Kickstarter Special - Summer Daze At Hero-U & Interview with Corey Cole

By the TAG Team

It’s no secret that here at “The Adventure Gamer”, we have a soft spot for the Quest for Glory series and the works of Corey and Lori Cole. Three of their games are on our Top Ten! Although we are a retro gaming establishment, we reviewed Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption last year and have received a ton of positive feedback about the decision. That review (and the accompanying interview) are among the most popular posts on the site. We can only assume that you, like us, are fans!

We have been exceptionally selective in terms of what recent projects we feature, but we’d like to direct you to a kickstarter by Corey and Lori Cole’s Transolar Games: Summer Daze at Hero-U. This game is a prequel to the previous Hero-U title and explores a shift towards more narrative storytelling by integrating visual novel elements. It looks like it’s off to a good start. Summer Daze lets you play as either the mischievous female rogue or a studious and introspective male wizard with his meerbat familiar.

The campaign's funding goal is $99,999 because as Corey points out, “we'd hate to come up $1 short.” At the moment, they are just over 70% of the way to their goal with less than a week to go. We’re really love to see this game get funded and hope you will check it out if you are a fan of the series.

As an added bonus, Corey Cole has agreed to speak with us and answer some lingering questions that your humble admins had about the development of his games. Even if you aren’t into his kickstarter, I encourage you to scroll down!

Consulting Detective Vol. II - Failure! Fiendish Forger Found a Friend to Flame the Folio

Written by Joe Pranevich

I failed at this case. If you follow our blog to read about masterful play and to see an expert gamer moving from clue to clue with purpose and conviction, you have come to the wrong place. As you will read, I tripped up a number of times for various reasons which ultimately led to having to request help. Our case also appears to have a few logic errors, making my slog all the more difficult. It is far from a grand slam, but I hope my experience makes interesting reading. The cases in this game has not quite been up to the level of its predecessor.

That said, I need to give credit where due and this episode has two of the most memorable scenes from the series so far, right up there with the scene in the first game where someone tried to bring a dead cat back to life. The acting and writing are frequently boring, but it’s a lot of fun when a scene goes in an unexpected direction. That does not make up for the other flaws, but I am delighted every time the game steps out of its comfort zone.

Ween : The Prophecy - Vampires and Strawberries

Written by Alfred n the Fettuc

Note to my fellow adventure gamers : Due to a monstrous amount of work in my real life, I’m very late on my writing. So sorry about the long delay and the short post. I’ll be more efficient in the weeks to come. Cheers. Alfred

So far so good! After what we’ll call the “Curse of Enchantia incident”, I was thinking my days as an adventure gamer were coming to an end and that I would be unable to enjoy another game one day that wasn’t done by Sierra or Lucasarts (and especially not one coming from Coktel Vision), but it seems I was wrong. So far, Ween has been a pleasure to play, even if it’s definitely a weird game. I’m not sure how long it will keep this up because all the reviews I’ve seen weren’t particularly positive but I’ll cross my fingers. I don’t know if the game will be very long though, because in only 1 hour of playtime, I was already able to snatch the first grain of sand I needed (over 3).

Missed Classic 75: Earthquake – San Francisco 1906 (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit the famous Northern Californian town 113 years ago on April 18 with a magnitude of nearly 8. Almost 3000 people died in the event and over 80 percent of the city were destroyed. It remains one of the biggest natural disasters in California’s history to this day. This particular historic event marks the setting of Jyym Pearson’s third adventure game for Adventure International which also served as the fourth and final OtherVenture for the company. It also marks a significant if temporary departure from the gothic horror and science-fiction settings of Pearson’s previous two games – a trend he followed with Saigon: The Final Days the same year in a joint effort with his wife Robyn.

Missed Classic: Escape from Traam – WON! and Final Rating

by Will Moczarski

Last time we left off after about an hour of gameplay, with a reasonably small gameworld and some items we haven’t found a use for. We deciphered an alien language and attempted to explore a dark cave but didn’t really get anywhere plot-wise. So far, this was an enjoyable game – was it meant to remain this way?

Missed Classic 74: Escape from Traam (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

Special thanks to the Museum of Computer Adventure Game History! (mocagh.org)

It’s time for the third OtherVenture and our second Jyym Pearson game Escape from Traam. This one has a 1980 copyright date and it may possibly be the earlier game of the two. It is usually treated as Pearson’s sophomore effort in text adventures but the sci-fi setting of his first game Zossed in Space (1980) may hint at a possible continuity between the two. However, I don’t have proof for this other than the copyright date of the TRS-80 version (Curse of Crowley Manor had a 1981 stamp), so I’ll just relegate this thought to the realm of speculation.

Consulting Detective Vol. II - Pair of Pretty Paintings Pilfered, Perhaps Pawned

Written by Joe Pranevich

After a birthday detour back into Infocom-land, I’m back to playing Consulting Detective. Last time around, I solved the first of three cases by finding a lion-murdering thief with a penchant for poisoning his witnesses. That case was pretty fun but not perfect. It did take me a bit to get back into the swing of things this series and I could have solved it faster if I had done a better job with the newspaper and remembering to use my “Regulars”. I’m going to jump into this second case more prepared and see if I do any better.

