The Armchair Adventurer

Casual Adventures - Paranormal Crime Investigations: Brotherhood of the Cresent Snake

2011-08-12T10:38:00.000+01:00

As AdventureGamers.com delves into the realm of the Casual Advenutre Game once more, it's time for me to take a look at another Hidden Object Game based title. As has been the trend over the last few months, I was faced with yet another grisly and spooky tale to traverse through, as Paranormal Crime Investigations: Brotherhood of the Crescent Snake deals with voodoo and an evil cult, down in the Bayou, in New Orleans.

GI Games has done a great job of creating an eerie and unsettling atmosphere in this title, and those of you who are easily scared by Snakes should be forewarned - this isn't the game for you. Twists and danger lie around every corner as you investigate an ancient cult that is behind a series of murders in the city. Check out my full review of the title in the latest AdventureGamers.com Casual Collection.

Casual Adventures: Mystery of Venice

2011-07-29T12:09:00.001+01:00

It's that time of the month agian, as we take a look at some of the latest casual Adventure Games to hit the market, at AdventureGamers.com. The casual Adventure Game round-up this month brings us the usual mixture of the more serious and some light-hearted fare, but I got the chance to play another new ERS Games title, Grim Facade: Mystery of Venice.

The game is obviously set in Venice, but in the time of the Renaissance. A mysterious plague has afflicted the city, and only you - as a privately-hired Detective - can help a desperate husband trace what has happened to his wife and daughter, and to find out just what - or who - is behind the awful events.

Check out the latest round-up here.

Back To The Future: The Game - Full Season Review

2011-07-20T13:50:00.000+01:00

As a huge fan of the Back to the Future series - and of course, of Adventure Games in general - I have been following the progress of Back to the Future: The Game very closely. Now that the final episode has been released and the current series has been completed, I have taken the time to play through the new chapter of the adventures of Doc and Marty.

The main issue for me, before playing, would be whether or not the game series would dilute or ruin the feel and heart of the Movies. Well, I am happy to say that Telltale Games have shown great care with this beloved IP, and there is a lot to appreciate in the game. For my full review, and all of my thoughts on the series - click here.

Red Johnson’s Chronicles Review

2011-07-12T21:11:00.000+01:00

The advent of download-only console titles has been one of the stepping stones that have helped Adventure Games drag themselves out of the mire and back onto the gaming landscape. The support for Adventure Games on Xbox LIVE Arcade and the PlayStation Network is still yet to become expansive, yet several titles have appeared that have shown that this is a more than viable business model for developers to follow.

One such developer is Lexis Numerique - most famous for the In Memoriam series of games. The company has always traditionally worked on titles for the PC market, however they now have several games on the development slate that are set for release on PlayStation 3. One of these, which is a hard-boiled, Noir-style crime thriller - with a sense of humour to boot - a game called "Red Johnson's Chronicles."

Planned as the first of a series of Detective Adventures, the game has some well-developed and strongly acted characters, some very impressive graphics and a good variety of ingenious puzzles to keep you guessing. It also includes some quick-time action events - but don't let that scare you off, as it is a charming and intriguing title. To learn more about the title, why not read my full review at GodisaGeek.com here.

Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother.

2011-05-06T14:13:00.000+01:00

Blade Runner - The Game.

When it came out in 1997, Blade Runner the game was somewhat of an oddity. Coming fifteen years after the original film release, the game chose to not even directly follow the plot of the movie it was based on. It featured familiar sets and characters, but followed a new protagonist and new incidents.

But the game was a cult hit. Branching storylines, the ability to set an emotional stand-point for your character and multiple endings made the game unique for the time in that your every action really did have an impact on the path and outcome of the story.

Head over to Godisageek.com to read my Retro Review of the game and find out why you really should play this forgotten gem.

A New Collection Of Casual Adventure Games To Test Your Wits.

2011-04-15T12:26:00.000+01:00

A new month, and a new collection of casual Adventure Games to cast your eye across. AdventureGamers.com have just published their Casual Adventure Game round-up for releases in March 2011. As they cover the good and the bad of the past month of lite Adventure Games, available on the internet, several contributors pass their judgement over a selection of titles. This month, I reviewed Puppet Show: Lost Town - the third game in the Puppet Show series from ERS Game Studios.

Created by the same team who made Maestro: Music of Death - which I looked at in February, there are a lot of comparisons to be drawn - not all of them favourable, unfortunately. Click here to read my review of the game and to see which other casual Adventure Games are worth a try this month.

Review of Jane Jensen's Gray Matter

2011-03-13T14:36:00.000Z

Fans of the Gabriel Knight series have been waiting for over a decade for the next instalment in the franchise. unfortunately, that has not yet come to pass, but a new project from creator Jane Jensen (I say new, it has also been in development for around eight years) has just been released on PC and Xbox 360, and it shares many of the same elements that made the Gabriel Knight games so beloved.

In my full review at Godisageek.com, I delve deeper into the supernatural mystery that delves into the history of Oxford and the world of Magic. The game mechanics may be a bit hit or miss and the console conversion nowhere near perfect, but the game will reward the persistent adventurer and long-time fans of the genre will find plenty here to appreciate. So go on, read the review and see if it has been worth the wait.

More Casual Adventure Games - Back Once Again

2011-03-10T14:30:00.001Z

Once again its that time of the month when website AdventureGamers.com put up their latest monthly Casual Adventure Game round-up. Covering the good and the bad of the past month when it comes to lite Adventure Games available via the internet, several contributors pass their judgement over a selection of titles.

This month I took a look at the spooky and mysterious Maestro: Music of Death. Set in Victorian Paris , the game concerns a troubling epidemic where locals are aging far too quickly and dying suddenly. As the chief Investigator, you will follow the clues to try and find the truth behind the illness. Read my review here.

The Game That Made Me Appreciate Action/Adventure Titles - Beyond Good & Evil

2011-03-04T12:49:00.000Z

As the pure Graphic Adventure game started to decline in profitability and popularity, I was always wary of Action/Adventure titles. Games like Tomb Raider flooded the market and replaced the traditional Adventure games that had been so successful - the driving force behind the growth of PC Gaming. But now gamers wanted more action, they wanted 3D graphics. Less emphasis was put on story and character development - and I couldn't make the transition to Action/Adventures. I didn't find them interesting or involving. I began to fear good videogame writing was only present in a Graphic Adventure.

But then in 2003, Adventuring forums were abuzz with talk of a new game, and Action/Adventure hybrid - Beyond Good & Evil. Created by Rayman mastermind Michel Ancel, I was far from convinced by his back catalogue. I couldn't imagine the title having any real depth as I never appreciated the charms of Rayman - at least not until the Raving Rabbids got in on the act with him.

But real hardcore Adventurers were raving about this title. Players who would never normally touch action sequences with a barge pole were extolling its virtues. I however, remained unconvinced. I had already had some bad experiences with titles that were Action/Adventures, but had been recommended by pure Adventure gamers. For example, Outcast by Infogrames. In that game I certainly appreciated the music, design and story that it presented, but I loathed the gameplay and controls. I feel bad as I never gave the game a proper chance - I had my preconceptions and as soon as I met with the niggly navigation and often-unforgiving combat, I made my judgement. I wouldn't persevere. And that - as they say - was that.

Flash forward to summer 2004. With an ageing PC I was resorting to the PlayStation 2 for the majority of my gaming needs. Lacking any great single-player titles I hadn't tried already, I thought of Beyond Good & Evil. Could I put my reservations aside and give it a real opportunity to win me over. I tentatively took the plunge.

And how my fears were proved wrong. The game was more original and compelling than any point-and-click game of the time. The ideas and subject matter the game explored were mature and exciting, the game mechanics innovative and genre-defying. This game definitely deserved gamers' time.

But it was sadly unsuccessful at retail. Gushing gamers and critics with loving reviews couldn't help - the game suffered from poor marketing and a crowded release slot and never reached its full potential. Revered by those who did play it, it became a forgotten classic.

Until now. A High Definition remake has just hit Xbox LIVE, opening the game up to a whole new audience. It needs to be played to understand, but to get a better I dea why it is so good, read my full review here. I just hope that this time around, more people take a chance, like I did, and sample its delights.

The AdventureGamers.com Aggie Awards!

2011-02-18T16:11:00.000Z

Head over to AdventureGamers.com for the Aggie awards. The biggest end-of-year awards in the Adventure Gaming community. I myself was a part of the voting panel who decided the awarding of the accolades, and also contributed many of the award summaries related to Heavy Rain (which, if you have been following my blog for a while, you will see I have written about at quite some length previously).

So don't delay, see who the big winners in Adventure Gaming were this year, why they deserve those plaudits and also check out the readers' votes too, right here.

Tim Schafer - A Retrospective Look At The Games That Shaped His Career

2011-02-15T09:02:00.000Z

As part of the Retro Corner column I write for Godisageek.com, and in celebration of the release of the latest title from Double Fine Games - puzzle adventure game Stacking - I have taken a look back at the storied career of designer Tim Schafer. There is no doubt about the huge imprint he and his games have left on the face of Adventure Gaming, and iess creative industry without minds like his being around.

But were all of his games as good as they are made out to be? What are his fatal flaws and why do his games never reach the huge sales figures that perhaps his concepts deserve? To read more and to reminisce about the Monkey Island series, Day of The Tentacle, Grim Fandango and more - you can read the full article here. Leave me a comment to let me know what you think, or to add to the discussion.

More Casual Adventure Games - the Lite Adventures strike again!

2011-02-10T16:15:00.001Z

AdventureGamers.com have just put up their latest Casual Adventure round-up.

This month, I sampled: Dream Mysteries – Case of the Red Fox.
As you can read in the article, this was a very intruiging game with a great premise - but was that promising start carried through into a successful Adventure game?
Read here to find out!

My personal top adventure games of 2010

2011-01-06T09:13:00.000Z

Here is a short (but sweet) look back at a few of the Adventure Games that really stood out above the others for me in the past year. This is not a definitive list, rather some suggestions of titles that really left an impression on me and come with my highest recommendations.

Adventure game of the year:

Heavy Rain - PlayStation 3

Love it or hate it, Heavy Rain has done more for taking Adventure Games into the mainstream than any other Adventuring title in 2010. Selling over 1 million copies in its first two months on sale, hitting number one in the sales charts in several countries and having a monster Sony marketing push behind it showed to the world that when marketed right, a good Adventure game can sell well to the core gaming audience. Don't we all just wish titles like Grim Fandango and The Last Express received half the marketing Heavy Rain got?

Following up to the previous title from Quantic Dreams - Fahrenheit - the game had some expectations to live up to, and other expectations it would want to disprove. Over-reliance on Quick time events remained, but felt more natural in this case, as the movements and actions required were closely related to the movements of arms and legs in-gmae, for example - rather than random button mashing. Asking the player to swing the control stick in the same arc the on-screen character followed when moving their arm made sense, rather than combinations of X, and O buttons.

Another bug-bear of Fahrenheit was the games descent into fantasy and Sci-fi, which was handled badly. Starting as a gritty crime drama, the game quickly turned to the ludicrous and turned many fans off the game. Heavy Rain sticks to the realism of that first act, and manages to keep up the intense real-life plot going all the way through. Sure it dips into the unlikely - in the same way any thriller movie might, but it remains rooted in reality, and is stronger for it.

I have written a lot about this game in the past - please see some of my other thoughts on the title here and here, and if you decide to give the game a chance, I hope you will agree with me that this game helped Adventures take a real step forward in 2010.

Portable Adventure game of the year:

Nelson Tethers Puzzle Agent - Pc, Mac, multiple Apple platforms.

