Adventure Gamers - Forums

I finished Snark Busters: High Society, the third in the series.  As I’ve said before, I really loved the first two games; I never cared for the cartoony Victorian steam punk visuals, but the games were just a whole lot of fun.  In those games, you would come upon a new screen, and you basically could just click-click away at any objects that seemed out of place.  Things would start flying around into your inventory with sparkles and such, and at the end of it you would have assembled some inventory items, and you might have been left with a few tricky pieces to find. 

Well, they changed the gameplay in the third one.  Now, when you click on a piece of an item, it explodes these little icons around the object where it’s supposed to be used, and you have to drag the piece you found over to its box and drop it in.  This may not sound like a significant change, but it really slows down the gameplay, and IMO takes all the joy out of the game.  It seemed more like work.  Anyway, widescreen HD visuals can’t make up for busting up the game mechanics. 

I would strongly encourage people who liked the first two games to try the demo before you drop money on the third one.

Monolith - 05 January 2013 09:41 PM

Phantasmat: Crucible Peak SE is now out on BigFish.

I picked this up yesterday and I’m really enjoying it so far.

Not my kind of game really, but I’m here looking for a recommendation for someone…
Someone who enjoyed Botanicula but couldn’t get anywhere in Machinarium (both games I liked), and who is content to spend hours playing mindless repetitive games where you just click stuff, but says things like “I don’t see the point in playing this” when presented with most things that resemble “real” games….
I’m thinking some more casual type of game might fit, and I guess preferably one that only uses the mouse. It doesn’t have to be adventure-like per se, but as Botanicula went down well, something along those lines might be good.
If this wasn’t bad enough, it needs to run on a Mac. (but we could maybe use wine or something if not)
Over to you guys

Blah - 06 January 2013 09:05 AM

Not my kind of game really, but I’m here looking for a recommendation for someone…
Someone who enjoyed Botanicula but couldn’t get anywhere in Machinarium (both games I liked), and who is content to spend hours playing mindless repetitive games where you just click stuff, but says things like “I don’t see the point in playing this” when presented with most things that resemble “real” games….
I’m thinking some more casual type of game might fit, and I guess preferably one that only uses the mouse. It doesn’t have to be adventure-like per se, but as Botanicula went down well, something along those lines might be good.
If this wasn’t bad enough, it needs to run on a Mac. (but we could maybe use wine or something if not)
Over to you guys

I would recommend one of the latter-day Mystery Case Files games.  Return to Ravenheart or Dire Grove are great places to start.  Another good series to start with is the Drawn series.  (I think Drawn may have been the first HOG-type game I played, and I’ve played countless now since because of it).  All of those can be purchased at Big Fish Games - right now they’re having a New Year’s sale so you could get them (or any other game) for $4.99 even if you’re not a member.

Another game that’s not really a HOG-type game but is similar to Botanicula is The Tiny Bang Theory.  It may be at Big Fish.  You can also pick it up at Steam.  You can usually get it there for $2-3 when they have their sales.  Have fun.

I just finished Phantasmat: Crucible Peak SE.  Earlier, Monolith had said they really liked the CE, and rtrooney thought the demo was just OK.  I thought the game was great.  It’s by ERS, so you know what to expect, but I enjoyed it more than other recent ERS games.  Graphics and presentation are excellent.  Interestingly, for those without a widescreen monitor, it appears to have both a true widescreen and normal version of the game, ie it doesn’t stretch or compress the default version - I haven’t seen that in a game before.  I thought the music was really good, and I like how the music incorporates some of the musical themes from the original Phantasmat.  There are 10 HO scenes and 15 minigame/puzzles in the SE.  Most were interesting variations of the same old, same old, but there were a handful of novel puzzles.  Overall, it was a very entertaining mix.

The story involves you surviving an avalanche.  You then discover a buried town and try to figure out what happened there during an avalanche 5 years earlier.  In story, it is very much a spiritual successor to the original.  The plot is essentially the same, with substituted characters.  Instead of an underwater town, you get a town buried by snow.  You get the picture.  Nevertheless, the plot kept me interested.

There is a good variety to the locations, and I found the characters and their back stories interesting.  I found the game very addictive as well, and it was hard to stop playing once I had begun.  Anyway, I would definitely recommend the game.  It’s not as good as the first, but it is a very good game.

Monolith - 06 January 2013 06:21 PM

Maybe Phantasmat has something going for it. You know, I’m always intrigued by the ‘Colorful characters’ while digging deep into the mysteries behind a place the was threatened by some great disaster. Even if the third game uses the same formula, i’d still enjoy the adventure.

I agree.  It’s a good formula.  The plots of both games interested me more than most casuals, I think because of the characters.  I would definitely be down for a third.

Chudah - 07 January 2013 10:41 AM

I’ve only played a handful of ERS games, but have demoed a bunch more, and I totally agree with your assessment here.  It feels like ERS has a factory template for their games, churning them out as fast as their fans will gobble them up, but sooner or later people start looking at the food their eating and realize they’re being fed a lot of empty calories.  Ok, so maybe that’s a bad analogy, but from what I’ve read and the little I’ve experienced, I’ve decided to stay clear of ERS.  I might pick up Crucible Peak at some point, but I still need to finish up the first Phantasmat, and I already have a long list of games in my backlog.

I just noticed that Echoes of the Past: The Citadels of Time came up for the $2.99 Catch of the Week.  Seeing as Orneon’s Agency of Anomalies has proven to be my favorite casual series so far, I was curious if their other games were as good?

I really wish the Big Fish Games website made it easier to see who the developer was on these games.  I don’t usually download random demos, so unless it’s a well-known series or I hear about it here, I have no idea when some of the good developers like Elephant or Alawar come out with new games.  And the titles and cover art of these games are so generic, it’s impossible to tell which ones might be quality without giving them a try.  Amazon always lists the developer on the store page; I wish Big Fish did too.

As far as Echoes of the Past, it’s been a while so I get a little confused, but I remember I played Citadels of Time and Castle of Shadows.  One of them I thought was really good, and the other was just OK.  I’m almost positive Citadels of Time was the good one.  I would pick it up.

Can anyone recommend some good, casual, adventure-lite games on Android that aren’t HOGs? I bought the first Snark Busters and thought it was very well made, but there were just way too many parts you had to find on each screen. Is there anything similar to the first Azada (but hopefully with a bit more difficulty)? Thanks in advance.