Incline The Great Best Adventures Thread

[Maxie]

Dear friends, we've reached one thousand threads in the Adventure subforum. To celebrate that, I propose *the* Best Adventures thread. It's not a poll, our favourite genre is extensive enough not to need any definitive lists of must plays.

Instead, I propose we take our time to share our love towards the genre and leave a few kind words about our favs here. Naturally, this will also serve as a recommendations thread for those interested in the genre.

Thank you for participation, have a lovely day.

 

[Lady Error]

I think the last adventure game I enjoyed was the Sam & Max Telltale series - surprisingly good.

Though I also loved the original "Sam & Max Hit the Road".

 

[Grauken]

I was never really into adventures, though I always liked this one a lot. I think the RPG scene is one that stuck with me, as a teenager I found it incredibly clever and hilarious. Haven't played the game in years though, so I have no clue how it would hold up.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Zork needs no introduction:

 

[Maxie]

I have a confession to make. I wasn't particularly interested in adventure games as a younger man, and missed out on LucasArts and Sierra completely. I can remember my sister playing The Longest Journey, which had a successful marketing campaign here due to the full voice-over. Myself, I only ever grew interested starting from Broken Sword 2. It's probably not as good as the first one, but the fanciful locales, George's dry wit, the injun plotline - it really captivated me, and I've probably replayed the game some five times or something. This was the gateway drug that made me bother to check out everything else, and for that I love it to this day.

 

[Rincewind]

While none of these games have "great" puzzles, they are all special to me because of their atmosphere, their story, and the overall emotional impact.

I've recently finished Sanitarium (on real Win98-era hardware), it was a nice experience and quite nostalgic for me (I played it on release for the first time).

I guess I like dreamy atmospheres in general.

---

---

---

---

 

[Strange Fellow]

The coolest adventure game I've played is Counterfeit Monkey. It's a text adventure where you carry a letter-remover, which can remove a letter from the name of an object to turn it into something else (for example, a pear can become an ear, a clover can become a cover, and so on). That's all you need to know, and it's as brilliantly creative as it sounds. It's so much fun to play with, whether you're just goofing around seeing what silly objects you can create, or trying to figure out how to progress in the game. IMO a perfect showcase of what adventure games are all about.

 

[JarlFrank]

 

[JarlFrank]

The coolest adventure game I've played is Counterfeit Monkey. It's a text adventure where you carry a letter-remover, which can remove a letter from the name of an object to turn it into something else (for example, a pear can become an ear, a clover can become a cover, and so on). That's all you need to know, and it's as brilliantly creative as it sounds. It's so much fun to play with, whether you're just goofing around seeing what silly objects you can create, or trying to figure out how to progress in the game. IMO a perfect showcase of what adventure games are all about.

What I love about this one is how it fully utilizes the form of its medium: it's a pure text adventure, and as such, it can afford to do anything it wants with text. The same concept wouldn't work quite as well in a graphical adventure, but in a text adventure it's fucking perfect.

 

[Tweed]

I enjoyed Planetfall a lot when I was a kid, alas poor Floyd.

 

[pOcHa]

machinarium - has zero dialog, nor any kind of text (absolutely no descriptions at all), but still speaks volumes

basically anything else by amanita design

...kind of opposite of infogrames adventures - which painted a better scenery with just a simple sentence or two, than any amount of pretty graphics

 

[Rincewind]

machinarium - has zero dialog, nor any kind of text (absolutely no descriptions at all), but still speaks volumes

basically anything else by amanita design

...kind of opposite of infogrames adventures - which painted a better scenery with just a simple sentence or two, than any amount of pretty graphics

You beat me to it! I'm very fond of the Amanita Design's adventures that are essentially devoid of language.

I love games that completely eschew the use of language and only rely on symbolic thinking and visual cues to tell a story. Not an adventure (or is it?), but Flashback is a shining example of this approach to game design.

 

[Neuromancer]

Interesting thread. Replying here, because am looking forward to see more entries posted by the experts.

You can also press the "Watch" button on the top right, if you just want to follow a thread.

