-that.

I’d rate Primordia a solid 9/10. It might not *quite* reach the level of my top tier all time faves, but I will be gosh darned if it doesn’t come soooooooo close! And had I played it in my youth, nostalgia would probably give it the nudge into that territory.

Would *love* to play a sequel, and can’t wait to play Strangeland!

     

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I know the saying “never say never” but they said there won’t be a sequel of Primordia. Once I told Mark Yohalem I saw a prequel more plausible, and I still think the same…

But if you want more, there is a comic with events after Primordia:

http://primordia-game.com/Fallen

     

Currently translating Strangeland into Spanish. Wish me luck, or send me money to my Paypal haha

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walas74 - 07 May 2021 05:22 PM

I know the saying “never say never” but they said there won’t be a sequel of Primordia. Once I told Mark Yohalem I saw a prequel more plausible, and I still think the same…

But if you want more, there is a comic with events after Primordia:

http://primordia-game.com/Fallen

Yeah, ya know what? I would love a sequel because it means in all likelihood more great adventure gaming, *but* I respect and *love it* when a writer can end his telling of the story and let us imagine the rest. Given the choice, I prefer to try new IP’s than prequels/sequels of existing ones almost any day.
Man, can you imagine what the Sierra ouvre would look like if they had consistently created all-new games, instead of serializing everything?
(And before anyone cries foul, I am a huge KQ, QFG, SQ, etc. fan—I’m just conjecturing here)

     

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Baron_Blubba - 07 May 2021 01:46 PM

What a dialed in level of challenge! Even when stumped, I was never tempted to look at hints, because I *knew* the answer was within my reach, I just needed to work a little longer and harder until I’d finally grasp it.

What a gratifying thing to read!

My favorite puzzle might be

I’ve always liked the lamp part. Smile

[quopte]I’d rate Primordia a solid 9/10. It might not *quite* reach the level of my top tier all time faves, but I will be gosh darned if it doesn’t come soooooooo close! And had I played it in my youth, nostalgia would probably give it the nudge into that territory.

Thanks!

Would *love* to play a sequel, and can’t wait to play Strangeland!

No plans for any sequel.  Re: Strangeland, I’m a little hesitant to push it too hard, as its core themes are ones that you seemed a bit mixed about with Primordia, but if you liked Primordia that much, I think you’ll at least be reasonably satisfied with Strangeland.

     

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I noticed that the Telltale Games adventures finally seem to work for me under Linux with Wine, so I decided to replay the first season of Sam & Max.

My memory of them turned out to still be pretty accurate: They’re still funny, but some of the walking back and forth can get a bit tedious and I thought some of the running jokes wore a bit thin towards the end. I don’t regret replaying it, but I expect to enjoy the second and third seasons more. I remember them as being more varied.

Did I say the games worked with Wine? Well, almost. There were some minor glitches in the first and sixth episodes, though at least one of them I’m told can happen when you run it in Windows as well. But then there was the final credits, where it just turned into nightmare fuel:

And I just can’t decide whether or not this is actually an improvement!

     
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Wormwood_Studios - 09 May 2021 08:23 PM
Baron_Blubba - 07 May 2021 01:46 PM

Would *love* to play a sequel, and can’t wait to play Strangeland.

No plans for any sequel.  Re: Strangeland, I’m a little hesitant to push it too hard, as its core themes are ones that you seemed a bit mixed about with Primordia, but if you liked Primordia that much, I think you’ll at least be reasonably satisfied with Strangeland.

Don’t worry about it. I’ve learned not to dismiss things offhand just because on the surface they are ‘not my thing.’
If it’s done well, chances are I’ll enjoy it. It’s nice when people/developers I trust create things that are not within my usual sphere of preference, because it helps me overcome prejudices toward certain elements that might otherwise keep me from discovering/playing/enjoying their music/game/book/movie/anything.

Based on your seeming affinity for those themes though, and combined with the name of your studio, is one of your mission statements (so to speak) to write stories that are religiously allegorical?

     

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Baron_Blubba - 10 May 2021 11:41 AM

the name of your studio

That one is just that Vic wanted to pay homage to Westwood and likes absinthe.

I don’t know that James or Vic is particularly into religious themes.  I am, despite being very unreligious myself. I’m not sure if I would call it a “mission statement,” though. Humanistic themes (in particular, the importance of openness and decency toward others) are a deliberate mission. Exploring religion is part of exploring humanity more generally; mapping the god-shaped hole, etc.

     
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Wormwood_Studios - 11 May 2021 12:12 AM
Baron_Blubba - 10 May 2021 11:41 AM

the name of your studio

That one is just that Vic wanted to pay homage to Westwood and likes absinthe.

I don’t know that James or Vic is particularly into religious themes.  I am, despite being very unreligious myself. I’m not sure if I would call it a “mission statement,” though. Humanistic themes (in particular, the importance of openness and decency toward others) are a deliberate mission. Exploring religion is part of exploring humanity more generally; mapping the god-shaped hole, etc.

The humanistic themes were part of what sold me so strongly on Primordia, although I didn’t know they were called humanistic themes. I just like playing as a decent guy, who was also rationally pragmatic. I never like it when games force me to do nasty things to good people/creatures. I’m fine with nailing Stan into a coffin, because in a comedic sense he absolutely deserves it. But George imitating a German to screw with a nun’s…cookie factory (and that’s not a euphemism!) in Broken Sword IV rubbed me the wrong way, for example.
Horatio walks the line of humanism and adventure game pragmatism very nicely.

     

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Just finished Legend of Kyrandia Book 1.

This is a game which, in current times, trades on the nostalgic currency of its superior contemporaries in order to evoke the same wonderful feelings of childhood days-gone-by magic. Unfortunately, the farce is exposed after the first hour or so of playing, and the game falls flat on its face. There are a couple of decent scenes (watching Brandon trollomp-a-rump up the castle stairs is precious), but most of the best parts are merely average, and the worst parts are pretty darn bad. Some of the notorious trial and error puzzles (putting gems and flowers into the cauldron to make potions) wouldn’t be so bad—they’d be totally gettable—if the game didn’t specifically tell you that there might be a non-random way to solve them, But there isn’t. So you end up spending hours traversing this big world, looking for a legitimate clue or solution…and then realize (thanks to a walkthrough) that there isn’t one. I don’t know about you, but I *assume* that, obtuse as a puzzle might be, no developer would leave it up to absolute brute force, or even want you to start guessing the solution and eventually stumble onto it, rather than searching for clues and figuring it out. If there’s a clue as to the order you have to play the chimes in in the queen’s bedroom in order to open the secret compartment, please let me know.
There is also a stupid maze and a stupid iron key. And last but not least: If ever a game could benefit from quick-travel, it’s this one.

Not going to waste more time on this. I’d give Legend of Kyrandia Book 1 a 2.1/10. The point-one is to distinguish it from A New Beginning, of course.
Have moved on to the sequel, and so far it’s much better.

     

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Looking forward to your treatment of the next installments! You definitely didn’t disappoint in either of the threads, talking about this game.

Oh, one more thing: what do you think of the soundtrack?

     

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