Adventure Gamers - Forums

casual in the sense of a very easy adventures, sure

Veovis - 10 January 2022 05:18 PM

Advie - 10 January 2022 02:40 PM

that said, AoM and CoM were yet quite different when it comes to difficulty, the Latter CoM was very much on the casual side

I don’t recall that. Sure you’re not thinking of the casual versions that they made of some or all of these games?

diego - 10 January 2022 02:44 PM

I will add that they’re very good games for beginners, especially for someone starting with a series of a full-fledged hardcore adventures, as they can serve as a gap between casuals - more “serious” games. Imagine throwing a newcomer in the “depth of hell” like Gabriel Knight or Monkey Island, with so many options, perhaps dead-ends and ludicrous puzzles - it can be overwhelming for them and put some people off.

As for the weaknesses I think the main weakness of these games (bare in mind that Art of Murder 3 is a significant improvement over everything else this company produced, like it came from a totally different group of people) is lack of emotional connection we players should feel for the main character, and other characters as well. This is connected to a writing, but also to a general atmosphere and way the things unfold. If authors don’t care too much to show us deeper motivation of their characters and engage us emotionally, then, well we won’t be engaged and it’s what separates classics from good or average games. The “only” difference between these games and Syberia which is an all-time classic, is how authors in Syberia succeeded in made us care about the characters in every moment of the game, and engage us in what to expect next, by putting attention on the narrative and character motivation.

I can see why these games may be good games for beginners, although I think even some beginners may be put off by bad writing and voice acting. I wouldn’t recommend them to beginners based on my memories of playing them. But admittedly it was a long time ago.

I agree with you about where the problem with the writing mainly lies. It’s hard to care about anything happening in the games because the protagonists don’t. I specifically remember the protagonist in one of the Chronicles of Mystery games (I think it was) making chirpy comments about stuff and carrying on in the same mood immediately after finding a friend or old colleague murdered.

I recall when this game came out. It was $19.95 full price and at the time it’s quality was pretty average. At this time, things were not looking too good for adventure games with few releases and the releases we did get being pretty average. They were cheap however, $19.95 each.

There is a casual game, Fatal Evidence - Art of Murder available as a Collector’s Edition on BigFish. I DL’d it tonight. Will try to give it a play in the next day or two to see whether it fits in the “adventure light” genre or is a true casual. Will report back both here and in the Casual Games thread.

Well, Fatal Evidence - Art of Murder is definitely a casual game. It can be played at various difficulty levels, including no hints at all. That would certainly make the game harder to play, but wouldn’t eliminate the casual underpinnings such as hidden object scenes. It’s produced by the same people who made Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can, which is one of my Top 10 casuals. In fact the phrase “Catch me if you can.” is used frequently, which is a fairly obvious way of trying to latch onto the prior game’s popularity. It’s not in the same league as Emerald City Confidential. But then it shouldn’t be. ECC was designed as a full-fledged adventure, but then was “dumbed down” to its adventure-lite status by the people wo were funding the game.

I’m curious to know who the developers of the non-casual AoM games are. Domini Games is the casual developer.

rtrooney - 14 January 2022 04:18 PM

I’m curious to know who the developers of the non-casual AoM games are. Domini Games is the casual developer.

City Interactive, who also developed the Chronicles of Mystery games series, did the AoM games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CI_Games

I obviously mistook “Let’s Play” for a playthrough possibility. Instead it is a video WT.

It’s not a bad thing. But I think this type of post should be in either the Walkthroughs Forum or the Hint Requests & Technical Problems forum.

It’s fun to watch. Nice to see someone enjoying the game. Hope we get more videos like this one.