Released by Telltale Games, featuring the artwork of Graham Annable - this is a puzzle-filled Adventure game along the same lines a the Professor Layton series. Full of interesting characters and crazy situations, the game has an intriguing premise of disappearing locals in puzzle-obsessed small-town America and dangerous-looking Garden Gnomes!

The puzzles are very much the same standard we have come to expect from the Professor Layton games and range from simple to very challenging and will provide a lot of longevity, but to simplify things, you can collect hint tokens (also a feature in Layton games) which can be spent when you get stuck.

The sense of humour shines through in the artwork, voice-acting and situations. It is all very unusual, but will intrigue you and keep you wanting to uncover the real answer to the town mystery, and how to solve it. The links between puzzles and the storyline are more often than not very tenuous, which does tend to diminish the impact of the story - when the puzzles you solve have little real relation to the plot. This would be a huge flaw often, but seeing as the game is designed to be played on-the-go and in small bite-size chunks, you can see the idea of a coherent story may carry slightly less weight.

All in all an acquired taste - certainly for fans of logic puzzles, but not a game which will capture the hearts of everyone. I think it is more the unusual design and sound that kept me hooked - so many strange people to meet and places to explore.

Retro Adventure game of the year:

Broken Sword: The Director's Cut - multiple Apple platforms.

By retro Adventure game of the year, I mean a classic game re-imagined. As has been the trend recently, many popular Adventure games have been re-issued this year on new formats and with new features and this was a hard category to judge. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge came close, but I felt the conversion of Broken Sword, released across Apple platform in January, was a perfect fit on those devices.

Complete with full music and voices (not found in the Nintendo DS release) and additional puzzles and scenes which were not present in the original game, coupled with new Dave Gibbons (he of Watchmen fame) artwork and re-mastered graphics, the game found a new lease of life on touch-enabled devices. The control method works perfectly and the simple yet elegant graphic style works just as well on the screen of a phone as it does on a tablet or TV screen. The new puzzles don not seem out of place and blend seamlessly with the classic ones. Everything done to this edition adds to it, rather than hindering it.

Whilst the Monkey Island Special Editions continue to split opinions through their use of all-new graphics, Broken Sword has simply polished up the already lovely visuals, and added extra detail in the form of character portraits during conversations. The old aesthetic is still there, and this will not put off any fans of the original release, but the extra layer of sheen will help to attract new fans.

The story and characters remain some of the best ever written, the puzzles are (fairly) logical and intriguing, and the music still as stirring as it ever was. Voice acting compliments the characters well and for a game where conversations are key, the acting does entertain the player enough so that even long conversations do not grate.

There is little more that can be said for such an icon of Adventure gaming - but simply put, this is a must-purchase for all Apple users.

Puzzling (Mis)adventures - not quite adventures, but still recommended

2011-01-05T08:48:00.000Z

Over at www.AdventureGamers.com, we have posted a new article focusing on several games that really stretch the boundaries between platforming and puzzling, and although they are far from traditional adventure games, they contain some great puzzling elements for the wider audience.

I looked at Super Scribblenauts on the Nintendo DS, and you can read my impressions of the title here, which was a huge improvement over its predecessor. It comes with high recommendations as one of the best DS titles of the year.

Please check out the article for that game and more puzzling misadventures, and widen your adventuring horizons! Let me know what you think if you have played any of these games.

Jane Jensen fans - Gray Matter Demo now on XBOX Live

2010-12-16T15:05:00.001Z

A demo for the long-anticipated new Adventure Game from Jane Jensen - Creator of the Gabriel Knight series of games - has been released on XBOX Live today for your downloading pleasure.
The game is finally due for release on February 25th 2011, after years in production, and you can now take the chance to sample the title before release day.

The PC version is available via German websites already, but will not be fully released in the rest of the world until next year. For details of the demo, click here.

Godisageek.com - Top 10 Adventure Games

2010-12-15T14:43:00.000Z

Head over to Godisageek.com to check out my top-ten list of classic Adventure Games that I think everyone should play. They are not necessarily all the greatest examples of their kind - but come with my highest recommendation.
If you haven't played any of the games on this list - track them down now as you owe it to yourself to experience the excellent storytelling and game worlds created by them all. They will all make you remember why you love Adventure Games, or help you fall in love with the genre.

Check out the full run-down here.

Find out about the latest Casual Adventure Games - Secrets and mysteries in a batch of enjoyable lite-adventures

2010-12-15T14:17:00.000Z

Another month, another batch of casual adventure games come under scrutiny at AdventureGamers.com
I am still somewhat wary of these games, as they can be very hit or miss - but Salem Secrets proved to be very atmospheric and creepy, and worth checking out - at least for the free trial. All of these games will give you 60 minutes play time for free, which is more than enough time to work out if they are to your taste and worth paying for or not.

Take the plunge, read the round-up and try a casual adventure today!

Going Back in Time - Telltale Games Trailer

2010-12-09T14:17:00.002Z

Telltale Games have just released a new trailer that gives us a taste of what to expect when the episodic Back to the Future adventure game series kicks off sometime this month. The series will feature five parts, with the first episode being entitled "It's about time". Further episodes will follow in February and monthly thereafter.

The game follows Marty McFly and Doctor Emmett Brown, and Christopher Lloyd will be reprising his role by voicing Doc for the series. Marty will be voiced by a voiceover artist, but judging by this trailer, he has nailed it.

Check back at Telltale Games for the full release later this month!

A Curious Tale indeed - Clover

2010-12-08T09:23:00.000Z

If you like your retro adventure games with added lite-platforming elements, docheck out my review of Clover: A Curious Tale. An obvious homage to classic titles like the Dizzy and the Yolkfolk series of games, Clover is thoroughly old-school and proud of it - but boasts an artistic flair rarely seen in such low-budget releases. Music and graphics are a joy, but the gameplay is rooted in the 1980's - this is definitely a title that classic Adventurers will appreciate, but it maintains many of the foibles and flaws that games of this genre have always carried.

Check out my review at AdventureGamers.com here.

Trust no-one in the dark - experiencing Alan Wake

2010-11-12T16:03:00.000Z

I recently completed a play through of Alan Wake on the Xbox 360. Whilst not an adventure game, the game is a psychological mystery with a strong plot and great atmosphere. I was drawn to it by its similarities to Twin Peaks and the work of David Lynch in general.

Set in the town of Bright Falls, the game sees our eponymous protagonist escaping to the wilderness with his wife Alice, in an attempt to overcome his writer's block. A professional novelist, Alan causes a stir as he arrives in town as a celebrity. But the warm welcome doesn't last long and soon Alice disappears and Alan is beset by the powers of darkness. Using light as our only defence, the player guides Alan through the backwoods in an effort to find out what is really going on, and in turn, to save his wife.

The bulk of the game is played out like a survival-horror game, very much in the same style as Resident Evil, with item management an important part to your survival. You find yourself using light to defuse the defensive powers of the darkness, and regular weapons to finish off your enemies. Flares, flash grenades and flashlights are your best friends. To be perfectly honest, I didn't find the combat particularly satisfying. The use of light is clever, but these encounters became far too repetitive and almost every enemy can be dispatched in more or less the same manner. I found myself thinking that - coming from an adventure gaming background - I would have found the game far more rewarding had it been executed in a Fahrenheit / Heavy rain manner, with contextual attacks and quick time events replacing full-on action game play. This would have allowed me to focus even more on the real gem of the piece - the plot and setting.

What really sucked me into the game and made me continue playing - even though I'm not good at playing scary games, and despite my qualms with the combat - was the strong game world that was created. The storyline starts off simple, but different layers are revealed as you play through further. Collecting hidden manuscript pages and watching hidden television sets are among the methods used to expand the players knowledge of events. A deep back story begins to reveal itself and we learn of the sinister history hidden beneath the lake at Bright Falls.

The game succeeds in creating a thoroughly unnerving atmosphere, where the sense of impending danger is always just around the corner - but it is often played out with subtlety. The little strange things are often the most disturbing. I think a lot of adventure games could learn from the sense of place and mood the game generates. Lighting and sound effects were particularly effective in making everything seem unsettling - whether it was innocent or not. The soundtrack was also very well crafted. A mixture of classic and current artists perfectly complimented the action, and Roy Orbison's In Dreams for instance made me feel exactly like I was inside a David Lynch film.

The cast of the title are also well-developed. With Alan and his manager Barry as the two central figures. Barry is the comedy foil to the agitated and strung-out Alan. The two make a great partnership and this relationship succeeds in lightening the tone when things begin to get too unpleasant - and never strays into being too ridiculous when measured against the serious tone of the rest of the game. Many conventional horror stereotypes are used to great success - the fact that a lot of events that occur can be predicted did not spoil the experience for me, I enjoyed recognising these and watching events unfold. Along with references to the Twilight Zone, it was another factor which made the game feel like a film or TV mini-series - as it is also presented in episodic chunks, complete with flashback intros and ending music.

I don't think a lot of adventure fans will be taken with the charms of Alan Wake. Its action sequences can get frustrating and samey, but the universe the game invented made me keep going back for more, wanting to find out the truth - much like a good mystery adventure. Get past the niggles of combat and the atmosphere is thoroughly rewarding and the tale woven will keep you hooked.

Of course, like any good horror film, the cliffhanger ending begs for a sequel. I hope the sales of the first game convince Microsoft to fund the next instalment.

Alan Wake is out now on Xbox 360 and two DLC chapters have also been released over Xbox Live: The Signal and The Writer.

Psychonauts sequel planned? It's possible...

2010-11-12T14:24:00.000Z

Whilst not necessarily Adventure Gaming news, Monkey Island, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango developer Tim Schafer - head honcho of Double Fine games - has come out and stated that he would like to make a sequel to critically acclaimed, but low-selling platform-adventure game Psychonauts.

In an interview with UK gaming magazine, PSM3, Schafer was questioned over the chances of a sequel to Psychonauts for release as a downloadable title, over the PlayStation Network, for example. He responded that "I'm ready to do it. I'd love to do it. It's really a question of getting a publisher who's interested in doing it."

"Over the years it's gotten into the hands of a lot of people, through being two dollars on Steam for a while, and being pirated.
"So it's gotten out there. So if all these people were going to buy the sequel it would be a big hit," added Schafer.

Psychonauts followed Psychonaut in-training Raz, at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp - where he uncovered a sinister plot to use the brains of the summer camp attendees to man weapons of war. This would involve some ingenious levels that took inspiration from such varied sources as; Godzilla, Mexican painting and the board game Risk!
As I have previously reported, Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert has joined Schafer's studio - reuniting the ex-Lucasarts employees. They are working on an as-yet unconfirmed new title.

Find out about the latest Casual Adventure Games - they are better than you might think!

2010-10-13T11:16:00.000+01:00

I have always been sceptical about "Casual" adventure games - especially hidden-object games. However, as part of an article for AdventureGamers.com, myself - along with a team of writers, will be publishing a monthly article exploring what is available in the genre. This has led me to play some games I would never usually consider and I have to say, they are pleasantly surprising. I enjoyed both games I played and found them to be of a higher standard than I expected and they really held my interest, being well-paced and exciting.

Please click here to read the full article. The games I played were Reincarnations: Uncover the Past and Escape from Frankenstein's Castle.

Eurogamer Expo - Adventure Gaming hands-on impressions

2010-10-08T12:47:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend of the 1st-3rd of October, I attended the Eurogamer Expo at Earl's Court in London. A huge selection of forthcoming and soon to be released games were on show, and that happened to include a few adventure games. I got some hands-on time with these adventuring titles, so check below to read my impressions for each title:

Heavy Rain: Move Edition.

