Adventure Gamers - Forums

I was curious about what everyone’s favourite ‘obscure’ adventure game is.
I’d love to play some of the real unknowns that people have actually enjoyed.
One of my favourites would have to be ‘Noctropolis’ - A 90’s fmv that I’ve hardly heard anyone talk about.
So what is your favourite obscure game?

This isn’t exactly a standard adventure game, but it more or less fits the description and is what I would call obscure.

I really enjoyed “Shadow of Destiny” (“Shadow of Memories” outside the US) by Konami, for Windows, Playstation 2, PSP and Xbox.  The story centers around alchemy and the ripple effects of one character’s efforts to harness the philosopher’s stone, as well as time travel.  What makes the game fun for me is the way the story plays out, and the different possible endings.

There’s no combat whatsoever, just to be clear.  The game is story-driven and basically consists of you running around a German town (I think?) in different eras, learning about the situation by chatting up lots of characters and solving admittedly primitive inventory puzzles.  The non-inventory ‘puzzles’ basically consist in figuring out how your actions in one time period will affect the future, and so on.  It has many different endings (5, if I recall) depending on choices you make at various points in the game.

If anyone wants to know more, Hardcore Gaming 101 has a nice article on it:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/shadowofmemories/shadowofmemories.htm

Oh, and by the way, Noctropolis looks really compelling!  I especially like the aesthetic from what I’ve seen so far.  I’m definitely interested in playing it some time soon, but of course I am up to my elbows in games to play :-P.  Lately, I’ve been in the mood to play older adventure games in particular though, so it might be good timing.

Noctropolis was one of my first adventure games - finally picked up a sealed copy in the original box for my collection this month, instead of the budget one I grew up with

Adventure games are always kind of a niche it’s a bit hard to say what’s ‘obscure’, unless you use it as shorthand for what’s not Lucasarts/Sierra or on GOG/Steam so requires a bit more searching out.

With those criteria, I’d pick Eric the Unready and Toonstruck but I’m sure most serious adventure gamers will have played those.  Going more obscure, I’d pick something like Kingdom O’Magic or Bad Day At The Midway, which I loved as a teenager.

OneFlesh - 12 October 2013 04:33 AM

Eric the Unready

I loved Eric the Unready!  Great humor, and really solid puzzles.  I’ve enjoyed all the Legend Entertainment adventure games I’ve played so far; I’m always impressed with the writing, the puzzles, the AdLib music and even the mostly-static illustrations.

Speaking of Legend, I almost chose Companions of Xanth as my ‘obscure’ favorite, but couldn’t decide if it was obscure enough :-P.  Also, I believe Gateway was my very first adventure game experience.

Quite a few replies already!

Colster, I have actually played ‘Shadow of Memories’ and it is a great game.  I only played it through once and I think I got the bad ending, so I should really give it another shot!  I haven’t heard of ‘Companions of Xanth’ so it might actually be the more obscure game from my point of view.

OneFlesh, I guess I feel that the ‘obscure’ games are the ones that aren’t often talked about on these forums.  I’ve always been meaning to play ‘Toonstruck’ and I haven’t actually heard of ‘Eric the Unready’ so I might look into those! 

TimovieMan, I also played ‘The Sydney Mystery’ but I guess that’s no surprise since I live in Australia.  It was pretty entertaining with the doofy microphone that kept appearing and the terrible acting, etc.

Drolin, I haven’t heard of any of those games you mentioned except for ‘Alice: Interactive Museum’ and only because it doesn’t seem to go for less than $400 on ebay.  Is it a game worth playing?

Cool topic. Was going to do something similar to this.

When it comes to obscure adventure games I played a game called ‘Midnight Nowhere’ developed by Saturn Plus years ago which if I remember wasn’t a bad game. I suppose you would class it as an obscure kind of adventure game because it never seems to get mentioned or brought up anywhere.

Maddog Williams!

http://www.gamecrafters.com/gamecrafters/maddog/

Bt

I remember enjoying Bureau 13 a lot, but it’s been a while since I’ve played it.

TimovieMan - 12 October 2013 06:34 AM

The most obscure would probably be The Sydney Mystery and Robert Redford Saves the Day! (of which RRStD! is by far the better game).
I’m also currently playing Area-X.

I’ve played the Sydney Mystery and it might be the worst adventure game I’ve ever played.  The problem with the truly “obscure” games is that most of them are obscure for a reason