Written by the TAG Team
We need more games to play.
Since we included a spreadsheet for readers to put in your suggestions for missed classics, we've gotten a rather modest 20 titles over the years, not including games that have been covered and removed, like Zombi or The Hound of Shadow; It's been a great resource, but recent events have suggested it could be a lot better.
There's not really a place for people to discuss these, and to some of us it seemed better that this be in a central place than randomly thrown about other entries. To this end we will occasionally asking for help, like Ilmari asking for the Peruvian version of Emanuelle (It completely changes everything!) or Morpheus asking if anyone knows how to get an Oric game running. (He's learning that Franscois!)
We've also made a few adjustments to the spreadsheet format, which ties into another ask. We ask that you be careful with links to where we can find the game. Generally speaking, we don't care if it's outright free, but abandonware is tricky. If you can't find it by searching for it on most search engines or if it's tricky to find on a search engine, add it, because we'll probably be asking about that anyway. We don't need, say, links to EA games or some major company even if they don't sell it. We can find them easily and when the Franchise Wars start up, we don't need to be among the first marked for an EA death squad.
But more importantly, we're adding two categories, time added, and sub-genre. You don't need to get into too much detail in the first, just month and year, so we know how long something's been there, we also ask that in the future people don't add their names, just to ensure we aren't biased by certain suggestions.
The second, sub-genre is where the ask comes in. Here, we'd like to know about graphic adventures that we've missed. 1992 and earlier. Not text adventures with pictures, graphic adventures, as it can be hard to find information on harder to find games. It's not like text adventures or VNs, which have their own dedicated sites, or ADV (Japanese-style adventures) which you can easily figure out about. Oddities are also appreciated.
This is also a great place for you to discover new games yourself, and if you feel up to the challenge, play a little and try writing a post of your own for the blog. Some of us enjoy reading about the conquests of others, and some like sharing the details themselves.
This post is going to be linked in the sidebar of the page, where the spreadsheet link previously was. It'll be an easy resource to find and discuss these overlooked and truly Missed Classics.
"Not text adventures with pictures, graphic adventures"
ReplyDeleteThat line is a bit fluid though. I mean, where would you put something like GrailQuest (Artworx Software, 1989)? The DOS version (which I've only played a little bit of) is point-and-click... kind of. The Macintosh version (which I haven't played at all) is a World Builder game, so it has a primitive parser.
Well, I guess that makes it an oddity at least.
If it's worth debating, I don't think there'll be quibbling about it. Feel free to suggest others.
DeleteAre you looking for games released/available only in English? If not, what other languages do you guys accept?
ReplyDeleteMissed classics don't necessarily have to be in English, only the mainline games do. For example, Morpheus recently played a Japanese language game for the blog. Pretty much any game that is an adventure, but doesn't qualify under the strict rules for a mainline game could be a missed classic.
DeletePreferably there needs to be something interesting about the game, so that someone wants to play it and people want to read about it. As long as the reviewer can understand the language, it's a candidate. :)
>Missed classics don't necessarily have to be in English,
Delete>only the mainline games do.
Did the rule change behind the scenes?
https://advgamer.blogspot.com/p/rookie-companion.html
"A Potential candidate for inclusion on the playlist must be made in English or in another language, which is sufficiently understood by some Active Reviewer willing to play the game."
Thanks, I could have worded my answer better. It seems that traditionally, even when Trickster was around, we generally held to the English rule for mainline games, so I forgot about that exception to the rule.
DeleteIlmari played Black Sect in French, though TECHNICALLY it had an English port, so we might not have broken that barrier yet. I know for 1993 one game got removed from consideration, because nobody spoke...Polish I think? Regardless, I think the only consideration is that someone here can understand it.
DeleteFeel free to put in anything you find in another language, depending on the language I may get around to it, assuming it isn't French or Finnish, in which case I suspect I may let someone better qualified tackle it. That said, unless you want to expedite things on a Japanese game, I wouldn't worry about that language.
Thanks all for the answers!
DeleteI might eventually join the guild and pick up some of the Polish missed classics, as I speak the language. It would be a shame to miss stuff because the guild doesn't have anyone who could play them. Saying that, we only see graphic adventures starting to come out of Poland in the 90s (video gaming was quite niche behind the iron curtain), and we don't get any real Polish point&click classics until mid 90s.
Argh - the above comment is mine, forgot to change the username setting.
DeletePeruvian version of Emmanuelle ? wow never heard of that one before. Was that an official release or some obscure hack by someone ?
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that was a poorly thought out joke.
DeleteOh, that would have been very fun =D
DeleteYeah, I would've loved more history being made.
DeleteI don't want to edit the excel, but .. consider adding J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I, from 1990. An rpg with a couple of adventure things. May not be too adventury but I definitely remember the first puzzle being "giving the key back to Lobelia".
ReplyDeleteMore adventury, could be Heimdall (from 1991), I am deeply familiar with its sequel Heimdall 2 (but its from 1994), and I would say it's very similar to the recently covered Veil of Darkness.
Interesting, I have heard of the Lord of the Rings game, but I never heard that someone put it in the adventure category. Heimdall 2 is actually on the main game list for next year, so we'll definitely get around to the first one if that gets through.
DeleteI've added "Lords of Midnight", which is a hybrid game - it's got strategy, RPG, and adventure aspects. It's a Speccy game, so the graphics are... well, speccy... but I think it can be easily considered an adventure game.
ReplyDeleteI added "Wie im Eisen der Fuchs...", a German graphic adventure from 1986 that nobody covered so far (there is almost no in depth information on the Internet, I produced a map some time ago, someone else provided verb and item lists). No idea whether this constitutes a "missed classic", but it would be great if someone could finally tackle it. Happy to help translating if required. Would have taken a shot myself but I am better at reading about adventures than playing them.
ReplyDeleteWhat was that? You don't want text adventures with pictures added to the spreadsheet? I didn't quite hear you... anyway, just dumped a load of text adventures with pictures to the spreadsheet.
ReplyDeleteA game from 1993 that seems to have slipped through the net is The Labyrinth of Time. (I'd never heard of it, but I've been reading through a bunch of old game magazines from the '90s and saw it advertised in one.)
ReplyDeleteone oddity, though it is a text adventure with pictures, is the 1981 "Castles of Darkness" for the apple II https://www.mobygames.com/game/123218/castles-of-darkness/ as it has the character on screen that moves between relatively connected screens.
ReplyDeleteI just looked at a few moments of it on video, that's impressive animation for the time. It looks similar in puzzle/gameplay design to the MC that I first played here, Castle Adventure. Probably a bit short, but a fun romp.
Deletesorry is there a reason why there are no magnetic scrolls titles? pawn? guild of thieves?
ReplyDeleteThe Pawn is on there, has been for a while apparently. Possibly the reason for nobody adding them is that someone played, then abandoned Wonderland a long time ago and it's been one of those things we keep meaning to get back onto.
Delete