If you read my blog regularly, you probably know I was quite impressed with Heavy Rain - and while it may not have been quite the revolutionary title it was touted to be - it is certainly one of the best adventure games released in recent memory.

With the advent of the PlayStation 3 MOVE control system, David Cage and Quantic Dream took the controversial (and frankly irritating) decision to cancel all future DLC chapters for Heavy Rain, in favour of putting together a MOVE enabled, motion-controlled version of the game. I believe that decision short-changes all of the fans who bought the game, having been promised several new chapters of content. However, that decision aside, here is what I thought after playing through two scenes with motion control. The two scenes I played through were both from early in the game. Firstly, Scott Shelby visiting the apartment of Lauren Winter, culminating in a fight scene. And secondly, in the apartment of Madison Paige - where she is attacked by masked assailants.

Both of these scenes contain a good mix of casual, free exploring and interaction, and of intense, fast-paced action sequences. So these were good examples to show of the full range of MOVE abilities. Now whilst I did find that some of the motions required were too sensitive, or required too broad a range of motion - I have been told that full calibration of the system and sensitivity adjustment is available - which should eliminate these factors. That said, I think the addition of motion control to the game is very well implemented. It feels natural that the actions - previously carried out with the analog sticks - is now transferred to gestures. The original controls were always based around simulated gestures anyway, so the new system fits perfectly into the game experience. It actually felt more engrossing, and more intuitive. For example, repeatedly pressing X to escape an assailant means nothing, whereas shaking your arms to try and free yourself makes sense with the experience we might have in reality. These factors make the game a better overall package - and is probably closer to what was intended when the game was first pitched.

The only really issue I had with the modified game was the conversation system. Gone are the floaty, nervous, circling conversation options - that slowly fade the longer you take - which used to give the feel of added pressure and tension. Now, conversations and thoughts are much more static, as the selection system involves pointing at the option you want to choose before clicking it. This does minimise the pressure which used to be created in these situations, and I feel is a real minus in terms of atmosphere.

Professor Layton & the Lost Future.

There is not a lot that I can say about this wildly popular adventure series. Most people will know about the adventures of the Professor and his sidekick Luke - and many will have enjoyed his lite-adventures, filled with puzzles and brainteasers.

It's safe to say that this latest outing offers much more of the same, albeit with a little more polish. Cutscene animations for example are more plentiful, and of a higher standard than previously - with very amusing voiceover work through. If you managed to watch the Anime: Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, you will know what to expect as the cutscenes are of a really similar quality.

In terms of gameplay, there are some sections which implement a new sleuth-like system, where you can navigate a room - turning to view all sides of the room, looking for clues. This all still works very much in the same touch-screen way as the regular navigation however, and it all feels very familiar. Puzzles are harder in general I thought, but this may have just been a reflection of what stage of the game I was playing through. Overall the title seems like only a small step forward, but surely a hit with fans of the franchise.

Last Window: The Secret of Cape West.

Finally, the last adventure game on show was the sequel to 2007 sleeper hit Hotel Dusk, from developer Cing. Unfortunately, it seems like this may well be the final game from Cing, as the company filed for bankruptcy following the Japanese release of the game.

Like Professor Layton, this game carries on in an almost identical way to its predecessor, in that the control system and gameplay is very much the same. There is the addition of an IGNORE feature, which allows the player to ignore lines of questioning they feel will not be useful for the case - at the risk of missing vital information which could lead to an early game over - so it is a gamble, knowing when to use the feature and when not to. Additionally, an in-game novel feature has been added, where - after completing a chapter of playthrough - you can read a chapter of the Last Window novel, which both complements and expands upon what you have already learnt in the game, and the outcomes of the novel are influenced directly by your in-game decision-making.

These new features are, however, quite minor on the face of it all, with the game feeling very similar to the prequel. An issue I found with the first game, that still remains is the annoying length of some of the conversations. Compare this to another game, which many have criticised for being conversation heavy - Broken Sword. Now I never found conversations an issue in Broken Sword. They were always entertaining and useful for story progression. Other critics hated their length though. In Last Window, the conversations can last for what seems a lifetime though! I think the main problem is they contain a lot of useless information which doesn't push the story forward and makes them drag. This is a real issue with pacing, and everytime I discovered a new character, I was reluctant to speak with them as I felt it would go on too long and I wanted to be exploring more. That said - the interrogation system is still great, and there is a lot of fun to be had here. Cing could have done with just leaving out some of the extraneous lines of dialogue, that fall between the useful ones.

So, there wasn't a lot of adventure game representation at the Eurogamer Expo - but some promising signs, as a console-heavy show could carry a few heavyweight adventure titles that have done well in the charts. Here is hoping to even more next year.

The Adventures of Willy Beamish - childhood was never THIS interesting...

2010-10-06T14:55:00.000+01:00

In 1990, Sierra and Dynamix released quirky adventure game The Adventures of Willy Beamish. Playing as young Willy Beamish - whose main preoccupations are playing computer games, skateboarding and looking after his pet frog - you are pulled into a web of deceit that threatens to destroy the town of Frumpton, and only Willy can save the day. Frog jump contests, Ninjas and a Vampire Babysitter make this anything but your average family adventure.

Never played this classic oddball comedy? Or loved the game and want to re--live it? Click here to read my review at AdventureGamers.com

Tim and Ron strike back - Adventure gaming dream team back together.

2010-09-28T10:40:00.000+01:00

In a piece of news which is bound to set the minds of adventure gaming fans racing, Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert have announced that they are working together on games at Double Fine Studios. Double Fine is currently working on four games for publisher THQ, with Costume Quest first up on the release slate. Details on the other three games are still yet to be announced, and the new Ron Gilbert project is going to be added to this list.

Gilbert and Schafer worked together on the first two Monkey Island games, as well as working on Day of the Tentacle as a team for some time before the departure of Gilbert from Lucasarts. Their most recent releases have been Deathspank and Brutal Legend respectively, and they also both provided commentary - along with Dave Grossman - for the Monkey Island 2 Special Edition.

In a related note, Gilbert has said that he thinks there is some life in adventure games, and the download success of the Monkey Island Special Editions, for example, shows promise that the genre could make a comeback - but he is not making any suggestions that his upcoming project will be an adventure title.

When the real world begins to look like a Video Game...

2010-08-25T15:14:00.000+01:00

A quick look at the new Arthur Conan Doyle adaptation from the BBC.

Watching the recent BBC adaptation of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, updated to modern London and named simply “Sherlock”, I noticed some similarities between the presentation of information in this new drama, and that in computer games.

I have already compared Quantic Dream’s PlayStation 3 blockbuster Heavy Rain with old-school adventure games. Now I find myself looking at the television screen and thinking that computer games must be entering the subconscious of society more than ever. As Sherlock Holmes checks a body for signs of life, certain words flash up on screen and float incongruously around his head – a la Heavy Rain. Later, Dr Watson receives a text message. Rather than show us the phone, or have a character read it out – the text appears on-screen – just like it would it a traditional point and click game.

Not major points alone, but together they form an aesthetic that is very heavy influenced by video games. In fact, much of the investigation process or deduction is handled silently, with the facts being presented purely in text as the scene is searched. This kind of direct presentation, on-screen labelling – speaks to a generation accustomed to discovering facts and acquiring information from a computer screen. Listening to a long conversation about the facts of the death would be the obvious way to present this data, however having it appear on-screen, hovering in the ether, makes it more direct and accessible. You could get the pertinent facts without even turning on the volume. For me, this harks back to an age when games WERE silent. Sound cards were expensive and rare. Information needed to be displayed on-screen, or not at all. When done successfully, this would be direct and informative. When done badly, it would be the equivalent of the long, drawn-out conversation.

Perhaps presentation such as this speaks more to a society that won’t listen, that don’t want to pay attention. They want the basics and they want it now, forgoing any extraneous details. Conversely, it could be being used as a method to ensure viewers pay greater attention to the show. I know a lot of people who say they rarely make the time to sit down and watch a regular show. Television acts more as a background noise to other activities such as searching the internet. By putting some of the story information across in the programme by text only, the viewer is forced to engage with the images, rather than just to sit back and listen, whilst their attention may be elsewhere. Without fully engaging and staying glued to the image, important information which is left unspoken would be missed by those watching.

I like to think though, that it is simply a case of making use of different formats for conveying information. Why not integrate different storytelling methods? Games have been claiming film-like qualities for years – shouldn’t films borrow back from games? Yes – if done correctly. We see in the film of Doom, for example, with its’ first-person shooter sequence, where the camera acts as the eyes of our hero, to an underwhelming effect – a gimmick for the sake of a gimmick doesn’t work. Sometimes the best films are the ones that don’t try to be like a game.

Where the process compliments the art, then we have a useful and logical fit. If, when Holmes is brawling with a cultist, we switched to seeing the world from the point of view of Sherlock, and energy bars appeared at the top of the screen, I'd more likely than not switch the channel. Sometimes though, the viewer doesn’t need Holmes to explain that he found red lipstick on the banker’s collar – an on-screen label simply helps to streamline the process and it helps the fast-pace of this modern adaptation stay on track.

It is rather good after all, whether it really takes any influence from Video Games or not.

Glass Rose - Japanese murder-mystery insanity, or innovative, immersive, overlooked masterpiece?

2010-07-11T12:09:00.001+01:00

In 2004 Capcom published a Japanese oddity on the PlayStation 2 in Europe - Glass Rose. Never released in America, the game is often overlooked and forgotten. Developed by Cing (now famous for the DS Adventure games Another Code and Hotel Dusk), the game has garnered a cult following however, but is this praise justified for a game that could be used as the very definition of convoluted.

Read on, and judge for yourself - click the link to read my review at AdventureGamers.com

King's Quest to return to the Throne

2010-06-28T11:26:00.000+01:00

In what has been a dramatic U-turn, Activision - who in February hit fan developers Phoenix Online Studios with a Cease and Desist order on their fan sequel in the King's Quest series: The Silver Lining - has now reversed their decision, and are allowing the developers to release the game. An agreement has been reached to allow the game to be released as an episodic series, which will begin next month. This is the second time the Phoenix has figuratively risen from the ashes, as the game was first called to cease development by Vivendi in 2005.

In The Silver Lining, King Graham rides back out into an adventure to save his children, Alexander and Rosella, from the effects of a mysterious curse.We have been promised many familiar characters and locations from the King's Quest series, but the game is intended so that it can be played by those unfamiliar with the history of the series.

Episode 1: What is Decreed Must Be can be downloaded for free from the official website on July 10th.

Discs? Where we're going we don't need... discs.

2010-06-11T09:30:00.001+01:00

Following the news yesterday that Telltale Games are working on an episodic adventure series centered on the Jurassic Park universe, the same company has announced that as part of the same partnership, they will also be bringing out a downloadable season of Back to the Future adventure games.

Dan Conners, CEO of Telltale Games said, “Our partnership with Universal is an exciting next step in our continued growth as a mass-market games publisher and developer.” And for both games they plan to, ” leverage Telltale’s expertise in story-telling and game design to deliver on the unique elements of each series, with our goal being to create compelling cinematic adventures paying homage to each franchise.”

Back to the Future games have been a pretty awful collection so far, with the best of the bunch being the Japanese-only release, Super Back to the Future II, which saw the player Hoverboard their way through cartoon-stylised recreations of locations from the second movie. But there has been no attempt to make the series into adventure games - until now!

Back to the Future is due to arrive on multiple platforms this winter, with Jurassic Park coming sometime shortly after.

Jurassic Park - The Graphic Adventure?

