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Looking for old game, The Synergist (1996)
This was a game by Vicarious Visions. From what little I’ve heard and seen, it seems RIGHT up my alley and I’m dying to play it. However, it seems like it has almost entirely vanished from the public record. I can hardly even find google results for it. Does anyone happen to know where to find this game? Has anyone played it?
You’ll find more google results if you spell it right: Synnergist. Two Ns, no ‘The’.
Not sure where you can get it now, sorry. I bought it, played it and then (foolishly) sold it back to the shop I got it from. I don’t remember it being great, but I gather there’s a fair amount of hidden stuff I didn’t discover that makes it all make more sense. I didn’t learn this until after I’d got rid of the game…
There’s no commercial versions available of it. You might have luck getting it used from ebay or some such, but there’s no legal digital alternative for it.
Here’s a play video of it
You’ll find more google results if you spell it right: Synnergist. Two Ns, no ‘The’.
Not sure where you can get it now, sorry. I bought it, played it and then (foolishly) sold it back to the shop I got it from. I don’t remember it being great, but I gather there’s a fair amount of hidden stuff I didn’t discover that makes it all make more sense. I didn’t learn this until after I’d got rid of the game…
Wow, google was NOT forgiving with my misspelling. There are a few pretty official sources that spell it the wrong way. Thank you for pointing that out.
From what I’ve heard it seems pretty cool.
Cool, well I found it on Gameswin and I’m enjoying it, even though it’s pretty easy and kinda cheesy. Something about that 90s digitized noir thing I’m such a sucker for.
I played Synnergist and quite liked this quirky adventure game, so much so that I wrote a review for it at FFC. It was tough to find a boxed version 7-10 years ago, likely even tougher to find now. I always wondered who (if anyone) found out the secret areas that explained the game name? Manual referred to it, but I never found it at all and have not heard of any other player to do so either. An unsolved mystery I guess?
Lakerz, you’re my hero*! You seem to have played each and every obscure adventure game there is.
*I mean it.
Everybody wants to be Cary Grant.
Even Me.
-Cary Grant
Lakerz was a regular at FFC, that explains it. 
I bought Synnergist at the German ebay years ago. English voices, German text. The game crashed right after the intro. I’d still like to play it though.
Butter my buns and call me a biscuit! - Agent A
Zobraks - I fully admit to being a weirdo. There was an epic thread years back on FFC that listed every obscure adventure game that people could think of. I spent a good amount of time tracking a lot of them down. Playing them though is a challenge, as most are pretty bad (good reason why they are obscure), and for many there is no walkthrough or any way to get help if one is stuck. Then there are those that have bugs where no patches were ever made since nobody ever bought the game ha ha. The best example is that game Trick ‘r Treat where there is a game breaking bug when chapter 1 ends (right when the game starts to get interesting). From everything I read, there is no patch and nobody I have come across got past that part where it crashes. Wonder if the devs even managed to get past that part?
Karlok - Synnergist is notorious for being very hard to get working properly. Something like 2/3 of the manual was about how to get the game running and to troubleshoot issues. In fact, it was this very game that got me to buy one of those oldskool Dell Optiplex PC that had a rep for being great in playing vintage PC games. It was a 486 processor I think, and it had a nifty feature where one could toggle the processor to act like like a 386 I think (cuz you know, 486 was so fast!). I made it a multi-boot and installed a pure version of DOS 6.2 as well as Win 3.1 and Win95SE. It ran all of the moldy oldies very well, even Synnergist! Of course, even the Dell could not get past that Trick ‘r Treat crash.
It ran perfectly in DOSBox for me! On Win 10 too.
The game I can’t figure out how to run is Obsidian. I want to play it, I downloaded a patch, but it still just won’t open.
Right now I’m playing through Harvester. I love these quirky 90s FMV games.
The best example is that game Trick ‘r Treat where there is a game breaking bug when chapter 1 ends (right when the game starts to get interesting). From everything I read, there is no patch and nobody I have come across got past that part where it crashes. Wonder if the devs even managed to get past that part?
A couple of years ago I found in a Spanish forum (about old and obscure games) a patch that allowed to fix that bug and it worked well as I recall. You could play the second act and finish the game. A user had created the patch and apparently it also worked for the English version.
” I remember. Somebody died. It was me.”
~
I think I have that Trick or Treat patch somewhere in my hangar.
Each time I had bumped into an installer/patch/auxiliary program for some old adventure I stored it on one of my backup discs.
Everybody wants to be Cary Grant.
Even Me.
-Cary Grant
Zobraks - I fully admit to being a weirdo. There was an epic thread years back on FFC that listed every obscure adventure game that people could think of. I spent a good amount of time tracking a lot of them down.
I have fine memories of that thread. It turned me into a collector. 
Well, for a couple of years anyway. I was sort of cured when I’d paid a lot of money for The Morlov Affair, which turned out to be worst foul stinking turd I’ve ever come across. I still wanted to buy and play rare and obscure adventures, but after the Morlov turd I kept only the really good or special ones and sold the rest.
Karlok - Synnergist is notorious for being very hard to get working properly. Something like 2/3 of the manual was about how to get the game running and to troubleshoot issues.
Yeah, I know. 
A couple of years ago I found in a Spanish forum (about old and obscure games) a patch that allowed to fix that bug and it worked well as I recall. You could play the second act and finish the game. A user had created the patch and apparently it also worked for the English version.
What forum? Do you still have the patch?
Butter my buns and call me a biscuit! - Agent A
What forum? Do you still have the patch?
As is typical in these cases unfortunately I don’t have it anymore, but it worked I know that. I’m checking the download links now but after more than a year aren’t working anymore. However I might try to get in touch with the person who made the patch and ask him if he still have it if someone is really interested.
” I remember. Somebody died. It was me.”
~
RockNRoll - wow, that is impressive that Synnergist runs well under DosBox now. That program keeps making huge strides. I know before Synnergist would not run using emulation. It took pure DOS to run and even seemed to require a very particular PC hardware setup as well. That is why that Dell Optiplex came in so handy.
As for Obsidian, you may have to use VMWare or some kind of other emulation program to create a virtual PC where you can install Win98 or whatever and run it directly within that.
Renacimiento - yeah, I had heard of a user made patch for Trick ‘r Treat but decided that it was very unlikely I would ever replay the game. It was not much fun up to the crash, very clunky interface and tough to make progress. There would literally be like 100 hot spots in every room, but 99 of them would red herrings. I remember taking copious notes to keep track of it all, but now years later I have forgotten it all so would have to start from scratch. Not likely to happen.
Karlok - yeah, there are so many stinkers out there that required a high price to acquire just to be so disappointed with the game.
Morlov Affair
Who’s Fat Lou?
Blobjob
Grackon’s Curse
Detritus
Trick ‘r Treat
Just to name a few from memory that so underwhelmed me. Aw well, seeking them out is an adventure in and of itself! But then there are some that ended up being entertaining like GAG and Synnergist, so it gives me hope for the rest I have yet to play.
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