Adventure Gaming Catch-All

Citizen86 wrote:

I've put a few hours into Deponia.

I'll be waiting to hear your more detailed impressions.... I played, and enjoy, the demo - but not enough to press the "Buy" button.

[size=32]FINALLY[/size]

Minarchist wrote:

[size=32]FINALLY[/size]

I did a gleeful shout and jump after hearing that news today. I never finished the first game because of an infamous bug with the DVD version, but I just loved the overall experience of that game.

TLDR

It took 1 Google search and 19 pages only to find out the only mention the "Delaware St John" series got was in the first post. Disappointing for me because I absolutely loved the series. The creator has tried over and over again to get people to buy his game and one email I received when questioning about it years ago it was implied that they were having a hard time finding the funds to create the fourth game in the series. Earlier this year they tried Kickstarter and failed, I didn't know about it at this time and regret that I didn't this time I do know and I thought I'd pass on the information.

"Delaware St John: Asylum of the Lost" Kickstarter has been started again, this time the 15 dollar level gets you digital, updated versions of all the games including the new one.

What is Delaware St. John?

It's a paranormal investigation game. What I mean is you play Delaware St. John, a guy who can see and communicate with ghosts who is also a paranormal investigator using the tools you might see on "Ghost Hunters" or "Ghost Adventures." So in a way it's one part "Ghost Adventures" and one part "Ghost Whisperer."

The series starts off on a rough foot as it was the first game and they weren't exactly master puzzle makers, but by the second they had figured out how to make the game more playable, by the third they had it down and were on a roll.

If this interests you in the least I suggest trying out one of the games demos on their site: Delaware St John.

I know this isn't for everyone but I thought I'd at least mention the fact they're attempting a Kickstarter to let anyone who might have an interest know.

I can honestly say I've either never heard of that series before or possibly unconsciously dismissed it thinking it was just more Big Fish hidden object games.

Quite liked the 30min demo of the first game though - might have to give it a shot.

Man, speaking of the OP, I really need to update the new/upcoming section.

Anyone have any new games they're keeping an eye on, or that they feel deserves a mention in the top categories? I know the Wadjet Eye games stuff should be up there, and I really enjoyed The Book of Unwritten Tales and The Dream Machine (so far).

Dream Machine and Book of Unwritten Tales are both great, I'd put them in "must play" personally. Also the sequel - The Critter Chronicles - is already out in Germany so it'll show up translated at some point soon I hope).

I would move Gray Matter to Highly Recommended. The "stage magic" system they have in that game is a little fiddly and over complicated but the rest of the game is great. Not quite up to Gabriel Knight standards but still pretty good.

Recently finished Lucius. Disappointing and a waste of a great premise but there's some seriously demented death scenes in that game that almost make it worth grabbing. One for a steam sale I think.

Also played Anna when it was released on Desura some time back. Not bad but very buggy and glitchy. Really short too, you can probably get through it in under an hour if you know what you're doing. Another one to grab cheap though as there is some good stuff in there.

I'm party way into both Deponia and The Dark Eye, both seem good so far if you can get past the voice acting and stuttery animation.

Just....make sure to steer clear of Secret Files 3. It's an abomination.

Other upcoming games that look interesting...

Dreamfall Chapters, for obvious reasons and all the stuff from the big hitters like The Cave, whatever Doublefine are doing with their kickstarter thing, a new Tex Murphy, Broken Sword and possibly a new Beneath a Steel Sky game, etc.

More indie stuff...

Braken Tor 2 and The Last Crown 2 are still apparently coming out at some point.

Cradle looks like an interesting first person sci-fi game. Think it's on Steam greenlight at the moment if memory serves.

Cradle is a science-fiction first-person quest with freedom of movement. The story is built around the relations of the protagonist and a mechanical girl, who by enigmatic circumstances find themselves together in a yurt among the desert Mongolian hills. The player is to restore the lost functions of his companion's mechanical body parts and together reveal the mystery of the neglected entertainment park found not far from the yurt.

Lilly Looking Through is rather adorable

Asylum - from the creator of Scratches. There's an "interactive teaser" out there at the moment but I'm waiting for the full thing.

