Are you a Point & Click Adventure game fan?

[Diatribal Deity]

Played David Wolf Secret Agent to death when it came out years ago. Had a mix of gameplay elements from what I remember and was extremely short. But it featured the advent of digitized characters and as close to a multimedia movie experience as could be achieved at the time. Fondly remember the skydiving scene and if I remember correctly flying the through the barn...not so much an adventure game...moreso interactive experience.

I'm jealous of the autograph Chrissy, everything that man touches is gold IMO.

Tom, any of note on the A8? I think i played Hitchhiker's Guide on it but I know there are probably some additonal gems as well.

Lewton, shame on you for mentioning those games...they continue to allude me to this day. Well A.D. 2044 and Master of Dimensions Have you played them? Any good? How about Nippon Safes, L-Zone, Orion Burger, or Igor.

Gotta get back into Broken Sword series (can't remember if I finished the second one) and still have to bring out the newer ones. 2.5 sounds intriguing. Would also like to start the Kyrandia series soon as well.

Also check out Return of the Phantom, Dragonsphere, Kronolog (interesting if not a bit different), Conquests of Camelot (The Legend of Robin Hood) for some mediocre to good 'ole adventuring.

Ha, and Lewton you were afraid of a data dump. I bet I could give ya' a run for your money.

[Lewton]

Hi DD,

No. Seriously a 'data dump' is what it could end up being ........... a very nice looking dump though!

Haven't played those yet, apart from most of Orion Burger. I've checked them out though and, for my gluttonous sins, I have them all in pretty boxes. , except Igor. There's an Orion Burger on UK eBay at the moment as it happens.

Master of Dimensions is very high on my to-play list. Been looking forward to playing it for ages. As far as I know, Igor was only ever released in Spanish, but that an English version Beta release is around somewhere. It was planned, but never completed/released. Do you know more?

Similarly with Black Sect, from Lankhor, creators of Maupiti Island and Mortville Manor. I have both, but not both as English and PC.

I like weird/surreal adventures too, and Alice: An Interactive Museum is one that's a bit quirky. Haven't played it yet, but will someday. Really off-beat ones that I either have or am after include Cosmology of Kyoto, Grackon's Curse, Bad Milk, Mortalus and Fascination (from Coktel). I have a couple of them, but not all. Have you heard of a game from Russian developer New Media Generation (NMG), called The Case? It's been confirmed that it was released in English, but all I have are a few cute screenshots. A nightmare of a game to search for on eBay ............ The Case ............. Doh!

[Dr. Dib]

I've played a few of them, but I don't know if I would go and call myself a huge fan. I've only beaten The Secret of Monkey Island and Sam & Max and am currently working on The Secret of Monkey Island 2. I'm just so bad at finding secrets that I have to use Gamefaqs to progress, which I don't really like to do. Or maybe it's just Secret of Monkey Island 2.... I really don't know.

[NayusDante]

I'm surprised that Day of the Tentacle hasn't been mentioned more. That's THE definitive game in the genre for me.

I was actually introduced to the genre on NES. I can't remember which I played first, but I rented Maniac Mansion and King's Quest V, and struggled with the controls (I was like, 3 or 4...). After seeing the demo for DoTT included with Rebel Assault, I talked my dad into getting it even though Rebel Assault ran like crap on our 486DX. It crashed a LOT, but I absolutely loved it, and memorized the script by the time I was through kindergarten.

I got the King's Quest Collector's Edition (1-6) for my 6th birthday, which got me into the more serious side of adventure gaming. It wasn't long until I discovered the other LucasArts adventures, The Journeyman Project, Total Distortion, Myst, etc.

Growing up, I absolutely loved DoTT for its humor and KQV for its overall epic-ness. Years later, I have to say that KQVI has aged a little better than V, but DoTT is still just as great.

Counting Myst is debateable. I've personally never counted Myst as a graphic adventure, but I understand why people do. For me, Myst was about the story and atmosphere, so I didn't really like it as a game series. The puzzles seemed kinda disjointed from the overall experience, but then again, I was more interested in exploring than solving puzzles. I loved figuring out how to use the different machines, but solving the actual puzzles was frustrating and tedious. The lack of object-based puzzles compared to something like DoTT probably skewed my perspective a bit.

