Adventure Gaming Catch-All

shoptroll wrote:

Neat. I read somewhere that one of the Millers had returned to Cyan and there was speculation of a new game. That's some pretty concept art too. Will give it a better look tonight.

Yup, I talked about this in my last podcast. Rand Miller got back together with Cyan. 1.1 million dollars is certainly an odd number. I wonder if they're budgeting the extra 100K for KS reward fulfillment. It's also a pretty lofty goal in my opinion.

billybob476 wrote:

Yup, I talked about this in my last podcast. Rand Miller got back together with Cyan. 1.1 million dollars is certainly an odd number. I wonder if they're budgeting the extra 100K for KS reward fulfillment. It's also a pretty lofty goal in my opinion.

Ah, so that's where I heard about that news!

It'll be interesting to see, although I think they'll make it. I believe there's still a sizable fan-base for Myst/Cyan out there (I think there is or was a regular convention for them) and they've (Cyan and Ubisoft to a lesser extent) done a great job keeping up the brand awareness. Which I think was the big problem with all of the Sierra alum projects* (they all hit around $500k)... Vivendi/Activision/Codemasters have done an absolutely terrible job keeping the old games in the public's consciousness until somewhat recently.

* Except Precinct because that was incredibly mismanaged

Linked KickStarter wrote:

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of Myst...

God, I feel old...

tanstaafl wrote:
Linked KickStarter wrote:

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of Myst...

God, I feel old... :(

King's Quest is 30 years old this year or next year depending on whether or not you go by the PC Jr. release.

I was in college when Colossal Cave/Adventure first appeared so... yeah.

FYI Dark Eye : Chains of Satinav is on the Steam Weekly sale list for a fiver (or your local equivalent). Easily WELL worth it at that price, even if it's not quite as good as the sequel.

Can't wait for more Tomas Dvorak!

This is most excellent news. I loved his work on Machinarium, and this looks promising.

Eleima wrote:

This is most excellent news. I loved his work on Machinarium, and this looks promising.

Be sure to check out his work as Floex if you haven't. Zorya is an amazing album.

Lilly Looking Through launches tomorrow, November 1st, on Steam, GoG, and the Geeta Games website.

“This gentle and heartwarming puzzle/adventure game is well worth playing”
-Destructoid

Lilly Looking Through is simply a beautiful game ... If you like the idea of spending a relaxed afternoon experiencing a magical, funny, and gently challenging game, then here we have a little gem that’s absolutely worth your time and money”
-ThisIsMyJoystick

Lilly Looking Through is tangibly the most charming and wholesome... game you’ll play this year”
-TwoDashStash

“Geeta Games takes ‘charming’ to a whole new level in Lilly Looking Through
-Pixelvolt

Moving Pixels podcast did a neat (though massively spoilery) discussion of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream:
http://www.popmatters.com/post/17606...

dRailer wrote:

Lilly Looking Through launches tomorrow, November 1st, on Steam, GoG, and the Geeta Games website.

“This gentle and heartwarming puzzle/adventure game is well worth playing”
-Destructoid

Lilly Looking Through is simply a beautiful game ... If you like the idea of spending a relaxed afternoon experiencing a magical, funny, and gently challenging game, then here we have a little gem that’s absolutely worth your time and money”
-ThisIsMyJoystick

Lilly Looking Through is tangibly the most charming and wholesome... game you’ll play this year”
-TwoDashStash

“Geeta Games takes ‘charming’ to a whole new level in Lilly Looking Through
-Pixelvolt

Awesome! Can't wait to play it when I get the chance.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
dRailer wrote:

Lilly Looking Through launches tomorrow, November 1st, on Steam, GoG, and the Geeta Games website.

“This gentle and heartwarming puzzle/adventure game is well worth playing”
-Destructoid

Lilly Looking Through is simply a beautiful game ... If you like the idea of spending a relaxed afternoon experiencing a magical, funny, and gently challenging game, then here we have a little gem that’s absolutely worth your time and money”
-ThisIsMyJoystick

Lilly Looking Through is tangibly the most charming and wholesome... game you’ll play this year”
-TwoDashStash

“Geeta Games takes ‘charming’ to a whole new level in Lilly Looking Through
-Pixelvolt

Awesome! Can't wait to play it when I get the chance.

I hope you like it!

Here's a contest, we're giving away some copies of Lilly. I want to thank you all for allowing me to post about this so much. Take care.

https://www.facebook.com/GrabTheGame...

