Adventure Gamers - Forums

Doom - 23 February 2023 10:33 AM

So many games, so little time, but I’m making a slow progress.

Yes, and for every game that made it to the nominee list, there is at least one game that didn’t make it, due to several reasons.

As a free tip for all freeware developers, learn to market your games.
There were many cases where the game probably was some kind of adventure game, but the description wasn’t clear, and surprisingly there were many cases, for instance on Itch.io, that a game didn’t have a single screenshot on the game page!

I decided to err on the side of caution and not include such games. I guess the audience decided to err on the side of not playing them too, as many of them had zero user reviews, making it impossible to determine how the games were like without actually playing every one of them.

So if you make a free game and want people to play it, write a good description and take a few screenshots.

There were also a few hundred text-only adventures that I don’t know enough about whether they should or should not be included.

But even with all that, the nominee list is very long.
Because of that, I am thinking whether the voting period should be extended a little, to give people more time to check these out, not necessarily play every one of them, but at least see what they want to play. Unlike with commercial releases, many people hear about these games for the first time right now.

rtrooney - 23 February 2023 08:43 PM

Two major problems with a “best of” freeware list. One is that the games would have to be extremely short, three hours or less, in order to even make a dent into the available catalogue.

True, but if you know you are not going to like a certain kind of game, then simply reading the description, seeing the screenshots, and watching the video (if such exists) is enough to tell you that you wouldn’t vote it anyway, and move on to the next one.

And some of these are extremely short, you can complete some games in 10-15 minutes. Which is more than enough in some cases, some of the best games ever are as short as that.

rtrooney - 23 February 2023 08:43 PM

Second is that almost all use the same engine, which results in the retro pixilated graphic style that I hate. So, even if I could find the time to play some of them, I would likely come away disappointed.

Not to say the games aren’t great. Just that they might not be what I’m looking for.

Here you are not well informed, sir.

Let’s study the three games Doom mentioned in his post. They are all pixel arts, but they don’t use the same engine. I assume you are referring to AGS, but many “pixelated” games do not use AGS, some use WinterMute, some use Unity, some use custom made engine. And on the other hand present day versions of AGS allow other kind of graphics too, you are not limited to low resolutions as a developer, so it’s a choice to use that style, not something related to the engine.

For instance, Elsewhere in the Night (which is not an AGS game, by the way) has the following in its description:
“In 16 glorious colors and chunky wide pixels, Elsewhere in the Night celebrates its EGA palette and AGI-esque aesthetics.”
So obviously, it’s something that the developer wanted to create, not a limitation of the engine.

And if you take the time to go through the list, you will find that actually at least half of the games is something else than pixel arts. One of the games is even a FMV game with download size of 4GB, so you don’t need to be stuck to pixels, if you don’t want to.

Vegetable Party - 24 February 2023 05:50 AM

though i appreciate pixels and even an EGA palette, i do get the lack of appeal to people who just don’t care for it in 2023.

I expected, like rtrooney, a greatest hits of the late 80s and early 90s reprised in AGS, but there are games that are not retro at all,

There is even more niche retro stuff than that.

A came across maybe 4-5 games which were GameBoy adventures from 2022.
And when I say GameBoy, I don’t mean GBC or GBA, but the original monochromatic graphics GameBoy.

I doubt too many people would be interested in downloading a GameBoy emulator and playing monochromatic pixel arts games, so I chose not to include them.
So for those who think the list is bad graphics-wise, it could be worse! 

I’m sure there are lots of games missing from the list, especially modern day games made for older computers/consoles. There is one Amiga CD32 game on the list, but otherwise it’s more or less limited to stuff that can be run on modern PCs without too much tweaking.

EDIT: In case someone wants to have a look at that niche kind of stuff that is not on the list, here’s an example:

Cryohazard
https://burst-error.itch.io/cryohazard

“Inspired by classic point and click games, Choose Your Own Adventure books, and B-grade horror films, Cryohazard is a short story of waking from cryogenic sleep in a dilapidated research facility full of mystery, mayhem, and monstrous mutants.  Multiple endings and numerous gruesome deaths are abound in this game designed for the original Game Boy, compatible with emulators and real hardware.”

rtrooney - 24 February 2023 10:25 PM

I may be misinformed, but the majority of games you listed were created on one engine.

The more you comment on this, the more convinced I become that you haven’t done any research at all, or even checked any games on the list.

Without you actually naming the engine you keep referring to, this is somewhat a guessing game, but let’s guess you mean AGS.
There are 30 AGS games on the list. Not every single one of those games use pixel arts, but most of them actually do.

But there are 156 games on the list, so even if all AGS games were “pixel games”, that’s hardly a majority of any kind.

It’s impossible to have any kind of majority from the games listed, but the most popular engine is actually Unity. Some of those Unity games are 3D games, some are 2D, and some even use pixel arts, like discussed above.

Other engines used are Visionaire, RPGMaker, Godot, some are HTML-based, and so on. There is a lot of variety there, both artistically and technically.

VOTING PERIOD EXTENDED BY ONE WHOLE MONTH!

The voting closes 26th of March, 23:59 UTC.
Otherwise the rules of the voting remain the same.

Because additional time has been requested, and it’s apparently challenging to go through a big list of games, many of which are previously unheard of, you now have probably enough time to check them out, play some of them, and cast your vote, if you choose to do so.

You can obviously post your vote with 1-3 games any time, no need to wait until the last minute, if you already know your choice(s).

As a reminder, post them in the order where the best game is first, the second best is second, and the third best third, like this:

1. Broken Sword
2. The Secret of Monkey Island
3. Syberia

And in case there is some hidden treasure still missing from the list, there is enough time to suggest it as an additional nominee.

Also, to help with possible confusion about the list.
These are not all point-and-click games, they don’t use any single technology, and they are not all from the same place, like AGS database, some game jam, some single storefront, etc.

There are third person games, first person games, lo-res, hi-res, point-and-clicks, text-based games, Myst-like games, casual kind of games, one FMV game, one VR game, one Amiga CD32 game, some hybrid things, etc.

Thanks GateKeeper for doing the hard work in compiling this impressive list.  Thanks too for extending the voting period.  Even with a month extra I likely only make it 1/5 or 1/4 of way through list.  I gotta pick & choose what sounds interesting I guess.  A few of them I’ve already played I guess which helps.