I'm mostly keeping an eye on the nu-Sierra stuff through KS, and DFA + The Cave. Really need to check out Wadjet's stuff at some point.

Edit: just looked, and the OP is missing a number of GOG links for stuff that's been added since 2009.

Working my way through some backlog stuff...

Delaware St John : Curse of Midnight Manor.
Not bad for what I assume was the developer's first game. But it's REALLY short and not particularly challenging. Voice acting is excruciatingly bad. Definitely a bit too expensive for the content on offer though.

Deponia
Finally finished this. Really liked it. It's got some of that old fashioned crazy adventure game puzzle logic and the main character is a bit of a dick but overall I thought it was great. Fantastic art as well. Ends on a bit of a cliffhanger..sort of...which is annoying, but at least the next game was just released the other day. Definitely grabbing that at some point.

Blackwell : Unbound
Another good one. Maybe a bit too much running back and forth between characters/locations but overall a nice little game. Could do with less (bleuch!) Jazz though. Still got two more (so far) chapters to go in the series though.

Going to try to finish up Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav and start on Blackwell : Convergence next I think.

I'm happy to see more love for Book of Unwritten Talea. I'm not really an adventure gamers but I really loved it. Did a great job of mixing story and puzzles. It was difficult to actually get it working, though. Looking forward to the sequel. Kind of aptehensive about the Critter part since that is my least favorite part of the game but I had such a good time with the main game that I'll probably take the risk.

stevenmack wrote:

Deponia
Finally finished this. Really liked it. It's got some of that old fashioned crazy adventure game puzzle logic and the main character is a bit of a dick but overall I thought it was great. Fantastic art as well. Ends on a bit of a cliffhanger..sort of...which is annoying, but at least the next game was just released the other day. Definitely grabbing that at some point.

You can say that again.... I've resigned to using a walkthrough with Deponia. Perhaps when I was younger I didn't mind trying every item I had in my inventory on every object I could find, but I don't feel like I have the time for that these days. And although some of the puzzles are not ridiculously out of left field, I still don't think I would have figured it out without a few hours of trial and error item combining.

I agree that the art is great though. The characters are a lot of fun as well, I'm really enjoying the world that was set up.

I haven't played many adventure games in a Long time but I've been working my way slowly through Syberia, I bought it back when it and the sequel were on sale on Steam. Been enjoying it quite heavily but there have been quite a few times where I've had to look up walkthroughs because I feel like I'm lost.

One game I did quite enjoy back in the day and only dream of going back to is Journey to the Center of the Earth. I've tried multiple times to replay it but I just can't seem to get into it anymore and I remember my first time playing it involved heavy use of a walkthrough.

<plug> Hero-U from the Quest for Glory creators still needs more backers. </plug>

Kloreep wrote:

<plug> Hero-U from the Quest for Glory creators still needs more backers. </plug>

I'm guessing people aren't chipping in like they did for the other alum projects because it's more of an RPG than QfG was, and they're going with MacGuffin's Curse tile-based engine instead of a classic adventure UI like with SpaceVenture and LSL Reloaded. But with 8 days to go and not at the 3/4 funding level it's not looking so good :\

shoptroll wrote:
Kloreep wrote:

<plug> Hero-U from the Quest for Glory creators still needs more backers. </plug>

I'm guessing people aren't chipping in like they did for the other alum projects because it's more of an RPG than QfG was, and they're going with MacGuffin's Curse tile-based engine instead of a classic adventure UI like with SpaceVenture and LSL Reloaded. But with 8 days to go and not at the 3/4 funding level it's not looking so good :

I had originally kicked in, but bailed last week because none of the updates that they were doing were inspiring at all. They seemed more compelled to assume that I'd give them (more) money because of who they were, not because of what they were doing.

So I've been playing Gemini Rue a bit, and I'm frustrated by it. The short version is that I really don't like point-and-click adventure games that require me to pick my interaction verb when I click on something. I tend to take it as a given that modern adventure games will assume that I'm not wanting to talk to a piece of graffiti, for example, or attempt to pick up a large terminal. It's a minor annoyance, but it makes the whole interface feel needlessly fiddly, and it adds an extra, unnecessary layer of problem solving. Whereas with most games you click on an object to see whether you interact with it to solve the puzzle at hand; here, you need to click on it to look at it, talk to it, lick it, kick it, make love to it, or whatever, just to make sure you've run through all your options before moving on. It feels tedious.