This week's humble bundle is a pack of games from Daedelic Entertainment, Adventure Game company extraordinaire. Not a bad deal, for sure, but it doesn't include their most recent releases like Deponia 2 and the truly fantastic Memoria.

Minarchist wrote:

This week's humble bundle is a pack of games from Daedelic Entertainment, Adventure Game company extraordinaire. Not a bad deal, for sure, but it doesn't include their most recent releases like Deponia 2 and the truly fantastic Memoria.

Or the even more recent release of Deponia 3..

Tanglebones wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

This week's humble bundle is a pack of games from Daedelic Entertainment, Adventure Game company extraordinaire. Not a bad deal, for sure, but it doesn't include their most recent releases like Deponia 2 and the truly fantastic Memoria.

Or the even more recent release of Deponia 3..

Or Night of the Rabbit.

I bought it nonetheless, all the games are new to me and have been looking for a cheap gateway drug for the other Daedelus titles.

This is my first Humble bundle, oddly enough.

Tanglebones wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

This week's humble bundle is a pack of games from Daedelic Entertainment, Adventure Game company extraordinaire. Not a bad deal, for sure, but it doesn't include their most recent releases like Deponia 2 and the truly fantastic Memoria.

Or the even more recent release of Deponia 3..

Worth reading RPS's Wot I Think on D3 before putting any money down in it.

Kind of wishing I hadn't now.

For example. Of the very few black characters in the game, one of them is being forced to be an organ grinder’s monkey. Yes, a monkey. A puzzle (of sorts) at that stage in the game is to first get rid of the organ grinder, and then to find a replacement monkey, so that Monkey – as it persists in calling him – can become the new grinder. The person you’re required to have become his new dancing monkey, by destroying her life until she has nothing left? The other black character.

And the way you get her to take the job? You literally sell her.

And then there’s the game’s grotesque representation and attitude toward women. Within the opening moments of the game, one character has already suggested that a female character’s mentally ill behaviour is because she’s on her period. Women are sex objects, lunatics, sluts or only identified as fat. Two women who’ve joined the resistance army are described as “dressing like men”, and laughed at for thinking they can have army titles. One is taking hormones to be acceptable. PMT jokes abound
Oh wait, I forgot to mention the scene in which you deliberately lead children into a dark caravan inhabited by a paedophile. And then later create an ink rubbing of the paedophile’s penis to create a Rorschach test. Which you can then show to children.

REALLY struggling to believe this came from the same studio as the Dark Eye games or Night of the Rabbit. I can only assume there are separate teams within the studio working on different projects or that maybe it's an older series that just took longer to translate into English but...wow..

I'm pretty much scratching that series off my list of adventure games to play (eventually). A shame because I do like the visuals, but the narrative just seems really backwards without the excuse of being written 20 years ago (ie. some of the Sierra back catalog). I was definitely in the camp that the series would redeem itself a bit but it sounds like the visuals are the only thing keeping it afloat. Fortunately, there's other Daedalic games (like Night of the Rabbit) with pretty visuals I'll check out instead.

Also, Daedalic has put out 3 or more games so far this year. They must have multiple teams working there.

In other news, I did some adventuring this weekend and I'm halfway through Lilly Looking Through and played (I think) most of the Stasis alpha demo. Will post thoughts tonight or tomorrow night once I'm done with both of them.

I finished Lilly Looking Through last night! Overall, it's a good first effort by the Geeta Games people. Very nice animation and pretty background art, and the gameplay is fairly light. The puzzles are primarily environmental so there's no inventory management and it feels reminiscent of Botanicula or Windosill. The puzzles aren't terribly taxing either although the final set of puzzles I'm not sure are the most intuitive (they tripped up John Walker at RPS which I thought was odd).

Final puzzle set hint:

Spoiler:

The final set of puzzles involve colors, mainly the addition and subtraction of them. I'm not 100% sure the subtraction bits are accurate but it's been a while since I've had to think about color wheels, but something felt a little off here.

Be aware though, the game is very short and took me about 2 hours to complete. The ending comes kinda abruptly and I'm not sure if the team ran out of time or the game was supposed to leave off on a very open-ended note. There really isn't a sense of closure or accomplishment so I think this is something that should be improved in future games.