 

[Neuromancer]

The coolest adventure game I've played is Counterfeit Monkey. It's a text adventure where you carry a letter-remover, which can remove a letter from the name of an object to turn it into something else (for example, a pear can become an ear, a clover can become a cover, and so on). That's all you need to know, and it's as brilliantly creative as it sounds. It's so much fun to play with, whether you're just goofing around seeing what silly objects you can create, or trying to figure out how to progress in the game. IMO a perfect showcase of what adventure games are all about.

What I love about this one is how it fully utilizes the form of its medium: it's a pure text adventure, and as such, it can afford to do anything it wants with text. The same concept wouldn't work quite as well in a graphical adventure, but in a text adventure it's fucking perfect.

Leather Goddesses of Phobos form 1986 also had a device like this: a TEE-Remover.

Maybe you can guess, what happens in the game, if you insert a Rabbit into this gadget.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I think it's a bit of a blindspot of pc gaming history, but people don't seem to realize how big point and click adventures were even in the 90s. Going back to the magazines I had, most of the pages were dedicated to either rts games or point and click adventure games. The fact that most of the times the logic of these games was obtuse as all hells combined with the internet not being a thing yet made it so you could carry your magazine with a dedicated section for adventure walkthroughs. In my own experience, I remember playing a lot of first person adventures like the Necronomicon one and other FMV titles, the kind that would come in like 8 CDs or so. I remember that Versailles game where you could walk around the palace as well. The first "real" point and click adventure game I ever played was Sanitarium, which was an excellent game even if it all falls apart at the end of it. Grim Fandango was the highlight of the genre for me as a kid. That's one of the most beautiful games ever made. You can tell that was a labor of love from beginning to end.

 

[pOcHa]

an austrian colleague of mine was a poorfag as a kid, and needed a walkthrough for a point and click adventure he was playing at the time - the moon logic was on purpose, so that you call their paid hotlines, and he couldn't afford either that, nor to buy a different game for another month or two (pirate scene wasn't as commonplace there as in the third world countries)

one of their computer magazines had a walkthrough for it, but his allowance wasn't enough, so out of sheer desperation he decided to steal it - with shaky hands he tore out the page with a shoplift electronic tag in a hurry, and ran straight home - not being from the balkans, it was a very traumatic experience for him, that you couldn't even brag about

and when he finally had a chance to look at it properly - the walkthrough was on the torn page...

 

[Maxie]

I think it's a bit of a blindspot of pc gaming history, but people don't seem to realize how big point and click adventures were even in the 90s. Going back to the magazines I had, most of the pages were dedicated to either rts games or point and click adventure games. The fact that most of the times the logic of these games was obtuse as all hells combined with the internet not being a thing yet made it so you could carry your magazine with a dedicated section for adventure walkthroughs. In my own experience, I remember playing a lot of first person adventures like the Necronomicon one and other FMV titles, the kind that would come in like 8 CDs or so. I remember that Versailles game where you could walk around the palace as well. The first "real" point and click adventure game I ever played was Sanitarium, which was an excellent game even if it all falls apart at the end of it. Grim Fandango was the highlight of the genre for me as a kid. That's one of the most beautiful games ever made. You can tell that was a labor of love from beginning to end.

Unlike many other genres, adventure games did have an actual renaissance, with indie developers working in AGS or something emulating stuff they have never worked on and just groping in the dark, checking what makes sense. While I may not like the recent Wadjet Eye entries, I won't stop respecting them for really spearheading this. Rather scary to think 3D almost killed the genre everywhere except, like, Deck13

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I think it's a bit of a blindspot of pc gaming history, but people don't seem to realize how big point and click adventures were even in the 90s. Going back to the magazines I had, most of the pages were dedicated to either rts games or point and click adventure games. The fact that most of the times the logic of these games was obtuse as all hells combined with the internet not being a thing yet made it so you could carry your magazine with a dedicated section for adventure walkthroughs. In my own experience, I remember playing a lot of first person adventures like the Necronomicon one and other FMV titles, the kind that would come in like 8 CDs or so. I remember that Versailles game where you could walk around the palace as well. The first "real" point and click adventure game I ever played was Sanitarium, which was an excellent game even if it all falls apart at the end of it. Grim Fandango was the highlight of the genre for me as a kid. That's one of the most beautiful games ever made. You can tell that was a labor of love from beginning to end.