2010-06-09T10:43:00.000+01:00

In a very surprising piece of news, Adventure Gamers may soon be able to take control of Doctor Alan Grant and Doctor Ellie Sadler as they explore Jurassic Park!

Yes, in the latest issue of Game Informer Magazine, Telltale Games - champions of modern-day Adventure Games - responsible for resurrecting Sam & Max and Monkey Island from gaming purgatory have announced they at working in partnership with NBC to create an episodic game series which will "deliver on the tension and drama of the series creating the ultimate cinematic adventure."

Telltale will reveal more details at E3 next week, but lets just hope it is better than almost all previous efforts. I did find the SNES version enjoyable, but it was far from perfect in its outdoor Zelda-like presentation, paired with Wolfenstein 3D interior sections. And it wasn't an adventure game. If Telltale allow me to play as Jeff Goldblum - I'll have their babies.

Monkey Island 2: Special Edition dated?

2010-06-08T16:11:00.000+01:00

As we wait with baited breath for concrete word from Lucasarts on the launch of the Special Edition of LeChuck's Revenge, the game's official PlayStation Network UK page suggests the release date July 7th. Seems about right as that is similar to the release of the first Special Edition last summer. Not long to wait if that is the case!

What if: Sherlock Holmes Vs Jack the Ripper

2010-06-04T13:07:00.000+01:00

The recent game, "Sherlock Holmes Vs Jack the Ripper", released on both PC and Xbox 360, was not the first Adventure-Gaming meeting between these two megastars of Victorian culture. It is probably no surprise that two such iconic characters, from the same time period, should come together. When Electronic Arts made a first foray into the Lost Files of Mr Holmes in 1992, with “The case of the Serrated Scalpel”, we, the players, found ourselves in the shoes of this most famous of detectives, on the trail of a serial killer whose M.O. carried more than a passing resemblance to that of “The Ripper”. In the same way as the recent Frogwares release did, this game puts forward the enduring notion of pitting the fictional brains of Holmes and Watson, against the real-life evil of Jack the Ripper.

The setup is our standard one, starting in the apartment at 221B Baker Street, we receive word from the trusty Inspector Lestrade, that a murder of a young actress has been committed. Scotland Yard believe it to be the work of Jack the Ripper, but Holmes detects some inconsistencies and therefore has his doubts. Lestrade wants to close the case as cut and dry, so it is down to the players – as Sherlock – to piece together the truth from the deception. From this point on we are taken on a veritable tour of Victorian London; an elegant West End Theatre, London Zoo, a traditional English Pub and of course – the Morgue. The further we examine the evidence, the more the intrigue deepens as past loves, family connections and shady characters weave themselves into a complex web of clues.

Technically, the game didn’t break down any barriers, but it is nicely presented and evokes the setting well. The graphics are VGA, full 256 colour and again are reminiscent of many games released at that period. Whilst they certainly aren’t up to the standard of later 2D hand-drawn games such as Broken Sword, they sit somewhere around Money Island 2 and Beneath a Steel Sky, which is certainly good for the time of release. Locations are stylised, but reflect the time period both in terms of architecture and atmosphere and contain some lovely detailing. Character sprites aren’t tremendously detailed – Holmes and Watson obviously receiving the most care and attention, whereas some of the supporting cast can appear somewhat bland and featureless.

Background music is present in most locations and voices are used occasionally – in the introduction cutscenes and some pre-rendered sections of gameplay. Whereas the music is suitable, it can become grating and repetitive when staying in one location for an extended period of tiem. The voices are good when present, for example, Watson and Holmes seem authentic, and the script writing is fine. I do wish that another CD-Rom version had been released with a full speech track, as it certainly adds to the turn of the century ambience. Digitised sound effects are used sparingly, but are sufficient for their purpose, without becoming annoying.

Being released at what was the real Golden Age of PC Adventure Gaming, the user interface should be familiar to most gamers, and is easily picked up. Verbs and dialogue trees are implemented in much the same way as they were in classic Lucasarts games, and within the inventory it is fairly simple to use or combine objects. There are some occasions where the player has to use the small laboratory back at 221B Baker Street to analyse evidence – which is a welcome diversion from the regular investigating. As I mentioned dialogue earlier, it must be noted that the majority of clues and leads are gained through interrogation. Sometimes dialogue choices can be so abundant that they won’t all fit on screen at once – such is the breadth of conversation involved. But this feels natural, as Sherlock Holmes never had CSI technology to aid him, deduction and investigation is the key to his methodology.

Your investigations will throw up a good amount of red herrings and dead-ends, which serve to add depth to the game. Many characters you will meet seem to have motive or opportunity, but of course, eliminating these possibilities and determining who is really behind the crimes is the point of the game. This depth of suspects does give the game a non-linear feel. You can explore several leads at once and – using the map system for navigation – move from one location to the next before tying up each new loose end. New locations will be added to the map through speaking to certain characters or discovering the origin of a particular item, and this feels very organic – letting one clue lead to a new scene.

To aid with this myriad of clues, Watson keeps a journal which – if required – the player can access at almost any point. This is very useful for the times when you get stuck and perhaps lose track of where you should be going next. You can also ask Watson for hints and ideas, although if you were hoping for an in-built hint system – as this he is not. This option is not likely to be needed very often however.

This leads to the main criticism levelled at the game – which is that it is perhaps too easy to complete. Luckily, pixel-hunting only really enters the game on a handful of occasions at most – and the majority of answers to puzzles will present themselves to you in the process of speaking to witnesses and the like. Trial and error doesn’t really come into the equation, which whilst great for amateur adventurers, can seem too simple for others. Back-tracking could also be seen as a problem. Some puzzles can become slightly tedious where you must travel back and forth on what amounts to a “fetch-quest”. This is a minor complaint however, as the puzzles are all logic-based and don’t require the wacky brand of lateral thinking employed by Sam and Max Hit the Road, for instance.

It is perhaps a shame that after this more than competent release, it took Electronic Arts four years to produce the second “Lost File”, and by this time, the fad for FMV was rampant and the “The case of the Rose Tattoo” bore little resemblance to this first case. In much the same way as the Gabriel Knight series did, this series spanned the crossover between adventure styles. Both are definitely good games in their own right, but play very differently to one another. Many people nowadays are still put-off by early FMV acting as well, which doesn’t aid the transition. Running the game on modern day computers isn’t a tall task – with dosbox or similar programmes easily getting it going. I did have some trouble in the setup, where getting the voices to work as they should was time-consuming. I also experienced some crashing out, so be advised to save often – but don’t we all live by that rule regardless?

This was a great start to what looked like a promising series of games, unfortunately cut short after only two instalments. Perhaps the publisher would have been smarter to take a leaf out of Frogwares’ book, and drawn on the endless popularity and mystery of England’s most famous serial killer in marketing the game, instead of taking the Conan Doyle route of providing a more subtle title. The game does however still offer a great detective experience, and a fantastic setting. It isn’t a hard game but your investigations will make the game last a good few hours. As it is an Electronic Arts game, a Steam or GOG release is out of the question, and with the licensing issues involved, would EA still be allowed to profit off a Sherlock Holmes game? But this would be a welcome addition to the EA store, as a downloadable release with full compatibility for current operating systems.

How does Heavy Rain relate to Classic Adventure Games?

2010-05-26T11:23:00.004+01:00

With my recent re-playing of several classic Sierra titles, it got me thinking about the charges levelled at Heavy Rain. Talk of it not being a real game, but being an interactive movie.

Firstly, let me qualify this article. Of course, there are many comparisons you could draw between a game like Heavy Rain and traditional Adventure Games. For example, logic puzzles, investigation and dialogue - to name just three. And whilst it is true puzzles exist in Heavy Rain, and the player must investigate clues to lead to a conclusion - these never felt to me like a direct link to early Sierra Adventures, for example. Puzzles are simple and straightforward, not so much taxing as simply a process. And then we have the dialogue - obviously adventure games and dialogue trees go hand-in-hand. But not so with very early Adventure titles - Sierra and Infocom games had little in the way of back and forth conversation. And the dialogue system used in Heavy Rain is a mess - although the difficulty in selecting the phrase you want to speak seems to be a design feature, to ramp up the tension.

When compared to the early Sierra games, and I'm thinking of Space Quest in particular, certain sections of Heavy Rain are very similar in style and pacing. Now, I hear you ask, how can Space Quest and Heavy Rain share the same style? Of course - they are light years apart in terms of graphical and audio presentation. Control method is hugely different also.

I'm talking about the atmosphere and speed of the game, though.

Heavy Rain forces the player to be almost constantly on-edge. You know that there is undoubtedly a time limit on what you are trying to do as the characters around you go on with their lives at their own pace, and you could easily miss your opportunity if you don't hurry up. I'm sure you will agree, this was certainly the feeling you almost always felt when playing Space Quest or Police Quest, for example. In those early parser games, you never really felt safe - there was always a niggling feeling that you should get going and not take too long, or else you might meet a grisly end.

The same rings true in David Cage's latest blockbuster. You will feel ill-at-ease when exploring an empty apartment.
The user feels suspense and even, perhaps, fear, when you know the killer is close. Despite reservations regarding the iffy voice acting and somewhat limited set of interactions in some in-game areas, the game fulfills its promise of a tense gameplay experience that mirrors that of a Hollywood thriller.

One of the finest examples of this tension can be found in the first DLC chapter: The Taxidermist. The chapter is definately too short, with limited interactions again, and character models appear somewhat limited - as this was in fact an early test scene, that was released as a demo long before the game was finished. But where it succeeds is when you find yourself playing as Madison, thrown into the house of a suspect. You quickly become disturbed by the stuffed animals and terrible state of the home. Later discoveries upstairs confirm your fears you have stumbled into the den of a killer. Not to spoil things too much, but soon the players fears that they could be discovered at any time are preyed upon and you are in a race against time to avoid your own horrible end. This is handled flawlessly, and I could really feel my heart-rate rising and my grip on the gamepad tightening.

One of my readers pointed out that this isn't just an Adventure Gaming convention, and that most action games will use this technique. Unfortunately, I feel the truth is that most action games strive to create this atmosphere, but more often than not, cannot achieve it. I hadn't felt that same sense of urgency to work out a logic-based conundrum since my early days playing AGI Adventures. An action game will want to create a sense of panic - but I thin that the feeling of having to solve a puzzle or investigate a lead, whilst under time and mental constraints, is certainly a strong link, harking back to early Sierra products.

In The Taxidermist there are, if I remember correctly, five slightly different resolutions you can explore, and the trial and error style of play you must adopt to accomplish these is reminiscent of early Adventure Games also. Just as where is Space Quest 1, upon finding yourself alone on the spaceship with your shipmates dead, you have no idea where to start, but know you have to start soon, Heavy Rain pushes you also to play like that. You won't find a solution - or at least - the best solution, on your first attempt. As Roger Wilco, you were forced to save early and save often - the Sierra motto. Only this way could you progress in an atmosphere laden with nerves. It is a similar case with Heavy Rain - you have three checkpoints you can restart from, and in this relatively short chapter, these allow you to realise where you went wrong, and return to that point.
Then, in both games, you will re-try a different solution, in the hopes of a safe escape.

As I mentioned before, some scenes seem very sterile - interaction is at a minimum, where actions performed in other similar rooms may not be available and this can cause disappointment when we realise we aren't quite in control of everything that happens, as we were promised by the game's creators. Why can I open one drawer, but another not?
Design choices obviously, but they do limit the scope of a game that lauded full immersion. Voice acting also, as mentioned earlier, grates at times (especially grief-struck mother Lauren), and the twist at the end can come as a disappointment, or a revelation - depending on how you personally accept it. It works, but there are obviously cracks in this major reveal.

