Adventure Gamers - Forums

Lady Kestrel - 15 April 2017 09:41 PM

Do you think the game is based on the movie?  Some of the images are suggestive of it.

I haven’t seen any movies by that name, but if you mean the one about the piano player from the same year which I found by searching on imdb, then no. The game is much different.

Excellent, thx for info on that Shine game D!

That was a game that I actually tried to hunt down back in the day.  Saw it listed on the adventure-archiv website (along many other German adventures).  Made me want to try to play it.  I think it still looks pretty cool.  Glad to see that you found it interesting.  I may yet play a copy.

I still play lots of weird and obscure games so I’m going to revive this thread and talk a little about some I’ve played recently and far more importantly, post some screenshots.

Pasosuke (ぱそすけ) (Jap) (BELL-DA) (1996) (WIN)

This is a really short Japanese game that seems more like a promotional demo than anything else. There are only three rooms to explore and you click on things and watch what happens, usually something weird. The goal is to find 3 hidden gems which unlock bonus materials which include character art and designs from the developer’s other games, among other things. It’s not the least bit challenging to find the gems and this ‘game’ is largely a waste of time.

Panto’s Story (パントス・ストーリー) (Jap) (Mangosteen) (2000) (WIN)

In this Japanese game you play an anthropomorphic frog who takes a balloon ride to a land that exists on the back of a giant flying fish where you interact with a variety of different creatures and solve some simple puzzles. Although the game is Japanese, the game has no text and the dialogue is either deliberate gibberish or animal sounds, so anyone can play this game, regardless of their language. The game’s menu is even in English (you access it by pressing the ENTER key).

The game is 3rd person which means you’ll spend a lot of time just watching Mr. Frog walk around the screen but the art is well drawn so you have something relatively nice to look at while you wait. Personally, I really liked the fact that the game has no implicit story. You have to figure out for yourself what is going on in the world. There’s no dialogue or random notes laying around to spell it out for you. There are some picture books that work as hints to guide you towards the game’s goals though, showing you pictures of machines you’ll need to operate and so on.

While the game tends more towards being an interactive story than a true adventure game due to its simplistic tasks/puzzles, I liked its whimsical nature and enjoyed exploring its world. It was a nice change of pace from all the horror games I’ve played this year.

I love fantasy stuff with little baby animals as all the main characters <3

This little frog guy is cute!

Do you just run this game in an emulator or do you run it on a Win 95/98 machine?

I would love to try out this little frog game!

Oscar - 14 December 2012 06:55 PM

Spaceship Warlock

Few will have heard of this old relic from the early 90s, which I got free on CD from somewhere.

In case some of you haven’t noticed, there’s a guy working on bringing games like this to ScummVM and he has an ongoing blog about his efforts as part of that Google Summer of Code thing:

http://npjg.github.io/scummvm/

That’s great, there are so many hidden gems of the past that surpass the more popular games today. Although, there still needs to be a way to obtain the game - not many people will have an obscure CD-ROM from 1992 still lying around. Hell, I don’t even have a working CD drive anymore.

Ahh.. Spaceship Warlock. Some of these classics have charm that today’s big studios only wish they could have.

Celebreon - 30 June 2020 08:54 PM

Do you just run this game in an emulator or do you run it on a Win 95/98 machine?

I played the game in a Windows XP VirtualBox virtual machine. I did this more out of habit than because the game requires it. The game’s binary is 32-bit and should work fine on a modern 64-bit OS. The only problem you may run into is that the game’s cutscenes use Quicktime 3.0 and the bundled installer has 16-bit components and won’t install on a 64-bit system.

————
Okay. I was bored and decided to check. I downloaded Quicktime 4.0, installed it, and then ran the game with compatibility set to Windows 98/ME (you’ll get an error at startup if you don’t) and “run in 640x480”, and everything seems to work. This was in Windows 7 x64.

Unfortunately I don’t have the ability to test on anything more recent, but it’s highly likely the game will run without any need for virtual machines in Windows 10 if you follow the above instructions. It’s also possible that more recent versions of Quicktime will work as well. I just chose v4 since it was so close to the version that was bundled with the game.

Luhr28 - 01 July 2020 06:45 AM

not many people will have an obscure CD-ROM from 1992 still lying around. Hell, I don’t even have a working CD drive anymore.

I have at least 7 working optical drives. I also have working 3.5” and 5.25” floppy drives as well. Nothing will stand between me and my adventure games!!!! ;P

As for the discs themselves, I always rip them to images and never use the originals. Not only does this help preserve them, but Virtual CDs load much faster and much quieter. (I have a 52x CD-ROM drive in my Win98 machine. It sounds like a leaf blower when it spins up…).

Bless you and thank you!

I have one vista machine, one win7, one win 10… and I have no clue what the other is.

So I should be able to get it going.

I’ve been considering getting back into retro PC hardware (I’m a big fan of the LGR channel on youtube, and he does a lot of that restoring and rebuilding stuff)

but long ago the goodwill computer works store in my town closed, and now I’ll either need to travel to somewhere that still deals in retro hardware, or order online.

And unlike my beloved retro consoles, retro computers take up space quick!
I’m already running out of space in the house for retro gaming hardware LOL!

[EDIT] @ Karlok:  Yeah I’ve had my eyes on those for a long time, and I think I may have them on a harddrive, but I just never opened them.  I’m a sucker for that kind of seeing the world through small eyes stuff.

Chibi robo series does that well, racers like revolt, and once I even had a DND campaign running where we all played little animal characters!  Turns out a little baby lizard as a level 15 wizard (5e) is a touch over-powered.  But now we know.

Prince: Ghost Hunt at Foggy Castle (Prince: Spøgelsesjagten på Tågernes Slot) (Dan) (Ultimatum) (1999) (WIN)

This is a short, horror-themed Danish language game that is, strangely enough, an advertising game for cookies, though no mention of them is made in the game. The basic story is that Mordred, the Lord of Evil, has kidnapped Princess Tiara and taken her to a ghost realm where she is being held captive in one of the towers of “Foggy Castle” (I’m not sure if Tågernes should be translated or not. It might be a proper name. If anyone speaks Danish here, let me know). You and Prince (the cookie mascot) have given chase and have arrived at the castle to free her.

The game is 1st person and takes place entirely in a single room of the castle and you basically click on things and get multimedia presentations about poltergeists and so on. It almost feels kind of like a supernatural edutainment game. Along the way you pick up a few inventory items needed to progress and then eventually cast a spell to destroy Mordred and free Princess Tiara.