• Log In | Sign Up

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Top Games
  • Search
  • New Releases
  • Daily Deals
  • Forums

Adventure Gamers - Forums

Welcome to Adventure Gamers. Please Sign In or Join Now to post.

You are here: HomeForum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread

Post Marker Legend:

  • New Topic New posts
  • Old Topic No new posts

Currently online

Support us, by purchasing through these affiliate links

   

Casual Games Thread

Total Posts: 343

Joined 2012-03-13

PM

Thanks for the recommendation, colpet. I have been having the same problem with the newer Big Fish games and have mostly been sticking with adventure or replaying older casuals.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

Jakal wrote a front-page review of a casual game titled Wild Case. That’s unusual because casual games have not been reviewed on AG for a long time. You can look at the date of the first post on this thread to discover how long it’s been. Only casual games without hidden object scenes get reviewed these days. And, to the best of my recollection, this is only the fourth reviews that fits the criteria.

I’m going to quote the opening paragraph. You don’t much need to read what follows, because this says it all.

The word “wild” conjures up thoughts of raw instinct, fiery intensity and unbridled energy, but while that may well describe the feral animals ostensibly at the heart of The Wild Case, the game itself is anything but. Its developer, Specialbit Studio, is better known for its hidden object adventures, and at first glance this game seems to share much in common with its casual predecessors, with its stylish hand-drawn graphics, bare-bones story and leisurely first-person slideshow-style gameplay. Upon closer inspection, however, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s been defanged of any self-contained scavenger hunts and neutered of any significant puzzle challenge. Even without a hint system for guidance, the whole experience is so tame that there’s nothing left but a harmless diversion. The Wild Case? More like “The Mild Case” at best.

It’s similar to what I’ve been saying for some time. Once a casual game is stripped of all that makes it a casual game, including a semblance of plot, it ceases to be a game anyone would enjoy.

I continue to play casual game demos. I find them uninteresting and not worth purchasing. Almost every “new” game is the 23rd iteration of a game that lost its reason for being in its fourth episode. There is nothing new. Nothing creative.

I have cancelled my BFG membership. I play demos because I look in hope of finding a game on which spending one of my double digit credits seems worth it. It may be a long time. However, I still have access to the library of games I bought.

The Drawn trio. The Enigmatis trio. Angelica Weaver. Et al.

Much to my dismay, I think the casual genre is dying. Of course I say that as an adventure game player who happened to like casual games. So I am saying that as one who appreciates a well-crafted casual. I wish I could still find one. I’m sure people who only play casual games don’t mind that ERS Games, now AMAX games, has just released yet another Puppetshow game. (I think it may be in the 20s.)

When I read Jack’s review I was tempted to say “That’s it!” Time to pull the plug on this thread as it is no longer relevant. But there is still a lot of good stuff that resides between this post and the one I wrote to start the thread what seems like ages ago.

 

 

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Total Posts: 343

Joined 2012-03-13

PM

I haven’t bought a casual game in a long time. I look at BigFish frequently but haven’t seen any worthwhile games either. Still, I think it is too soon to pull the plug as even one good game in the future would make it worth it.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

FWIW this thread started this month. August 1, 2012 to be exact. Hard to think of many other threads that have remained intact for that long.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Avatar

Total Posts: 118

Joined 2014-05-05

PM

A couple years ago I decided I was spending too much game time for too little fun, so I quit Big Fish and used up my credits. Then a few months ago I got a yen to play again so I started looking for new games. As everyone says, it’s hard to find good ones. The funny thing is that the Big Fish reviewers are reflecting the drop in player interest. If you find something with average 3.8, recommended 82%, that’s a wow rating nowadays.

We Mac players have it even worse because game developers were incredibly slow to make their games playable on new operating systems released in Oct 2019 and after. Two years later and Big Fish is still saying “We recommend that players using [new systems] wait for issues to be resolved before purchasing games.” And if you decided to hold off updating, there were new games that would not play on any older systems. Or even worse, they would play for the first 90% of the game and then glitch, so they couldn’t be finished. That happened to me with a couple of games that I had high hopes for: Mystery Case Files: Crossfade, and Wanderlust: The Bermuda Secret.

Crossfade is one of those newly popular composite games that have chapters harking back to different episodes in the series. Unfortunately the new developer (GrandMA Studios) has dumbed down the “Rube Goldberg” puzzles until they are nothing special at all. It is possible that Big Fish has pressured developers to make games easier, because they are nearly all like that.

Bermuda Secret was really lots of fun (up until it broke), something like the old Hidden Expedition or early Myths of the World. Very imaginative and the artwork was so beautiful I’m going to try to include a Screen Shot of the Week (trademark Tim Rooney). I recommend giving it a try.

     

Image Attachments

Wanderlust_-_The_Bermuda_Secret.jpeg

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

These days I go everywhere with a carpetbag containing a crowbar, a flashlight, a screwdriver, an oilcan, a ladder, a zipper tab, and a chihuahua.

Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

Funny you should mention quitting BFG. I have not yet done so, but it’s been tempting. The only reason for staying is that I can play the demos, and buy the game, and report on it if it is remotely interesting. That has not been the case of late. So I seem to be accumulating credits that I might never use. My wife, on the other hand, did quit. When the urge presents itself, she simply goes into her library of purchased games and activates it.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Avatar

Total Posts: 5569

Joined 2008-01-09

PM

I accumulated a bunch of credits and had trouble finding Mac games for OS 10.11 to use them up.  I did manage, but the quality usually isn’t there anymore.  I do like the Vermillion Watch games, and the newest(?) one has been good as far as I’ve played it.