These are minor points though in a game where tension is king. The claustrophobic atmosphere and forced pace create an uncomfortable gaming experience, but one that you are unlikely to forget. True, this will undoubtedly put some players off. Others will be entangled in the twisting storyline and shady cast, feeling that the decisions they make in-game are important and will really change the outcome of the case. Fortunately for Heavy Rain, it seems to have paid off, and sales quickly exceeded expectations.

David Cage has created his own sub-genre. It sits between interactive fiction and Adventure Games - taking elements from both, but perhaps it still hasn't perfected the blend, but on the evidence of Heavy Rain, he will get another chance.
Roll on, Fahrenheit 2.

To Re-make, or not to Re-make?

2010-04-21T22:32:00.001+01:00

Re-makes are not a new thing in the Adventure Gaming world.

Sierra attempted a company-wide reboot in 1991 in terms of re-issuing every one of their "Quest" series of games. Kings, Space and Police Quest - along with honorary "Quests", Quest for Glory and Leisure Suit Larry - were all re-released and upgraded from their traditional Parser-based AGI system, to the more modern point-and-click SCI system.

These were meant to kick-start a series of re-makes whereby every previously released game in each series would get an SCI overhaul. Disappointing sales effectively killed this idea, and it is this that reflects the question I am asking today - Is there value in re-making a previously popular Adventure Game?

Using the Sierra example as a jumping-off point, I think the fundamental problem with a re-make is how loyal to the original are you going to be? The teams working on the re-makes were clearly fans of the originals, and you can see the care which went into upgrading the gameworlds. The artwork has been lovingly revamped, music has been composed to compliment the previously mute (or near-mute) games.

The problem is, these games were never very long experiences. The transition from keyboard-controlled, phrase-based typing, to point-and-click, is not very kind to be truthful. The parser text system was a very involving and interactive gameplay mechanic. The player was dropped into the game world and given a blank slate to type upon - you could be baffled with the sheer open-endedness of the options available to you.
Ok, soon the player learns the terms which the game will recognise, but without hot spots and pre-determined actions to pick from - the older games are instantly more of a challenge - and in turn - more engaging.

Once you place the restrictions of a point and click system onto the game, the user is somewhat blinkered. You know all of the set actions you can execute straightaway. Upon scanning over a room with the curser, you are left in no doubt of the items that can be interacted with. Whilst the games are undoubtedly more visually and audibly pleasing, the control method allows the games to be whizzed through at a high pace.

Replaying both the original and re-make of the first Leisure Suit Larry game, at an estimate I would say the original took maybe three-four hours to complete - partially due to the desire to play it at a leisurely pace; exploring the options available to the user, trying to find every joke, interacting with every character.

The re-make, I completed in approximately one hour, without feeling like I had missed anything.
It was great to see high-res renderings of some of the classic characters, perhaps as they were originally envisioned to look. But I didn't feel as connected to the games as I did with their AGI counterparts.

This rung true for most of the Sierra 1991 re-makes. The games seemed shorter, less engaging and seemed like there was less character.

Now, moving onto a recent example, The Secret of Monkey Island - Special Edition. Now, this had been a talking point for years - certainly one I had thought about. Whereas with the Sierra Quest games, it came as a surprise that they were all - relatively quickly (between three to six years after initial release) - re-made, the re-make of Monkey Island had been discussed by fans over and over. I wondered if the original game could be re-released with the full voice cast used in the later games, and orchestral score. It seemed like a simple idea. But when it finally came - almost twenty years later - it gained a mixed reception.

When the Special Edition was announced, it was a huge surprise to fans. They always wanted it, but never expected it - Lucasarts had, only a few years before - nailed their Adventure Gaming coffin tightly shut. Re-imaginings of Sam and Max and Full Throttle had already been put to the sword, so the re-emergence of a classic property was far from expected.

But almost immediately, people began to complain. Upon the launch of the promotional tie-in website, and with it some new screenshots and artwork - the fans began to voice their distaste. The game looked basically the same. Graphical and audio upgrade was the term used. Whilst much remained the same - character models were "upgraded", but not to the taste of the fans. Guybrush didn't look how they imagined him, in particular.

That aside, the game is altered very little. Both the versions make use of point-and-click, so the transition experienced in the Sierra titles is not applicable here. Artwork is tweaked, music re-recorded, interface streamlined, but nothing major. The one feature that really makes the game, and probably saves it from being a slap-dash job, is the fact the user can hot-swap between both versions at the touch of a button, keeping the new musical score in tact. This is an obvious nod to the original fans, and a wise concession to make. But the very inclusion of that concession begs the question - why was the game re-made at all, when it could have found an audience as a simple re-release?

The game is little more than an attempt to introduce the game to a new generation of players. This was the initial plan with the Sierra model of re-releasing too. More now than ever, there is a retro game revival, but it is clear that casual gamers will be put-off by outdated games. The re-haul is a fairly quick and painless road towards the new market. With the advent of the Nintendo Wii and DS, adventure games found e new outlet. As evidenced by Broken sword - the Directors' Cut - which found release on both of the Nintendo platforms - there is an appetite for classic adventures, tailored towards new games players. Revolution side-stepped the issue to an extent with the "Directors' Cut" idea, whereby new content and puzzles would add to an otherwise unchanged game. The idea of added value.

One re-make I was certainly a fan of however, was Mansion Mansion Deluxe. I had never finished the original version, due to the clunkiness of the control system, and several glitches which greatly diminished the enjoyment of the game. The early version of the SCUMM controls was not incredibly user-friendly. Of course, it was revolutionary, but after being spoiled by the Monkey Island games, for example, I found it hard to work with.

The new fan-created "deluxe" release implemented a version of SCUMM stolen from Day of the Tentacle, along with upgraded graphics and sound. Re-made using the freeware AGS Adventure Game Studio, is this a case of the fans knowing best? I must admit, my view on this remake might be skewed BECAUSE I never finished this game before. Because my idea of what this game should be like was never fully-formed, perhaps my view is biased. But I really appreciate the improved control method!

I do feel that fan-made games have probably found the right route to go with "classic" games. Often using the original engine and graphical assets, fans have long been producing sequels and prequels to our favourite games. Regularly the game will look near-identical to the source material, but have different puzzles and situations. Some developers put in an incredible amount of work to create further artwork in the style of the original artists - it is quite impressive. One such example of this is Space Quest 0: Replicated. Produced in the exact style of Space Quest 1, and using many elements from it, a new story is placed into the existing universe - to great effect.

Maybe the value of a re-make will differ from user to user. If you loved the original version - you will undoubtedly find the re-make redundant. If one found the original to have shortcomings, then an "upgraded" version is likely to be welcome. I myself, still find value in even the less successful re-makes. There will be different artistic approaches and the developer might stamp some of their personality on the project - which can be interesting - or incredibly grating. So a re-make is in the eye of the player. But as long as it will allow new players to experience classic Adventure Games, and re-invigorate the genre - it can't be a bad thing.

Adventure Game Limbo

2010-04-15T16:52:00.001+01:00

Just a quick article, but here is a full (as far as I can remember) list of Adventure Games I have started to play, but never got around to finishing, here are all of the games stuck in gaming Limbo:

Beavis and Butthead In Virtual Stupidity
Beavis and Butthead Do U
Broken Sword 4
Feeble Files
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
Jake Hunter Detective Chronicles
King's Quest 4
King's Quest 6
King's Quest 7
The Colonel's Bequest
Phantasmagoria
(Roberta Williams isn't doing well on this list right?)
Legend of Kyrandia - Hand of Fate
Lure of the Temptress
Nightlong - Union City Conspiracy
Normality
Orion Burger
Phoenix Wright - Trials and Tribulations
Sam and Max Season 1
Space quest 3
Stupid Invaders
Syberia 2
Tex Murphy Overseer

I really wans't anticipating the list to be this long.
Some - such as Stupid Invaders and Jake Hunter - I have no problems with leaving mid-game, as they are fairly sub-standard.

Others - such as the King's Quest games and Tex Murphy - I really feel I need to go back to and finish off, as I probably only left them due to a lack of time.

So, what adventure games are there that you have started, but never finished?
And which of the games above should I go back to first?

Heavy Rain Syndrome

2010-03-20T16:18:00.002Z

Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards

2010-03-10T16:08:00.000Z

It seems only fitting that to accompany my lengthy interview with Al Lowe, I look back at his infamous breakthrough game, which was also one of the first graphical adventures I ever played.

Now, I will start by saying that the very first time I played this game, I certainly wasn't old enough to buy this game, let alone understand all of the situations and innuendo contained within. As I touched upon in my interview with Al, this lead to many hours of guessing and re-playing the age-verification quiz. This was made even more difficult that a lot of the American pop culture and U.S. history questions were straight over my head - being a young boy, born and raised in England.

But once I finally got past the interrogation and I stood outside the flashing neon of Leftys Bar, with the internal speaker bleeting out the Leisure Suit Larry theme tune, I was introduced to a new world of gaming. From recollection, this and Police Quest were the first Graphical Adventures I ever tried - which came first I'm not sure - but Leisure Suit Larry helped shape what I expected from future adventure games. It had humour, colourful characters and backgrounds, fetch-quests, irritating death scenes and everything else which you might associate with the "Classic" age of adventuring.

For those of you who may have never played the game - you play as Larry Laffer, a hopeless failure with the ladies, who is looking for the right woman - or any woman that will take him. With less than $100 in your pocket, you must traverse the city of "Lost Wages", to track down and win that elusive prize.

The character of Larry is that of the lovable loser, and whilst this is shown more fully in later games, there isn't a great deal of character development in this first outing.
Honestly, the game is very short and the puzzles aren't too taxing. For a game where you are required to jump through hoops to find the perfect lady, the puzzles are actually fairly logical and most won't have you stumped for extended periods of time. Whereas Leisure Suit Larry 2 : Looking for Love (in Several Wrong places) definately wanders into the ridiculous at times, Lounge Lizards is a simpler and more down-to-earth premise.

That was probably the huge charm of the game. Most guys who might have played the game on it's initial release would have been able to sympathise with the common man, useless when it comes to talking with women - a lovable loser. The settings were all identifiable and the characters were all ones we could have met ourselves. Compared to King's Quest and Space Quest - Larry was real, but unlike Police Quest - it still kept the great Sierra sense of humour.

Al Lowe approached the project with the idea of doing a semi-parody of an earlier Sierra game - Softporn.
Upon playing Softporn, Al found it horribly dated and humourless, and set out to dress it up in a Leisure Suit.

Larry wasn't anything revolutionary - it used the same game engine and sprite graphics as the rest of the Quest games. The parser text typing input was the sole control method and the graphics, athough far from spectacular, were charming. With the limited pixel and colour palette, animations and illustrations created the world vividly. The music was limited to internal bleeps and bloops.The theme tune - written by Lowe - was horribly catchy, although sound effects in general were basic.

The staple of Sierra games - the death scenes - were commonplace here too.
The comedy set it apart though. When it comes to the point that you want the character to die in every permutation possible, so you can see the outcome, you know the designer has done something right. Jokes were everywhere, and no opportunity to deliver a punchline was missed.

Larry being re-built after another death scene.

When I was young and hadn't yet grown accustomed to the Sierra adage of Save early and save often, I remember particularly well - after an encounter with a lady - being arrested for public indecency, because I hadn't opted to zip up after the act. It made perfect sense. Of course you should do that, but who would have thought of it? As frustrating as it was, you had to laugh at the thought of it all. Never before had game over scenarios been so entertaining.