This time out, we are solving the case of the “pilfered paintings” and the case starts with a proper introduction video. Sir Simpson Witcomb, a well-dressed older gentleman, seeks Holmes’s help to recover two “De Kuyper” paintings taken from the National Gallery. Six months ago, two previously unknown paintings by the artist were discovered and auctioned at Armitage’s Gallery. De Kuyper, we are told, was a student of Reubens, a Flemish master and someone even I have heard of. Prior to this auction, only six De Kuyper paintings were known to exist: four in the Louvre in Paris, one in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and one by a private collector, Lord Smedley, in London. Witcomb worked with his head curator, Brady Norris, to acquire the two newly discovered works and add them to the National Gallery’s collection. They were able to snag them for a mere £125,000, far less than expected.

With the National Gallery in London now home to one-fourth of the known De Kuyper paintings, Witcomb set his sights on the first ever expedition of all eight known works. That would have opened tomorrow, if not for the theft of two of the paintings. As such, all of the other works are also in London ready to be moved to the Gallery: the Louvre’s four are stored in the French Embassy, the Rijksmuseum’s one is in a separate National Gallery storeroom, and Smedley’s is at his townhouse. With that helpful information, we are off to solve this case!

Game 113: Ween : The Prophecy (1993) - Introduction

[Admin note: Since there's still so much left of the last game of 1992, Consulting Detective 2, we've decided to already start playing the first game of 1993. Enjoy!]

Written by Alfred n’ the Fettuc

So here we are, the first game on our list for 1993, and another French adventure game made by Coktel Vision to boot! Just to remind a few of our beloved readers out there, The Adventure Gamer website has had a tumultuous relationship with French adventure games in the past. With a few exceptions (the most notable one being K.G.B which, despite being a French game, sits proudly in our Top rated games list) a lot of the games originating from my country were given low, or even abysmal, PISSED ratings. Will Ween : The Prophecy (or simply The Prophecy as it’s known in the US) be one of the games that redeem French adventure gaming or will it add another stone in the bucket? I asked myself the same question with Bargon Attack a while ago and… well it didn’t turn out very well.

Very nice cover, though, courtesy of Thierry Segur, French comic book and storyboard artist.

Missed Classic: Curse of Crowley Manor – WON! and Final Rating

by Will Moczarski

This is an astonishing game. I know that it might seem as if I was easily satisfied by a few extra descriptions in a text adventure but for a game released in 1981 it does a lot of things right. So far, it’s not very challenging, and the story may be conventional but it’s still involving. Last time I was stuck with a limited gameworld and the brown growth who’d jump headfirst into the pantry and devour everything there, including myself. This time I remembered the words of wisdom from the fragmentary manual I had consulted before starting the game. It’s very sparse and does not provide a lot of backstory, however, it advises you to LOOK everywhere and also rely on your other senses. You can LISTEN and SMELL, too, so I tried to LOOK, SMELL and LISTEN in every room one more time and happened upon the solution rather quickly.

Next to the pantry there’s an exquisite dining room with a large oak table I can investigate. If I do that, I find some food there. Maybe it’s spoiled and will provide a trap for the hungry brown growth is what I think. That is not the case but still dropping the growth will solve the puzzle, prompting it to devour the food and “shoot” under the china cabinet, causing it to fall with a crash. Upon examination I find a letter opener and a hand axe. I know right away what both items are for and decide to backtrack to the rosewood chest to unfasten the screws there. Inside I find a golden crucifix and an old note with only a number on it: 5271. I take a new note and go back to the plywood wall. With the crucifix and the holy water in my hands, I almost expect to find a roast chicken behind it. It’s not all fun and games, however, as the parser doesn’t understand “hack” or “break”, only “chop”. After three or four useless turns there’s a hole in the wall and I can enter. Supposedly. Again, going N or GO HOLE does not work, only “CLIMB HOLE”.

The next part of the manor is like a hidden underground area. It’s a nice touch that I am delving deeper into the interiors of the building as I progress; it’s a sequence of rooms with an unfinished air about them, and a lot of secret passages. Looking and listening excessively also thickens the plot substantially. In a darkened room strewn with scientific instruments I encounter the demon yet again, his tremendous voice booms “You have not the power to face me yet be warned...” (sic!) The demon is not a fan of punctuation. Also, why are old adventure game voices always booming? Looking again I see that everything is filthy and smashed. Among the rubble, there is an ancient book lying open on a table. I can only make out one sentence: “Gafala alone can help.” Who is Gafala? Am I supposed to know? West of here, there is a musty room. On the only door there is an ancient numeral lock. This is pretty easy if you have discovered the old note (as I have): just dial 5271 and be done with it. I arrive at a damp brick walled room where there is a horrible stench. Smelling (or looking) results in my being slammed against a wall by a powerful force. If I listen (or look) once more, I am thrown flat on the floor, and a voice bellows “Soon youll be mine” (sic!). Yours? Er…eek?