Unlike many other genres, adventure games did have an actual renaissance, with indie developers working in AGS or something emulating stuff they have never worked on and just groping in the dark, checking what makes sense. While I may not like the recent Wadjet Eye entries, I won't stop respecting them for really spearheading this. Rather scary to think 3D almost killed the genre everywhere except, like, Deck13

I remember liking Gabriel Knight 3's demo, but then again, I had no context of GK as a series before that. Adventure games were never that gameplay intensive to begin with so it's a given that they were somewhat easy to bring back.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

BiFi Roll - Action in Hollywood from 1994 for Amiga. I think this was one of the first adventure games that I played. Its a commercial game for BiFi but actually a really funny game that spoofs many popular movies, like Aliens, Indiana Jones, Rambo, Star Trek, and Beverly Hills, 90210. Its only available in German and uses tons of ridiculous puns on the english titles.

Here is a good description from moby games:

Bi-Fi 2: Action in Hollywood is an advertorial adventure for "Bi-Fi", a popular salami brand in Germany. Players take the role of Lukas, jobbing as a bike courier during the summer school break. One day he has to deliver the script for the new Bi-Fi commercial to the film studios. Suddenly he finds himself in a crime scene. The studio boss has been kidnapped, the spot production is being sabotaged and he is to solve the mystery.

 

[Rincewind]

I think it's a bit of a blindspot of pc gaming history, but people don't seem to realize how big point and click adventures were even in the 90s. Going back to the magazines I had, most of the pages were dedicated to either rts games or point and click adventure games. The fact that most of the times the logic of these games was obtuse as all hells combined with the internet not being a thing yet made it so you could carry your magazine with a dedicated section for adventure walkthroughs. In my own experience, I remember playing a lot of first person adventures like the Necronomicon one and other FMV titles, the kind that would come in like 8 CDs or so. I remember that Versailles game where you could walk around the palace as well. The first "real" point and click adventure game I ever played was Sanitarium, which was an excellent game even if it all falls apart at the end of it. Grim Fandango was the highlight of the genre for me as a kid. That's one of the most beautiful games ever made. You can tell that was a labor of love from beginning to end.

Unlike many other genres, adventure games did have an actual renaissance, with indie developers working in AGS or something emulating stuff they have never worked on and just groping in the dark, checking what makes sense. While I may not like the recent Wadjet Eye entries, I won't stop respecting them for really spearheading this. Rather scary to think 3D almost killed the genre everywhere except, like, Deck13

Depends entirely on which magazine you read as a kid in the late 80s/early 90s. I was a reader of the most prestigious Hungarian magazine called Commodore Világ (Commodore World) that enjoyed a cult status even back then. It was a black-and-white magazine for a long time, as their stance was that you don't need reviews or walkthroughs for brainless games where you can only shoot things... Naturally, they held adventure games, RPGs and strategy games in high regard; the rest not so much.

This was actually a continuation of their previous Spektrum Világ magazine (you can surely guess what that was about), and eventually as Commodore fell out of popularity and the PC was on the rise, they renamed it to CoV where the C stood for Computer. It was still very much focused on more cerebral games (e.g. their Fish!, Discworld and Eric the Unready reviews were just hilarious) and they did not miss a single opportunity to lament about the whole industry going down the drains with the rise of greed and the advent of 3D and the FPS genre. So yeah, those guys were very much like the 80s and early 90s were the best, then things started turning to shit in general, and most of their readers shared that sentiment.

So I guess my perspective was quite different; to me adventures, simulators, RPGs and strategy games were always the prestigious games, and action games (incl. any form of FPSes) the lowbrow shit for the masses.

Based on the issues I've read so far, Computer Gaming World is a very similar magazine in this regard; if I'm not mistaken, it was founded by some wargaming fans.