Ending thoughts:

Spoiler:

My interpretation of the ending is that Lilly and her brother go off and have more adventures. Didn't really bother me that much but I would like to know why Lilly saw a ghost of her Grandfather in the penultimate scene

Would I recommend people buy it? Yes, but I think the price needs to come down to $6-8. You're not getting a lot of gameplay with this but you are getting some great audio (I forgot to mention the music is nicely done) and visuals. So it's a good first effort, but I would like to see some more meat on the gameplay and story for the next project.

shoptroll wrote:

I finished Lilly Looking Through last night! Overall, it's a good first effort by the Geeta Games people.

Awesome, thanks!

We're a super tiny group of people. If you don't mind chatting via private message, I'd love to discuss some of this stuff with you, just to see what your opinions are and perhaps involving your feedback when/if a sequel were to happen.

shoptroll wrote:

(they tripped up John Walker at RPS which I thought was odd).

I haven't finished it yet, but having got past the spoiler hinted part, I'd have to say he seemed excessively harsh on the game in general. I was stuck for a bit because it didn't occur to me that I'd have to go back and use same the controls again for the second room and it was a little annoying that you don't have feedback on the state of the second room without going over and having a look.

juv3nal wrote:

I was stuck for a bit because it didn't occur to me that I'd have to go back and use same the controls again for the second room and it was a little annoying that you don't have feedback on the state of the second room without going over and having a look.

Yeah that was slightly annoying.

Spoiler:

Also annoying was the fact that trying to solve that room borked the first room so I had to close the path and fix the first room again to check on my solution

I think John was being a little harsh but I'd have to re-read the WIT for his exact criticisms. But I remember him definitely coming off as grumpy. Maybe he wrote it while playing Goodbye Deponia?

shoptroll wrote:

I think John was being a little harsh but I'd have to re-read the WIT for his exact criticisms. But I remember him definitely coming off as grumpy.

You'll have to narrow down which WIT you're talking about - that description covers quite a lot of ground with John Walker

I got to scene 6 of Lily Looking through and have enjoyed it so far. Nice and relaxing. It is a shame that it was all done at that low resolution. It's a bit tiny when native at 2560x1440. I can forgive that, though, and am sure there were reasons. Looking forward to the rest, but am going to save it for when I need to relax some more.

stevenmack wrote:

that description covers quite a lot of ground with John Walker :P

Good point.

----

As I mentioned earlier I played the demo/alpha build of Stasis which was made available as part of their Kickstarter. The game is a sci-fi/horror game set aboard a derelict space craft, with you assuming the role of an amensiatic protagonist (is there any other kind) who wakes up and (naturally) has to figure out what's going on. The graphics are quite good for the current development stage and the sound design is superb which created a very atmospheric experience, although the UI is a little clunky right now. I'm not really one for horror games but people should check this one out if that's your cup of tea.

Speaking of Kickstarter, if you're looking for something a bit lighter and less moody you should take a look at Bolt Riley which is a 3 episode game about the rise from obscurity of a fictional reggae musician living in Jamaica. Reggae music isn't one of my favorite music genres, but I think this project is interesting because this seems like the sort of story that could only be told in this genre. Unfortunately, they're having a really hard time attracting backers (to pay for the completion of the first episode I think) but there should be a playable alpha/preview thing coming in the next day or two which would probably help if they weren't getting close to the final days.

And in other news, Wadjet Eye recently announced that they are releasing a remastered version of their first game The Shivah which will be available on 11/21 for PC and iOS. Which seems like appropriate timing given Hanukkah starts the following week. Also, they've revamped their website and are now selling almost all of their titles DRM-free through Humble Store.

Being a backer I got my Broken Sword 5. Oh my, just starting the game makes me feel warm and fuzzy, feels like all those years ago when I played the very first one. They really got the animations, opening scene, music and atmosphere down pat. Best of all - I didn't even know they would release it so soon.

wanderingtaoist wrote:

Being a backer I got my Broken Sword 5. Oh my, just starting the game makes me feel warm and fuzzy, feels like all those years ago when I played the very first one. They really got the animations, opening scene, music and atmosphere down pat. Best of all - I didn't even know they would release it so soon.

Just played through the first bit and I'm loving it. The humor, atmosphere, writing and voice acting has brought me right back. It's great to be hanging with George and Nico once more.

I think I need to turn in my adventure gamer card. I've never played Broken Sword or Beneath a Steel Sky.

Well, I think I know what you need to cover for the next UMB then...