This is the secret of the enduring popularity of Larry. The games were never gratuitous with their depiction of sex and women. Innuendo and suggestion were abundant of course - but so were they in the Carry On series of films. Despite frequent 15 and 18 age ratings being plastered on the games, there is nothing in them that you wouldn't see at 8pm on cable TV nowadays. The genius of the writing was to make the women the characters with the power. Their needs or whims are really fueling the puzzles, not Larry's desire to copulate. Larry is the fall guy and your job is to get him out of the predicaments he gets himself into.

Playing the game after many years with fresh eyes has shown me the laughs are still there. It is still funny to repeatedly trample over a drunkards' crotch. The animation and character models still bring a wry smile.
Although Larry is more rounded and his motivations more sympathetic in later iterations of the game, here it is most accessible and immediately enjoyable. You need little to no history in adventure games to "get" Leisure Suit Larry. I suppose that is truly what allowed the game to become such a runaway success.

It may be hard to come back to this game for those who have never experienced the vintage Sierra Adventures before. They are ingrained on early adventure gamers, they illustrate to us all that was good - and bad - about adventure games.

Clunky? Yes. Unforgiving? Certainly. But endlessly charming.

Damn, I wish I'd done a better job! - Meet Al Lowe, Creator of Leisure Suit Larry

2010-02-23T22:37:00.001Z

Throughout the nineteen eighties and into the nineties, Sierra was world famous for producing Adventure Games. Many of the most popular games series' ever made were produced in this time.
Kings Quest, Police Quest, and Space Quest all appear regularly on top-ten lists. But perhaps the most notorious of all is the Leisure Suit Larry series. Controversial and beloved in sometimes equal measures, creator Al Lowe - the self-professed World's Oldest Games Designer, took some time out to speak with me about his creation and to go behind the scenes at the pioneering games studio.

Robin: My first real memory of Leisure suit Larry is of myself and several friends spending hours simply trying to get past the age-verification quiz, so we could even play the first game.

Al Lowe: If only you’d known about Alt-X!

R: Of course, nowadays it’s easy – you can look up on the internet for answers or cheats, but I remember we would play for ages just to get into the game proper, but that provided many laughs. It was a fun game in itself almost.

Al: Yeah, I understand a lot of kids learnt a lot about history.

R: Yeah, 70’s and 80’s American history in particular. Was that put in purely for censorship reasons?

Al: Well… I didn’t really think there was anything in the game which was that outlandish that it shouldn’t been seen by – I suppose children would be the right word – but at least Teenagers, good lord, there was nothing in there that Teenagers don’t know about. But I think part of it was that we also felt that it was a good marketing ploy – that it was so nasty that there had to be some sort of test to get in. So I think that was more the marketing guys’ thinking. But I went along with it, I thought it was a funny idea and it was a chance to make it humorous, and the more humour we could add, the better. That was my whole struggle with that game, because I’d never written comedy in my life. I didn’t know how to be or what would be funny, so I added everything that I could, and thought well, if I put some jokes in these test questions, then that would be more humour!

R: Well it definitely was, I recently replayed the first Larry game with my girlfriend, which was the first time she had played any of the Larry games and she really enjoyed it. She didn’t find the game insulting in any way and she wanted to even carry on the questions after we had got through because she found it so amusing.

Al: Well good. You know all of the questions are on my website www.allowe.com, including the famous O.J. Simpson question.

R: Yeah, that one could be interpreted in several ways nowadays.

Al: (Laughs) That was just weird!

R: A bit of foreshadowing. Is it a common opinion you have experienced from female players that they enjoy the game, because obviously you have ad some negative feedback, but in general is it quite positive?

Al: The only negative feedback I’ve gotten from women has been from those who have never played the games. In fact, I’ve had women stand and support me – defend my honour – as it were, to other women, in front of me. I remember a couple of times at conferences or something were one women said “oh, you wrote that horrible game”, and another woman said “have you played that game? You don’t know what you’re talking about! This guy is funny, and the whole game is pro-female.” And she was taken aback – and I was surprised. But what I realised was, that women enjoyed the games because I think at some point they have all dated somebody like Larry, and secondly because it was one of the few games where women were always the stronger characters. Larry was just this doofus and the women were always smarter, more attractive and more knowledgeable and so forth, than he was. So yeah, I think it was actually… I used to know the word that was the opposite of misogyny.

R: So, talking about the earlier games, the Parser text system used by Sierra in those games could be quite frustrating, with not always knowing what you could and couldn’t type. But I always felt that with your Larry games that you had gone the extra mile, so that even if you typed something ridiculous or something the program couldn’t understand, that you would still get a funny response. The player always got something out of what they were trying.

Al: Part of that was my inexperience. I hadn’t worked a lot with the Parser that Sierra used at that time – I had done a lot of games before Larry – but some were Children’s games, some were simpler, Black Cauldron used the function keys to make choices and use inventory and so forth. So I hadn’t really designed a game from scratch that used the typing input. So I wasn’t very sure about it. What I did was write a module which I attached to the test versions of the game that stored wrong inputs onto a floppy disk. So every time somebody got the message back “you can’t do that here – at least not now!” – which was always our “we don’t know what the hell’s going on” message, that would store some data onto the disk – including what scene they were in, what they had done, what inventory they had – things like that. At the end of the Beta testing, I collected all of those files, sorted them all into this one gigantic file, then eliminated duplicates, went through and added all of the inputs that all of our testers had typed in. So a lot of that knowledge that appears to be in the game, is merely because we had a good set of Beta testers who tried a lot of things, and I went back and took the care to write it in. I couldn’t really go back and add anything to the game at that point – I couldn’t add additional animation or scenes or anything else – but I could add text. And that’s what I did, I just added a lot of additional responses, and that made the game seem more intelligent, I guess.

R: More interactive almost. Whereas you might have received some criticism in the past, you obviously had quite free reign over what you put in your games. Was it left down to self-censorship? Was there ever really anything where you thought you had to backtrack, and thought “I can’t put that in the game!”

Al: I would come up with an idea and I would ask my wife. (Laughs) I would say “Margaret, what do you think of this?” and if she would go “Oh my god!”, then I knew I couldn’t put that in. And if she said “ah, I don’t know”, well I would put it in!

R: So you had a sounding-board?

Al: Yeah, but it was more self-censorship than anything else. Ken Williams (Sierra Co-founder) gave all of the designers a lot of free reign. I think he kinda lobbied for it to be even naughtier than it was, until we got close to the end and he realised we had to ship this thing and it was going to have his name on it somewhere, then suddenly he kinda back away from me. So we left it pretty much the way it was. I can’t remember him, or anyone at Sierra, ever saying “no, you can’t do that.”

R: Not only did it have his name on the box, but Ken Williams also made an appearance in the game.

Al: Well yeah! You know part of the problem was, I always needed names for things and I had to find people that I could use their name and get away with it. So I often picked names of people or things that were at work, or I made up really crazy names that nobody would ever have, because we weren’t sure of what the legal status was for putting Al Gore in the game, or Bill Clinton for example. Later on we learned that parody is acceptable over here, and that you can get away with a lot if you call it parody. Actually you can get away with more if you are doing parody or a comedy with someone, than if you are using someone who is not famous.

Ah, Misandrist is the word I was trying to think of earlier! That is someone who hates men.

R: That’s my new vocab of the day! Personally for me the Larry games work well because they contain strong characters the player can relate to and entertaining storylines that tie all of the puzzles together really well. Nowadays you find some games seem to work the other way around, where story is almost an afterthought after the gameplay mechanics have already been built. For you I assume it was always a case of story first?

Al: Yeah, characters came in along with story. Sometimes I would make lists of gags that I wanted to includes, sometimes I made lists of the embarrassing situations I could put the poor guy in, and sometimes I just had lists of things that I thought would be funny and it was always a matter of how could I make the story include all of these things, and make it interesting and build upon it. But also, I spent quite a lot of time fleshing out the characters, so that the characters weren’t just sketches, but they had backgrounds, real personalities – they were different from one another.

That’s one of the things that always gets to me about first-person shooters. You have this endless supply of targets that are, to me, walking Bull’s-eyes. You feel no emotion when one of them dies – I suppose that is purposeful too, how they should be – but I think a lack of character has always been a weakness in those games.

R: There are too many faceless minions.

Al: Yeah, minions is the perfect word.

R: I remember that hidden away on the disc for Larry 6, there was a video of you performing the Larry theme tune on your Saxophone, and talking a little about your game design philosophy. Upon re-watching it, you remember how much creators were almost solely responsible for games back then. Whereas games are now produced my hundreds, if not thousands, of people. How much did that change whilst you were working, from your early games, up to Larry 7 for example?

Al: For the first games I did everything. I did the music, the code, even some of the graphics on the very first games that I did – and they weren’t very good! We quickly got to the point of hiring artists to do the graphics, but the problem back then was there were very few artists that had experience with computers. Those two terms were just the opposites of each other. We had a difficult time finding people who were good at art who could handle computers, as computers were pretty primitive back then. I remember one story where a guy worked on a background scene for one of the games for hours and I said to him “how many versions of this have you saved?” and he said “none, I’m not finished with it yet.” It was like “oh my god!” so then after that we started actually teaching them to save everything as they went along. It was an odd time, but as the games went along, the less responsibility I had, to the point where I worked myself out of a job I guess. In ten years, I went from doing everything, to doing nothing but writing and overseeing and supervising the team of people that did all of the hard stuff. I had a team of fifteen on the last project, who were full-time employees at Sierra.

R: Still fairly small then?

Al: Well we farmed out a lot of the art, so we had dozens of other people. And if you look at the credits – by the time we added the voiceover talent and all of the people in marketing and so forth who wanted their name on the games then, we were getting into the forty or fifty range. But we farmed out the art and that was always a fairly major part of the projects, so they got pretty big. But they were never anything like what a 3D action-adventure would be today.

R: in that same video, you mentioned a Political action game called Capital Punishment (including white water rafting with Bill and Hilary Clinton).

Was that a real project that entered development?

Al: It was a real project. We thought it was a chance to do a different kind of humour and a different format. It was much more of an action game. The problem was that Sierra didn’t have a real action game engine. What we had was an adventure game engine. And even a lot of the non-adventure games that Sierra published – that are now mainly forgotten – were published through that adventure game engine. So they hired a new programmer who had worked on a project on his own and he had developed this engine. It looked great, it was a side-scroller, and it could do several planes of depth and large environments, so we thought maybe we can do an action game and do something funny. So I came up with several levels of it. You know what, I should post the design document for that – I have it somewhere I’m sure.

R: The reason I asked was it real, is because I was researching and trying to find some information on it and aside from a couple of brief mentions, there is nothing on the internet about it.

Al: We actually got art developed, and we built the first level and you could play it. The problem was that his engine had never really been tried with a level worth of data, so every time you added an object to the game, it slowed down. And when we got to the point where we had enough data to play a whole level, the game was so slow that it was just terrible. So we killed the project and I lost three or four months of my time. This was expensive for me because I was never on a salary after the first year I worked for Sierra. I was an employee for eight months and then I got fired and immediately setup as an outside contractor who worked on royalty basis – which was the best thing that ever happened to me. But it meant that I didn’t get paid, except when a game shipped and actually made money. So the Capital Punishment project meant that I worked three of four months with no pay.

R: I can imagine how frustrating that must have been. But it sounded like a good idea for a game – something which has never really been done before or since really. There isn’t a great deal of parody in video games is there?

Al: No, and it’s gotten worse, rather than better since I left. There are very few games that make me want to play them because I think they are going to be funny. There are a few! But they are few and far between.