     

Carpe chocolate.

Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

I like the Vermillion Watch games myself. The latest one I’ve played is Parisian Pursuit. I like the intermixing of historical fictional figures, such as Phineas Fogg and actual historical figures. The developers also seem to pay attention to historical accuracy. E.g., don’t show the Eiffel Tower in a Parisian landscape dated before the tower was actually built, or, worst of all, a modern telephone in a hidden object scene. One thing I should go back and look at is whether the game depicts the use of electricity. The tower was completed in 1889, and it would be a good 40 years before electric power was generally available. (Invented by Edison/Tesla, and available for general use are not the same thing. Smile )

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Avatar

Total Posts: 5813

Joined 2012-03-24

PM

After logging into BF after a long break I see that see that I have 10 game credits. I also can’t see 10 games I want to spend them on except for Crossroad Mysteries - The Broken Deal which I was tipped off from a dedicated forum on GB. Yes so far it’s very traditional but very engaging! 
Smile

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

I bought this based on your recommendation. I like it. The puzzles are a little more intricate that the “find key/use key” variety I see in today’s games. Thanks for the suggestion. One credit down. Nine credits to go.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

I finished the game. I’d give it a solid 3.5/5 stars. Which is quite a step up from the 1 or two stars that most of today’s games deserve. The puzzles were both uniformly good and difficult. Puzzle lovers will love the game. There a few that I’m not sure can be logically solved without a WT. At least I couldn’t “logically” solve them. Fortunately there is a link to a WT on the same page where you order the game. There was one puzzle, a match-three puzzle towards the end of the game. The stated goal was to eliminate all of the yellow tiles. It doesn’t tell you how many yellow tiles there are. I just kept playing/matching, and bang, a panel opened. I know I didn’t eliminate all the yellow tiles because there were still several on my screen. Perhaps the real goal was to make “X” number of matches. But even if that was the case, “X” was never stated, and there was no way to keep score.

There is an interactive map, but it is hard to use. The locations you have visited are depicted as photographs on a grid. Most of the photos are so dark and fuzzy that it’s hard to distinguish one location from another.

And finally there is a creditability problem. There is an item you need. Let’s say it’s a key to open a door. The key is in an HO scene, but you must go through several steps to uncover the object. Let’s say you need to find a can opener to open a can of tuna that contains the key. Fair enough by casual game standards, but JEEZ! How or why did someone hide a key in an unopened can of tune???

This is not unusual. In my two years of Casual Friday postings to the AGSotD, there were many examples of this tyoe of “who thought this made sense” head-banging.

Again, if you love difficult puzzles this is your game. Best I’ve played in over a year.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

Thought I would post this here as well. I downloaded Fatal Evidence - Art of Murder CE. It’s made by Domini Games, the same company that did Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can. The latter is in my Top 10 list of casual games. I’m playing it because there is a current thread talking about Art or Murder games, and we were curious whether the casual game was, in fact, a casual game. Or whether it was actually an adventure-lite game. Answer: It’s definitely a casual game, but seems to be a good one. That’s something I haven’t said in a while.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

A couple of things. I’m doing my semi-annual replay of the Enigmatis series. Except I’m not doing episode one, The Ghosts of Maple Creek. It was the game that set the game-play mechanics, e.g. using an “evidence board” to track progress. It was also the first game to used the Artifex Mundi Spark Engine for hidden object scenes. Many other developers licensed the engine, and, at least one proclaimed it to be the salvation of their business.

Anyway, I decided to skip the first installment because, in many ways, it seemed like an experiment in game design. A successful one, yes, but still unfinished.

So, onto game two, The Mists of Ravenwood. Of the three games, I think it had the best story.

Tomorrow I will start Enigmatis 3. It is, by far, the best looking game of the three. It is the only one that merits buying the Collector’s Edition. And, to its credit, is the only series that had a pre-planned, finite, ending.

Now for the second of a couple of things. You all know I hate games that have outlived their need to be. Think Puppetshow episode 32, when the original stopped being interesting after episode 4.

That said, I recently played Mystery Case Files: Incident at Pendle Tower. And while I would not compare it to Dire Grove or either of the two original Ravenhurst games, it wasn’t bad. That might seem like damning with faint praise, but if you find yourself i need of a casual fix, I think this game is worthe a shot.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

Avatar

Total Posts: 2454

Joined 2019-12-22

PM

Enigmatis is probably my favourite series in the (i)hog genre and I’m particularly fond of the second game. I agree about the first game, though it was very atmospheric.

The third game is pretty good as well. Not as memorable as the second, but it’s not a bland rehash either: it has some distinctive qualities. Which is another thing I like about the series: each game has recurring characters, unique settings and the dynamics between the good and bad characters (and everything in between) is different each time.

The voice acting is also good, both the audio quality and the performances. A bit campy sometimes, but that fits the plot.

I also don’t remember any translation issues where items I was looking for were misnamed, which is always a big plus.

     
Avatar

Total Posts: 5035

Joined 2004-07-12

PM

Glad you liked the Enigmatis series. Back in the day we had CGCPTs. Aka Casual Game Community Playthroughs. We don’t have them any more because there aren’t enough quality casual games to justify the effort. No one to blame but the developers who would rather milk the cash cow than deliver something new and exciting.

     

For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.

You are here: HomeForum Home → Gaming → Adventure → Thread

Welcome to the Adventure Gamers forums!

Back to the top