Anybody know how to get the voice acting in Kings Quest VI to work in the steam version? I believe it runs as the DOS version by default, but the Windows version had all the voice acting.

Radical Ans wrote:

Anybody know how to get the voice acting in Kings Quest VI to work in the steam version? I believe it runs as the DOS version by default, but the Windows version had all the voice acting.

Are you using the Sierra Help Pages patch for the Steam collection?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

So I've been playing Gemini Rue a bit, and I'm frustrated by it. The short version is that I really don't like point-and-click adventure games that require me to pick my interaction verb when I click on something. I tend to take it as a given that modern adventure games will assume that I'm not wanting to talk to a piece of graffiti, for example, or attempt to pick up a large terminal. It's a minor annoyance, but it makes the whole interface feel needlessly fiddly, and it adds an extra, unnecessary layer of problem solving. Whereas with most games you click on an object to see whether you interact with it to solve the puzzle at hand; here, you need to click on it to look at it, talk to it, lick it, kick it, make love to it, or whatever, just to make sure you've run through all your options before moving on. It feels tedious.

The story's the highlight. If you can get past the fiddly adventure bits, you'll be rewarded. We're years beyond an evolution for adventure that I thought took place, but some creators seem to disagree. So, if I ever come to a roadblock, I just look up a guide for the game and move on. I don't like my time wasted, especially if it's muddling an otherwise enjoyable experience (see Machinarium).

I think the problem with Gemini Rue or Wadjet games in general is they still use Adventure Game maker. Or something like that... I'm impressed with what they've been able to do with that dated engine, but it's still dated nonetheless.

Well, this is now on my "one to watch" list that's for damned sure...

Looks nice, and I noticed the main character is the guy behind the narration from Bastion. The other VO seemed good, too.

Whoa! The music sounds like it could be great, too.

Wolfen Victrocious wrote:

"Delaware St John: Asylum of the Lost" Kickstarter has been started again, this time the 15 dollar level gets you digital, updated versions of all the games including the new one.
.

Just an update, they cancelled funding because they didn't believe they were going to make their goal of 45k by the end of December.

I actually feel a bit insulted by this because it says the developers don't have any faith in their fans to advertise their games. They even said the reason they cancelled was because the last time they had a Kickstarter all they received was 4,000 and that after 2 weeks the big rush of " investors" are over. I couldn't roll my eyes harder at the amount of projects funded on a large amount of last minute donations.

AndrewA wrote:
shoptroll wrote:
Kloreep wrote:

<plug> Hero-U from the Quest for Glory creators still needs more backers. </plug>

I'm guessing people aren't chipping in like they did for the other alum projects because it's more of an RPG than QfG was, and they're going with MacGuffin's Curse tile-based engine instead of a classic adventure UI like with SpaceVenture and LSL Reloaded. But with 8 days to go and not at the 3/4 funding level it's not looking so good :

I had originally kicked in, but bailed last week because none of the updates that they were doing were inspiring at all. They seemed more compelled to assume that I'd give them (more) money because of who they were, not because of what they were doing.

Well... it got funded. They just made it too. Curious to see how this will turn out.

http://gamesareevil.com/2012/11/news...

PaladinTom wrote:

Well... it got funded. They just made it too. Curious to see how this will turn out.

I think it's weird that both Hero-U and SpaceVenture struggled to reach the finish line while LSL Reloaded didn't have nearly as much trouble. Not sure if that's because Hero-U and SV are unknown quantities, or if because the well was already drying up when their projects started up.

stevenmack wrote:

Well, this is now on my "one to watch" list that's for damned sure...

Demo is now available, and release date is 12/5

EDIT: Just finished the demo. It's a pretty meaty demo. Took about 2 hours to finish... so like 1/2-2/3rds of a Portal. Definitely recommend it if you're at all interested in this.

Holy sh*t, this could be something very special. At the least, we got a great trailer from it. Big props to RPS.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...

Wow, that does look exceedingly awesome

Just noting that this is a thing, at least for the next 10 hours. And it is now a thing that is owned by me.