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Thread: Help Identifying An Adventure Game From Late 80's/Early 90's On A Macintosh Portable

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    Insert Coin (Level 0) Pr3tty F1y's Avatar
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    Default Help Identifying An Adventure Game From Late 80's/Early 90's On A Macintosh Portable

    Back in the Early 90's, my Uncle had a Macintosh Portable that he was able to bring home from work (presumably to do work, but I think it was just for gaming ). Well, at least I think it was a Mac Portable. It definitely was a B&W LCD and portable, so from my per-adolescent memory, it seems to be the most likely candidate.

    Anyway, from it's awe-inspiring black and white LCD display, I remember briefly playing an adventure game on it that I'm trying to identify. The main character was a human and had a somewhat stick-figure like appearance (think Pitfall Harry from the Atari 2600 but proportionally taller for the display). I can't remember if the character moved by the arrow keys or by point-click, but I definitely remember navigating a city street with a sidewalk/building in the background (I think I was walking down the middle of a street and it may have been some sort of futuristic period).

    I know this is next to practically no good information to identify this game, but it's perspective was like that of Leisure Suit Larry (3/4 perspective, 3rd Person), but it definitely wasn't Larry. I'm familiar with him from my Apple IIGS days.

    I didn't play the game long, but I'm still interested in figuring out what it was.

    If anyone has any thoughts or any good recommendations of how to search for it (MobyGames isn't very user friendly for searching for games withing year ranges), I'd appreciate it.
    Last edited by Pr3tty F1y; 01-21-2016 at 05:47 PM.

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    Cherry (Level 1) Guntz's Avatar
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    Try one of the King's Quest or Space Quest games.

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    I don't think King's Quest had any "city street" scenes. I don't think Space Quest did either, but I could be wrong.

    But the idea that this might be a Sierra adventure game is a good one. I am guessing that either Police Quest, Codename: Iceman, or Manhunter: New York might be one of them? But I am not sure. A full list of Sierra adventures (with box art, but not too much in the way of screenshots) can be found here:
    http://www.sierragamers.com/Sierra-Games

    There were other companies that did adventure games. But Sierra was the biggest in that era.
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    Is there anything else you can tell us?

    If it was an adventure game was there a parser? I know you said you moved with either the mouse or keyboard, but did you have to type something like "Get book" to interact with things or was it more icon based? I ask because there were some games that where a sort of hybrid where it was point and click but also used a parser. Sierra games like Gold Rush fit your description pretty well other than not being futuristic.

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    I don't recall a text parser, but I do remember being able to move the protagonist character that you played as via mouse or keys.

    The scene wasn't dithered as in the image above.

    As far as the city street, it seemed modern or perhaps futuristic in the same tone as the movie Blade Runner or Delphine action/adventure Flash Back. It was a fairly simple scene. Lots of empty gray space with very lines drawing the street/sidewalk/background cityscape.

    It was definitely a 3/4 perspective like arcade brawlers such as Final Fight. You could move up and down within the 3/4 view plan as well as scrolling left and right. I do believe when you reached the edge of a screen, it loaded a new screen, but I can't be certain.

    It was a long time ago and I probably only played the game for 5 or 10 minutes. It's not so much that I want to replay the game again, it would be cool to find out what it was. Hopefully my memory isn't totally crap and my recollections are true. But who knows, memory is a plastic thing. Thank you, though, for those who have shared their thoughts!

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    Sounds interesting and oddly until you mentioned it loading a new screen and some earlier comments, it feels like the old DOS point and click action game Syndicate. It had that blade runner look, lower color choice, keys or mouse(preferred) movement, 3/4 screen and movement like that but this is definitely similar but an older precursor maybe syndicate borrowed aspects of.

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    I believe it had to be either Space Quest or Police Quest.

    After tracking down some more screenshots, I can't find any exact matches, but they are close. I know it wasn't Leisure Suit Larry.

    Thanks all for the assistance!

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    I'd help more but the Blade Runner aesthetic is one I didn't run into often in my adventure gaming, but...

    Could it not possibly be one of the Tex Murphy games? HG101 Article They all have different styles. Martian Memorandum looks like it might fit your description.

    I think there was also two games called Manhunter by Sierra?

    I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream?

    Of course all this is assuming its even an adventure game. It seems to me there's plenty of non adventure games that kinda match. Up until you said it uses screen flipping instead of scrolling, I thought it might be Crime Patrol.

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