R: You have said on many occasions that you would have liked to have been involved in the production of the new Larry games. How frustrating was it for you to see your initial creation being re-used in these games?

Al: It was very frustrating and disappointing. I felt bad for the people who bought the games because I tried really hard to do the best possible title that I could and I just had the feeling that those guys didn’t. That the games were slapped together and not polished to the level that they should have been. I have to say, in Magna Cum Laude, there a lot of things there that I would have been proud to have written, but on the other hand there was a whole lot of stuff in between those scenes that was just embarrassingly bad. I’m afraid that what they did was kill my baby. They took the ideas and characters that I created and made them unsaleable now.

R: There are rumours that there might be an iPhone Larry game which will apparently be more adventure orientated, but do you feel after what has been done recently, they have maybe gone a little bit too far now?

Al: I don’t know if there is any “they”. I think that is part of the problem. There was no continuity whatsoever on that team from anyone who had ever worked on a Larry game with me, and there was no continuity between the two teams of designers of the two games that have been released, nor of the third game which was out on cell phone, which they didn’t even bother to put a new title on – they called it Love for Sail, yet it had nothing to do with the game I wrote of the same name. What is ironic is, that on my website www.allowe.com, there is a page full of twenty-five or thirty rejected titles – each of which were better than re-using the same title on a different game. They could have just done an internet search and found a stack of titles to use. But no, they just used the title that I used, on a game that had nothing to do with it – It’s just misleading to people and so forth. So when you say “they”, there is no continuity, there is nobody at Sierra anymore – there is no Sierra company – it is merely a brand they slap on whatever box they think it will help sell. There is no-one in the company that owns the intellectual property that ever had anything to do with Larry and I think most of them wouldn’t know who I am if I bumped into them on the street or if they were introduced to me – they probably don’t even know my name! So it’s now just a matter of people who look at property they own and say well can we use this like this, and then they farm it out to some other team who has never done a title like that. That team will do the best it can I guess, but it’s a sad state of affairs.

R: Anyway, let’s try to move away from that!

Al: Sorry to be so depressing (laughs).

R: Of course, you worked on many other great games – games such as Police Quest and Kings Quest 3 – where you acted as lead programmer. On those games, other than just programming, did you ever have any creative input on those games where you could put a bit of your style into them?

Al: It was minimal. Those games had their own designers who wanted things the way they wanted them. And that was one of the hallmarks of Sierra back then, that a person was in charge of a project. It pretty much reflected their thought sand wishes for that game. Whereas nowadays you have a committee of people where everybody is arguing abut what they want to put in and what they don’t. So, in the sense that I would make suggestions and Jim Walls would say “sure, let’s do that”, or Roberta (Williams) would include it, sure. I think the only humorous part of Kings Quest 3 was my contribution. There weren’t a lot of jokes in Kings Quest 3 but when Roberta needed something done, so I suggested the character do some aerobic exercises because that’s what Roberta did a lot of back then. We would be having a meeting and she would say “I can’t stay; I’ve got to go to aerobics.” And so, I thought that would be great, let’s make the poor kid do aerobic exercises. Which of course made no sense whatsoever in a castle game with a Wizard and swords and sandals and stuff – but it made me laugh – and I think everyone else got a laugh out of it.

R: Growing up I was always a big fan of Westerns, so one of my favourite games you worked on was Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist. Some magazines called it the Blazing Saddles of computer games. Does that game hold a particular special place for you?

Al: Absolutely. Freddy was a wonderful game. Ken Williams and I met, and we discussed what I could do instead of just doing one Larry game after another, because I was getting bored of just doing Larry games. So what we came up with was an idea like the Zucker brothers did (they made Airplane!) and then they started doing other movies which were humorous spoofs of other film genres. So I said why can’t I do that, why can’t I do spoofs of different genres? Ken though that was a great idea, so the first one we chose was Westerns – frankly because there hadn’t been a Western game and because I thought it was a good chance to inject some humour. Plus I thought it fit in with Coarsegold where Sierra was based – it was an old West town in gold rush country and so forth. So that became the first of the genre spoofs. After that I would do a Larry game and then the next year I would do maybe a spy game spoof, or some other genre. In fact, I did do Torins’ Passage, which was a Kings Quest type game, because Kings Quest was only coming out every other year, we thought it would be good to have a family orientated game I the other odd-numbered years.

Freddy Pharkas was a real fun title. I had just gone to a class in movie screen writing down in Hollywood by a famous screenwriter and he taught us a lot about plot and character development, but I wanted to do a game that had a strong plot to it – but do it so that people didn’t feel like they were handcuffed to this plot. I felt that this would be a great challenge. So I literally came up with the story for Freddy Pharkas first, and I think I ended up with about thirty-six or thirty-eight plot points that were key points that you had to get through by either solving a puzzle of discovering something, to make that plot point come forward. We kept a counter in that game which kept track of which stage you were on in those thirty-six chapters and we would increment that counter as you worked your way through the puzzles. I was so pleased because not one reviewers or gamer ever called me on it and said “well I got to this point and I was stuck because there was nothing else to do and I couldn’t go forward”. It was a real source of pride for me because I did it so that nobody knew I did it.

R: Apart from containing a little cameo from Larry in it…

Al: Yeah, that was one of the artists, who had worked on the Larry games. When he drew an outhouse in the background I thought we should put someone in there occasionally so you can interrupt them and so, next time I came back the artist had drawn an animation of Larry and I thought “sure let’s do that!” But I also included “Diamond Jim Laffer”, who looked just like Larry in one of the bar scenes, who was his great grandfather or something.

R: What was the inspiration for the main character being a pharmacist as that is a somewhat unusual hero role?

Al: I got tongue-tied during a meeting with Josh Mandel and Roberta Williams at her house, and we were sitting, talking about the game and about what we could do, and one of the questions was what could he do, what was his occupation. I started to say rancher, but at the same time I also thought farmer, and what came out was “farmercher”. And I said it sounded like pharmacist, and they both laughed – so I thought hey, if that’s funny – let’s leave it in. It gave focus to the entire plot. It became an easy way to tie everything. Once we came up with that, the rest of the game made a lot of sense. I knew I wanted to have a love interest, and I knew he had to have some kind of background. And to make the evil villain Kenny was just obvious as I had put Ken in every game up to that point and it was always fun to make fun of him – and I knew he wouldn’t sue me.

R: Which was your favourite game that you worked on, which were you most proud of?

Al: Oh, Larry 7, Love for Sail, I think so. It was the first game where I felt I really know how to do this job. Always up until then, it was always that I hoped nobody would find out that I didn’t know what I was doing and with Larry 7 I actually felt I know what to do now, I can do this. I really had a lot more confidence and I also had a good team of developers that had a lot of experience, the programming staff was real solid and they all knew the language. The big problem was we had this in-house language that was easy to use, but it had its peculiarities. There were certain ways of doing things that worked and certain ways that wouldn’t and it took programmers a while to figure out exactly what to do and to learn the language. All three of the guys on the Larry 7 team were experienced in SCI and were good coders too, they had good logical brains. So that was a godsend.

R: At that point the technology had really improved. Whereby the artistic style was just like a cartoon and then voices could be put in and more could be added once the technology got to that stage.

Al: Yeah, and the fact that we got to use real musicians to record the soundtrack. I remember how excited I was when we got MIDI, and then how bored I quickly got because it had so few real sounds that were interesting. So when we ended up on CD we had space to use real musicians and real music and work that into the game, which was a real fun aspect for me. Plus I’d gotten to the point where I was pretty confident directing voiceover talent. You’ve got to remember we all learned this stuff on the job, we didn’t have any training, nobody ever sent us to school for how to be an audio director. I just walked into the studio with these people who had done thousands of commercials and cartoon voiceover work before and it was my first day on the job – so I learned as we went along. But by the time Larry 7 came, I thought I know what I’m doing here, I can do this, I was more confident.

R: Outside of computer games, what influenced your work? Were there any particular films or shows for example that really influenced your writing?

Al: No, I wouldn’t say there were any in particular. But because the games reflected our personalities, I think all of our experiences were inside the games, so there were very few games that I had played, videos I watched, books I had read or stand-up comedians I had seen that didn’t influence me in one way or another. You’ve got to understand that when you are writing thousands and thousands of lines of dialogue – I don’t know if people realise that adventure games contain enough dialogue for six or seven or eight movies. That’s a hell of a lot of dialogue. So you’ve got to come up with ideas, and you have to come up with them quickly. So that was one of the big challenges, to find people who could write that stuff quickly. Speaking of Freddy Pharkas, Josh Mandel was great. Josh had more great lines more quickly than anyone. That was one of the challenges. So you drew upon everything you had seen or heard of, just to put things in there. That was one of the bad puzzles I created. You haven’t asked about things I am sorry about, but one of the things that I knew because I lived in Fresno – where it was common – was the Snail trick, where you poured Beer in a dish and that was how you caught Snails. And a lot of people looked and me and said “what the hell kind of puzzle is that, who would know something like that?” I always rued that I didn’t put in more clues for that particular puzzles because it became clear after the game shipped that perhaps I’m the only one that knows that.

R: You might be somewhat vindicated to know that we know about that technique in England too.

Al: Ah well good, I’m glad!

R: All of the Sierra games always seemed to share a unique feeling. You could always tell when you were playing a Sierra game. Whereas now a lot of adventure games can almost feel a bit soul-less. What do you think was so different about the community at Sierra?

Al: We were isolated from the rest of the world to a certain extent. We were out in the mountains near Yosemite National Park where we were the only games company for a long way around. So there wasn’t a lot of interaction with other developers, artists or designers. Whereas if we had been in Silicon Valley or the San Francisco area we probably would have hung out with the Lucasarts guys and traded ideas, and there would have been some cross development there, cross-breeding – of ideas! But the fact that we were stuck alone by ourselves and the fact I used to work off campus a lot. I had an office in Oakhurst but I also worked at home a lot instead. The last couple of Larry games we developed in an outside office in Fresno, so I think it made us more of a tight-knit little group. Plus we always tried to write for each other. We weren’t on the internet and there certainly weren’t any message groups, so we tended to not get a lot of feedback from customers. A few people took the time to write a letter, put it in an envelope, get a stamp, find the address they would mail it to and mail it off. But they were few and far between, so we had very little feedback. And I think today that is a lot different. People are immediately posting things on the web, their opinion of the game. So I guess it was because we tried to write for each other and to please each other. And we really tried to write for our customers and make our customers happy – but our immediate customers were each other because we would run ideas by our peers at the company, and you didn’t want to disappoint them, you didn’t want to be laughed at. I think that is one of the reasons. Plus, you’ve got to understand we had a lot of freedom. I used to tease Ken Williams because I said if you ever produced an Organisation chart of Sierra in the eighties, it would be two layers tall and about eighteen feet wide, because there was Ken and then everybody reported to him (laughs). I guess there was a layer of management at some point, but it was damn thin. He was always heavily involved and he had a great sense of what the games could be and should be and I have to give Roberta a lot of credit too, because she always pushed the envelope. I found out that if I tried to stay at the cutting edge f what we were doing I would always get burnt. So what I would do is just wait until Roberta had shipped a game and then grab a copy of the system that she had used and I would use it for the next year and by that time it would be stable because she would always be shipping games that were right at the leading edge and the Kings Quest games always needed the fastest computer made in order to make them run and you had to have whatever the latest gadget was, whether it was soundboards or MIDI synthesisers or VGA graphics cards with that outrageous 640 pixel resolution nobody could actually see because nobody had cards that did that high a resolution. Anyway, my strategy was a little different because I just rode on her coattails. She did a lot to push the envelope and make games better. I don’t know if people really realise she and Sierra produced the first game on CD-Rom. Back in the early days before I got there, she did the first game on the Apple 2 that actually had graphics. She did the first game which had colour. They did the first game which had voiceovers. It was an amazing history which I think has mainly been forgotten by people today. Gamers today don’t realise that at one time Sierra was the largest publisher of word processors and database programs for the home computer market. I mean who knows that anymore? It was a different time.