All CoV and Spektrum Világ issues are on archive.org, including the special issues and the yearbooks, but it won't help you unless you speak this obscure language:

https://archive.org/details/spektrum-vilag-1987-1989/Spektrum Világ 1987-10(01)/
https://archive.org/details/commodorevilag?tab=collection

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I'm talking about gaming during the second half of the 90s. My mags were almost always about adventure games, rts and simulators. And for a long while those three genres had like a stronghold in pc gaming. RPGs were rarely talked about, but they were kinda seen as a thing of the past somehow. When Ultima 9 was about to be released, they made it seem like there were 50 years between 1992 and 1999, and to be fair, gaming changed a lot during those days...

But adventure games kept chugging along. I think everything went to shit when the xbox happened. I remember the very earliest articles about Halo and how it was going to be not only a PC game, but THE pc game that was meant to change everything.

 

[Rincewind]

Yeah ok I kinda checked out of gaming between about 1995-1999 and I saw the first console in my life around 2005 at a friend's place So I actually had no idea what was going on in the "industry" after 2000. I knew some of my friends were playing FPS games but I always thought that's some stupid shit, so never really paid attention. I guess I was focused on adventures after 2000 and was reading adventure gaming websites, so I was oblivious to what's happening in the "mainstream" market.

But yeah I agree it was 3D where things started going downhill, in general.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I grew up playing adventure games. In my pre-teens I was in love with Sierra games, my first was Space Quest all the way back in 1988. I eventually played most AGI/SCI Sierra adventures on my dingy 8086 XT with no hard drive. Floppy swapping was a real drag, but at least my machine had two 5 1/4" drives!

I feel very nostalgic about that time, when there was no Internet, no widespread walkthroughs, no nothing. I also didn't live in the US so calling a hotline when I got stuck was never a real option. Adventure games were a bonding experience, I played many with friends sitting around the computer suggesting solutions to puzzles and shooting the shit (very fond memories of Police Quest 2 especially, which I played with a couple of dear friends that I haven't seen in decades).

Anyway, when I replay adventures now, I rarely play Sierra games. I was never a Lucasarts fan although I did play all of their stuff when it was new.

When I replay stuff now it's mostly Legend Entertainment adventures, they have really stood the test of time for me like few others. The writing is generally very good, the puzzles are difficult without being incredibly obtuse and the best games are very memorable (Gateway being my favourite). Their parsers are a lot more sophisticated than Sierra's and it's a kind of nice middle ground between graphic and text adventures.

The fact that I can experience them now with their often fantastic MT-32 soundtracks is the icing on the cake.

 

[Rincewind]

When I replay stuff now it's mostly Legend Entertainment adventures, they have really stood the test of time for me like few others. The writing is generally very good, the puzzles are difficult without being incredibly obtuse and the best games are very memorable (Gateway being my favourite). Their parsers are a lot more sophisticated than Sierra's and it's a kind of nice middle ground between graphic and text adventures.

And the hand-drawn pixel art is glorious in the Legend Entertainment games; they make very good use of the 640x350 16-colour EGA mode where you can pick your 16 colours from the 64-colour EGA palette (as opposed to 320x200 EGA games where the 16-colour palette is hardcoded). One of my favourite video modes as scanlines are more visible due to the low vertical resolution of 350 lines vs 400-line double scanned VGA or 640x480 VGA. Very underutilised in games, sadly.

I think the DOS ports of Magnetic Scrolls adventures use this mode too, but those are best experienced on the Amiga.

 

[toucanplay]

I don't really think it was just 3D that led to the downfall of adventure games, although the newness of technology and the money people always going after the new and flashy thing definitely didn't help. A lot of things were happening during that mid-late 90s era:

• Doom becoming a massive success, and starting the FPS craze.
• Windows 95 being released, which made using computers easier (so more idiots had computers).
• Sierra being sold, with the new owners not knowing what to do about games (and also engaging in fraud).
• RPGs with stories growing in prominence (e.g. Baldur's Gate/Fallout), which would have consumed more of the nerd budget.
• Myst's success leading to a bunch of companies making less successful copycats.

And that's just off the top of my head. That era was very impactful on gaming, and a lot of things led to adventure gaming falling from the spotlight and losing their way.