Adventure Gamers - Forums

skeeter_93 - 10 March 2022 07:34 AM

I loved Lost Horizon the first time I played it. I replayed it a couple of years ago and for some reason didn’t like it so much…

I played Lost Horizon years ago, I thought it was pretty good, not the best, but well worth playing. I need to do a replay of the game to refresh my memories of the game. I thought Lost Horizon 2 was pretty good as well and it needs a replay also.

I am playing Mudlarks, a freeware game from Cloak and Dagger (I love their games, always well written and with logical puzzles). Once I got used to the “peculiar” movements of the characters, I found myself wanting to know more about the mystery of the game,

Backgrounds are pictures of London and it is a full length game as it was a commercial one. I think I am half way right now, and I can’t wait to finish it!

P.S I also played A Date in the Park, from the same guys. A freeware very short game (half an hour or so), but I promise you won’t ever forget it if you give it a chance…

P.S.S A Date in the Park is available for free in Steam. Mudlarks is available for free here:

https://shaun9991.itch.io/mudlarks

Thanks for that suggestion. I remembered the title, but I never tried it. Going to give it a try soon.

I tried to get Tex Murhpy: The Pandora Directive and Culpa Inata to run on my laptop, with mixed results: both partial and total failure.

I did get a kind gift yesterday. I had a bit of a day, but I’m going to give it a try anyway. I’m talking about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

I’ll catch up yet. Might even finally play Grim Fandango this year.

The Pandora Directive works fine in DOSbox, never had any problems.

.. I meant Tex Murphy: Overseer. I’m very confused about the (chronological) order of these games.

I did manage to get it up and running, it only requires shutting off nearly every process in the background. And it remains precarious.

I’m definitely going back to the series. For now, I’m going with this Phoenix Wright fella. Apparently, we’re defending.. Larry Butz.

Vegetable Party - 18 March 2022 12:32 PM

.. I meant Tex Murphy: Overseer. I’m very confused about the (chronological) order of these games.

I did manage to get it up and running, it only requires shutting off nearly every process in the background. And it remains precarious.

I tried really hard to run Overseer with all fan updates, tricks and software installed, and when it finally started, there was no in-game music and the quality of graphics was worse than that of Pandora Directive. It’s unplayble at this point. Last time I tried the same Gog version, it ran without much problem, should’ve finished it back then.

I’m playing Syberia 4 and Not For Broadcast back to back, taking my time. Perfect for playing together - one is soothing and relaxing, the other can be demanding at times with a lot of food for thought.

Both are excellent. And they’re LONG.

2022 is only a quarter of the way through and both these games are better than anything I’ve played in the last decade, possibly two. If there’s ever to be an adventure game revival since the golden era, I’d say this could well be it.

I finally got my grabby hands on RAMA - probably the last Sierra classics I’ve heard so much about, but haven’t had a chance to play yet. Well, technically speaking it was produced by Dynamix, but it’s pretty much a Sierra game of that era that owns a lot to their late engine (with the interface taking half of the screen space and all) and Sierra’s attempts to monetise on the success of Myst and FMV games. It is also their only lisensed adventure ever. I’m not a great fan of Arthur C. Clarke, but his Rama universe really fits the adventure format, and Clarke himself also took an active part in the development (just how many world-renowned sci-fi writers were involved with adventure games? All of them? And after that someone still doubts it’s the greatest video game genre!) along with his co-author Gentry Lee - who is even credited as a script writer and designer for the game.

I’m only at the beginning, but it’s already obvious that Rama was made by someone with a good knowledge of science and math. And it’s a real pleasure to play! After all those casual adventures of late I finally found something that would stimulate my brains. There’s so much to discover, the world is very interactive and full of challenges that increase in difficulty. The game is sometimes described as ‘one of the hardest adventures ever’, and while I don’t find it all that difficult yet, I can see where it may lead to. Apart from mechanisms and alien codes of all sorts there’s also a huge (and clunky) inventory and mean robots that brutally kill you if you are not quick enough. There’s also a somewhat open world which you are free to explore from the beginning, with various other researches sneaking around so that you never feel lonely, unlike in Mysts. You even have a tiny avatar in your pocket who works as a “look” pointer, commenting all the stuff around you. The quality of FMV is pretty impressive, and so is the quality of art and music. I was afraid that a slideshow game won’t grab me anymore, but it is in fact very immersive and atmospheric, much better than Lighthouse if you ask me. Hopefully it will keep me busy for a long time.

Oh man, RAMA is one of those oldies I always wanted to play but never found a copy. I wouldn’t know how to run it now anyway.

Thanks for your thoughts on it so far Doom, hope you keep us updated on how you’re going as you play!

Charophycean - 30 March 2022 05:17 AM

Oh man, RAMA is one of those oldies I always wanted to play but never found a copy. I wouldn’t know how to run it now anyway.

You can play RAMA in DOSbox. Easy peasy.
It’s available on ebay and probably many other auction sites.

Karlok - 30 March 2022 07:16 AM

It’s available on ebay and probably many other auction sites.

Yes, I spent years waiting for a GOG release, then went to the local analogue of ebay and quickly grabbed a cheap copy (only CDs without a box, but that suits me just fine). There are currently some suggestions at the real ebay and even a couple at Amazon. Who needs GOG anyway))

Charophycean - 30 March 2022 05:17 AM

Oh man, RAMA is one of those oldies I always wanted to play but never found a copy. I wouldn’t know how to run it now anyway.

It’s either DosBox or ScummVM - I’m using it right now, and it works perfectly fine. I think ScummVM covered all Sierra games except for Shivers 2 (which uses a 360º panning) and Gabriel Knight 3 (which is 3D).

Thanks for your thoughts on it so far Doom, hope you keep us updated on how you’re going as you play!

I will! Looks like the game has many surprises awaiting, and I also really don’t want to use a walkthrough - I want to take the challenge of beating “one of the toughest games”. Currently I’m pixel-hunting for alien plates scattered throughout the locations. It’s a little extra they added to the more straightforward logic puzzles where you have to come up with right sequences of images (they work as locks on some doors). And it wouldn’t be too much trouble if only there weren’t so many red herrings among those plates with wrong images - and if they don’t fit, you just have to keep them and look elsewhere. The quickest way to make your inventory overridden with useless items.

Here’s Mr. Clarke himself confronting a dangerous “spider biot” with his cane during one of the after-death sequences as Clarke explains that we shouldn’t approach killer robots unless we a) have a cane, or b) we are immortal. You can see the inventory full of fake plates below.

lol

can’t argue with that reasoning!

Currently playing 2 games I never got round to before:

Fenimore Fillmore: 3 Skulls of the Toltecs

and

Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive

Enjoying both but sadly needing to resort to hints / walkthroughs on occasion with both. I just don’t have the time (or patience!) that I used to for working out the trickier puzzles or finding that hotspot / item I missed in one location that’s holding back progression.