R: She made the first fully FMV game too, Phatasmagoria, so she was pushing the boundaries all of the time. You mentioned Lucasarts earlier. The fans have always seen Sierra and Lucasarts as big rivals, but was that ever the case or was it just healthy competition?

Al: We didn’t know anybody there. I don’t know anyone at Sierra that knew anyone at Lucas. Maybe some of the people in marketing, but no, none of the developers knew them. But we loved their games and it was always goods when one of their games came out because we all went home and had a good excuse to play that game because it was market research. “Hey, we’ve gotta go see what this new game is like and see what they are doing.” But no, it wasn’t very competitive at all in the sense of cut-throat competition, we were always trying to do the best games we could and we enjoyed their games also – we enjoyed them as fans.

R: I was recently looking at important Sierra dates and it is almost exactly eleven years since the major layoffs where many lost their jobs. What would you say are your fondest memories from Sierra?

Al: My fondest memory, that’s a good one. Let’s see. A lot of things are flashing through my brain right now. I think some of the very early years, the industry was so small back then and there were so many companies that were based in California that one summer, it was kinda like the industry got together and went white water rafting. It was all of the guys from Broderbund and Synergistic – who remembers that company – and Serious Software (which was not the Serious which is out there now) and Sierra, which was On-line Systems back then. But we all went white water rafting and kinda hung out – it was great fun.

But one of the vivid memories for me was the Kings Quest 4 debacle. And it was one of those bittersweet things because it was incredibly difficult, but by the same token because we all worked so hard it became a memory that really stuck with us. The company had just created a new language. When we started we wanted some improvements in the programming language we had. We got a guy in charge of that team and he decided the future was in object-orientated programming. We had been doing sequential programming and sub-routines. So instead of giving us a slightly improved version of our old language which did a few new things and accomplished more, but we knew how to program it and all knew what to do, he instead started all over and ended up creating an object-orientated language called SCI. In one sense he was right, it was a brilliant move because it set the company up to be able to do lots of things faster and better than we ever had before. On the other hand he was really wrong from a business standpoint because it took all the knowledge that we had developed over six or seven years, and developed and learned the language and threw it out the window and we were all beginners again trying to figure out what to do. So that new language was going to be tested with Roberta’s’ game that came out that year, Kings Quest 4. The programming department wasn’t very well managed, as I mentioned earlier, so Ken got a couple of guys who seemed pretty smart and said you guys program Kings Quest 4 and we’ll come back in a few months and see how it’s going. So he got two guys who didn’t really catch on to the new language and they weren’t really forceful in their dealings with the language team guy, who was creating this thing, so they never really understood what was going on.

So we got down to the Fall and the company was very involved with taking the company Public, selling stock on the Stock Market. And that would be great, we would all make some money from our stock options and everybody would be happy, and the big thing they were selling Wall Street on was the company had this new language that was going to revolutionise things and it had a new game coming out that was going to be a hit – but nobody bothered to check on that game, until September 1^st. When they went down, they started seeing how much wasn’t finished – started doing some managing you might say – and they realised there was no way it was going to be done and if the company was going to go public they would be highly embarrassed and they wouldn’t ship their first game. So suddenly all of the programmers were called together one weekend and they said we are going to stop development of all other titles and that everybody who is a programmer and everyone who is an artist is going to work on Kings Quest 4 and we have to ship it by the end of September. So we had twenty-nine days to finish a game which had been ten months in development already, and wasn’t even close to being done. So what we did was, we got everybody into a great big room and we all worked until we fell asleep. We rented Motel rooms and we took turns and they changed the sheets. Guys would go in and sleep in the morning and people would work all night. It was just incredible, around-the-clock programming. I remember one guy prepared his timesheet and he had worked, I believe, one hundred and ten hours that week and I laughed at him because he had gone home early a couple of nights (laughs). That was how many hours we put in, so there were a lot of stories about that. But we actually did ship the game on September 31^st! It had to ship by the end of the month. It was incredible, it was literally just work til you drop, go take a shower come back and work again for eighteen or twenty hours or so.

R: Apart from games you personally worked on, what are some of your favourite adventure games you played?

Al: You know I think my favourite game of all time probably had to be Loom, which is not particularly well known, but boy if you can find a copy of it, play it. It’s a brilliant game.

R: I really love Loom too, I imagine because of your musical background you enjoyed that aspect of the game.

Al: Exactly, but it was a well done game too.

R: Do you still ever play any modern adventure games at all?

Al: You know, I haven’t played an adventure game in years. Part of the problem is when you go to work in the industry; you do it because you love games. I did, I got interested in games and love to play them and wanted to go into that line of work. But what happens is once you are in the business, playing games became market research, and it took away the joy of actually playing the game for your own entertainment. So after I got into the business, it became a case of I enjoyed it, but didn’t really have time anymore. It became market research in instead of enjoyment, and it kind of stayed that way. The games that I play, I still play analytically – you know I try to see behind the workings of them – what they are doing and how, which takes away from the enjoyment of it.

R: Some of the older adventure games such as Monkey Island and Broken Sword have been re-imagined recently and put out on the iPhone and Nintendo Wii and DS. Do you think in cases where the control method is touch and motion orientated, is that the way forward for adventure games? It seems to lend itself to the genre.

Al: I think anything that breathes fresh life into the genre is a good thing. It’s difficult to see much of a future for pure adventure games because they have gone through really tough times with no signs of a revival and a pure adventure game today is a tough sell. On the other hand, I do see a lot of hope in the casual game market because I think that a lot of the things that we used to do in the old days are not being done by big publishers today, but by casual game developers, who have a small team and you can do a lot of good work and develop games which have a lot of personality.

R: I’ve seen that you often attend gaming shows and conventions around the world. When you go and meet your fans, does it make you miss producing games?

Al: In a sense I do, but in another sense I’ve moved on. I was fortunate to get out at a time when the getting was good. The pure adventure games had been falling – although my games never did, my sales always had increased, where each game had sold better than the last. But by the time the new management came in at Sierra, they were unsure of what to do and they picked a course of follow the leader and that never gets you anywhere. When Ken was replaced by the other people, it was the definite downfall of the company, and it only took it six years to go from twelve hundred employees to just five. And those five employees turned off the lights and locked the doors and went home. It’s sad to see a company that started on a friend’s kitchen table and turned into a billion-dollar market capitalisation, then urn into nothing but a word on a box.

R: In interviews before, you have said how Larry is just an extension of your sense of humour. Is it gratifying that nowadays, over twenty-five years later, people are still entertained by things that used to make you laugh?

Al: Very much so, and very surprising! When we did those games, particularly the first one, I thought games back then had a shelf-life of maybe a couple of years and then they were gone. There was nowhere to find them, nowhere to buy them, you couldn’t download them. There was no future. So when we find out that people are still playing twenty-five years later, that’s incredible. I never would have predicted anything like that. So yeah, it’s incredibly satisfying, but also humbling. Because it’s like “damn, I wish I’d done a better job!” (Laughs).

R: Finally, to verify that you are really Al Lowe, can you remember the answer to this question – I find computer games with adult content…

A – Offensive

B – Acceptable

C – Repulsive

D – Under my bed

Al: (Laughs) Easy, D!

R: Ah, you wouldn’t have be able to play the game, although... you know the cheat, so you’d still be ok!

Al: Alt-X! (Laughs)

The BBC Micro - My first link to Adventure Gaming

2010-02-04T15:42:00.002Z

Without knowing it, my primary school got me hooked on Adventure Games. Who would have thought my addiction to videogames could be blamed on my early school teachers?

Every classroom had a BBC Micro "Acorn" computer desk. These mobile desks-on-wheels were the reserve of those who had finished their work early or those who had over-achieved. as a reward, we could play on the so-called "educational" text adventure programs. There was always a queue, and we all worked in small teams so that we could get as far as possible through the game before hometime!

Most famous of these was probably "Granny's Garden" - a Fantasy adventure, which even had some graphics! Martello Tower was another popular title. But the one which will always be etched in my memory is Merlin's Castle. For all of the wrong reasons.

In order to write this blog entry, I downloaded BEEBem - a BBC Micro emulator - and a Rom of Merlin's Castle. I wanted to see how accurate my memories really were, and if the game was really as frustrating as I remembered. In a word - yes.

The premise is thus; you fall asleep in a clearing, whereupon you awake in a mysterious land. And... go! It was as simple as that. Taking the example of many similar games of the time, your character can mover north, south, east or west, and you can "take", "use" and "drop" items. With a limited inventory and many impassable areas, these games required a lot of backtracking to pick up that particular item you couldn't fit in your pockets earlier, but now needed to help kill that pesky snake.

So you quickly get the idea of how this works. You feel satisfied when you realise the way to get over that old brick wall is to use the ladder. That key you picked up can help you get through the rusty gate. Everything seems to be going well until... "You are lost".

Wait a minute, I know where I am, I just came south from the crossroads and east from the witches - I've even drawn myself a map. I'm NOT lost. But if the game says so, sucks to you - it's game over.

Ok, reload my game, pick up the ladder again, open the gate again. Hmmm, that blacony seems a bit high - perhaps the ladder would come in handy again? "You slip and die - Game Over".

What?

You start to see the problem with this game. It seems so lazily written when you compare it to later video game experiences. Nowadays we are spoiled by superb graphics, excellent control systems and well-structured gameplay. Games in the 1980's were punishing. If you wanted to finish a game you had better be taking notes and learning from your mistakes. Trial and error is the order of the day.

You could say a game like this was a precursor to the trigger-happy Sierra SCI adventure games, such as the Quest Series' and Leisure Suit Larry. But those games have a comedic charm - the random deaths are often ironic or hilarious. Merlin's Castle is unrelenting in it's stoicism. There is nothing to laugh about here.

Don't get me wrong, games of this ilk really helped push things forward and show what could be done in terms of gaming software. It certainly has a strong atmosphere. The very way in which the game frustrates, it excels in creating tense gameplay. Without the element of danger looming over you, there would be no excitement in the game. The more that the random endings frustrate, the bigger the thrill when you conquer the villains.

A game like Merlin's Castle was perfect for school children. I may not have understood at the time why we were playing this in the classsroom, but looking back, you learn a lot of useful lessons. Navigation and mapping are both very important skills when you are young - being able to work out the best and safest route from A to B. Trial and error helps the student to learn consequences of their actions - they have to apply logic to overcome the problems next time around.

But fundamentally, the lack of graphics and meaningful sound demand the player to use their imagination. This is something we certainly take for granted nowadays. Who needs imagination when glorious visuals are laid upon us in Gears of War or Fable, for example. A game like Merlin's Castle encourages us to create this world in our mind. Through very little exposition and scene-setting, we can picture what each scene would look like. We each have a different idea in our head of what the golden spire will look like. Each game experience is personalised. What recent games could really claim that?

A text adventure is ultimately more like a book that a video game. The "reader" takes from the experience what they are willing to put in. What they create in thier head might be more fantastic than the game developer envisioned, but that makes it unique.

Merlin's Castle both inspires and frustrates.

What am I saying, even at seven years old I hated this game.