If you're going to count the Myst-likes, then I have to say that The Journeyman Project is my all-time favorite. It balanced good (object-based) puzzles with amazing visuals (by 1993 CD-ROM game standards). I've never been more drawn in by the art element of a game, and Geno Andrews' unique sound design certainly helped. As for straight-up graphic adventures, my favorite would have to be The Dig. The Dig has its flaws, but the story has weight to it and it succeeds on a technical level. While the animation has been criticized for clashing with the overall art direction, those cutscenes provided full-screen film-style animation on CD-ROM.

These are the games that make me wish the 90s never ended. Total Distortion in particular captured the 90s style, and it makes so much sense if you put yourself in the right mindset. I still have memories of the TD demo on a magazine CD along with previews of Toad the Wet Sprocket's new album and Cooking with Dom Delouise.


I can't speak for the modern adventure games, but a promising area to watch is the "visual novel" genre. It's closer to text adventure, but has a lot of potential to draw from graphic adventures. Hentai games and dating sims are more common right now, but the potential for proper adventure games is certainly there. Check out Radical Dreamers (SNES Satellaview) for a good example of the format used in an adventure game.

[MutantX]

Spy Fox in Dry Cereal ftw.

[Diatribal Deity]

Agreed. DOTT definately was a landmark game. Great atmosphere, clever writing, and a timeless and unique experience overall. Depending on when you "jumped" into the genre I guess your definitive or standout games will vary. I have in the past and probably will continue to mention games, that viewed or played now might be considered primitive, shallow, and overall pretty mediocre but they somehow left an impression.

For instance I have some fond memories of playing The Dark Crystal (now that's going back), Blue Force, Codename Iceman, Shadow of the Comet, Darkseed, The Scroll, Eric the Unready, Freddy Pharkas, The Gene Machine, Teen Agent, Harvester (interesting premise if you know the ending...not really proud I finished this one), and James Bond: A Stealth Affair.

Lewton, did not know that about Igor, but then again I don't think I have ever come across the actual retail release. Alice is right there with AD 2044 and MoD as far as on my acquisition list.

The Case...that wasn't Midnight Nowhere was it? Probably not, but that was the first thing that popped into my head. If not, add another to my ever growing list. Top ten???I think I would have to make it my top 100 first in no particular order and even that could be tough.

[Jorpho]

If you're going to count the Myst-likes, then I have to say that The Journeyman Project is my all-time favorite. It balanced good (object-based) puzzles with amazing visuals (by 1993 CD-ROM game standards). I've never been more drawn in by the art element of a game, and Geno Andrews' unique sound design certainly helped. As for straight-up graphic adventures, my favorite would have to be The Dig. The Dig has its flaws, but the story has weight to it and it succeeds on a technical level. While the animation has been criticized for clashing with the overall art direction, those cutscenes provided full-screen film-style animation on CD-ROM.

If you liked it that much, you should look for the Pegasus Project download floating around. It's neatly packaged with a preconfigured PowerMac emulator - though it's not quite as easy to use as it could be.

[NayusDante]

If you liked it that much, you should look for the Pegasus Project download floating around. It's neatly packaged with a preconfigured PowerMac emulator - though it's not quite as easy to use as it could be.

I managed to get SheepShaver working with OS7.5 or so, I just have to run it on my laptop. Something about 64-bit OS incompatibilities on the CD drivers. I have JMP 1, Turbo, 2, and 3 for PC, and PP for Mac. One day I'd like to play them all on Mac.

[tom]

I'm surprised that Day of the Tentacle hasn't been mentioned more. That's THE definitive game in the genre for me.

.

I did as well sort of on the first page (Maniac Mansion II), one of the games I really liked. Even had the 'special box'.

As for Hitchhikers, it's more adventure than point and click, but I keep looking for A8 p&c genre.

I played Intrigue, a digitized Spectrum Holobyte game on C64 way back. That was a good game too.

[Jorpho]

Really off-beat ones that I either have or am after include Cosmology of Kyoto, Grackon's Curse, Bad Milk, Mortalus and Fascination (from Coktel).

I've heard very nice things about Bad Milk. I ought to take a look at that one; it's not nearly as hard to find (a non-physical copy, anyway) as I thought it might be.