Discussion Point: Modern Adventures

 Written by the TAG Team

One of the most well-known adventures of the new century, but there's been others.

In our blog posts, we've focused on the past.  30, 40 years ago, during the so-called Golden Age of adventures.  But while the genre slowed down after that, it didn't stop completely.

What are your favorite adventures from the past 20 years?  Perhaps even ones that the other commenters have never heard of.  While everyone has likely heard of games like Thimbleweed Park, SpaceVenture, and Hero U, there have been others.  Something not written by one of the household names of the 90s?  A great Kickstarter you were happy to be a part of (unlike, say. the experience with SpaceVenture?)

Have no worries of spoiling our appetites for these games -- the blog won't be getting to them anytime soon.  But it might give us something to play in-between posts.

Inca II – By the power of Inca

By Ilmari

Last time I had crash landed on a planet, where a local astronomers set up her computer to calculate positions of three planets, where I should place three great powers of Incas, which would help to destroy an asteroid, which Aguirre, leader of space conquistadores, used for some malevolent purposes. While the computer was doing its calculations, I took a train to…

…search some caves?

I thought I was supposed to use the train to transport my spaceship. Apparently not. Caves it is then.

Kronolog - More Games About Buildings and Food (Request for Assistance)

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Last time, I stopped just after the Proconsul's secretary told me I had something to pick up in his office. It's another elevator down, and as I go down to floor F, I get told that today's thought is "remember the Zeppelin". Some interesting stuff here, cuttings from the now defunct Black Forest, and in this world, everyone's a big fan of Ministry's hit song "Everyday is Flag Day". Well, in Germany everyday is Flag Day, anyway. I wonder if the door I can't enter is a trap or not, or in fact, where I'm actually supposed to go. Oh, looking tells me. I appreciate that a lot.

Sweet digs, but I can't help but notice that the secretary isn't here. On the right we have some classy stuff, pay no attention, it's just there for flavor, you can't even open the cabinets. The game calls the painting on the right a mediocre example of German naturalist, but it still looks better than most modern art I've seen. The one in the back looks about right.

I go behind the desk and the scene changes. Somewhat unnecessary, because as soon as I look at the desk, other actions are invalid...

Inca II – Training session

By Ilmari

Last time Atahualpa was caught sneaking to beat some conquistadors by his papa, Eldorado. The conquistadors were still pissed and started an all out attack.

The WWI flying ace is also here

Papa don’t preach

So, the goggle guy took his fighter and Eldorado took my ship and they left me waiting in the main ship. With nothing else to do, I tried to access the ship controls.

Caught red-handed

The Han Solo wannabe wasn’t angry, although I was meddling with his ship and had even disarmed all the alarms, but he also asked me to be careful with his precious cargo. I still couldn’t help in the fight since the gun turret were broken and some joints were frozen.

Even the control lever is not doing anything

Pepper's Adventures in Time – The Dude Abides In Philly

Welcome back to the first exploration phase of Pepper’s Adventures in Time! A short recap: Our pet was dognapped by the spoiled daughter of an evil British colonist and we are looking for clues on how to infiltrate their mansion and bring Lockjaw back. Also, Pepper is looking for Ben Franklin who has succeeded in turning Philadelphia into a veritable Hippie town. Parts of it, at least. Our objectives for this act are simply to meet the colonists and Ben Franklin. To pass the obligatory test we’ll need to be all ears whenever somebody starts talking about British taxation acts, millinery shops, Ben Franklin’s influence on the colonial post office, the Penn family, and potholes. 

It may just be my pot-luck. 

It’s right on the first screen that we meet some laid-back fella called Marty Hardy tossing a frisbee off the screen, calling me “little dude”, going on about “big bad Ben” and whatnot. He’s not exactly helpful with any of my inquiries; we only learn that the Guvner is big on taxes and curfews. Marty also tells me that the “flying disk” (aka, the frisbee) is Ben Franklin’s greatest invention which would not be too shabby for anybody but people like Ben Franklin, I guess. 

Who will win? Historical inaccuracy or the last-minute addition of self-referentiality?

I leave the screen to the left and arrive at the Governor’s Mansion. Unfortunately, there are several guards blocking my passage, and I am unable to sweet-talk them into letting me pass. Maybe Pepper’s story is just not good enough – she’s claiming to make a delivery of nice, fresh air. Try selling fine leather jackets next time, kid! There is some kite string stuck in a tree but Pepper can’t reach it. The two guards mock me when I try to grab it but they still take it down and give it to me. When I talk to them one of them hints that he may be corruptible if I bring him food. Other than that they are quite rude, insulting me when I try to approach the bridge or even the little river.

Inca II – Tickle my fancy

By Ilmari

Last time, I failed to pass the space battle initiation test and was forced to choose the other one involving wisdom instead of action.

Game 148: Kronolog: The Nazi Paradox AKA Red Hell (1993) - Introduction

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Almost as long as we have recorded history have we wondered what would happen if history went a different way. What if the Persians won the Greco-Persian wars? What if Pope Leo X did away with indulgences? What if Napoleon won at Waterloo? What if the Nazis won WWII? Idle speculation or the odd piece of fiction for a long time, until the beginning of the twentieth century.

What it was that caused the genre to start picking up steam is not that tricky to figure out, people who were never there were sore they didn't live in a world where the American Confederacy won the Civil War or Napoleon lost. What prevented the genre from being dumped in the wake of stuff like Gone With the Wind is that actual historians became interested in the subject.

Enter J.C. Squire, himself quite the character, deciding to get a bunch of historians to write on the subject with a more scholarly interest. The resulting book, entitled If It Had Happened Otherwise is mostly notable now for having an essay from a pre-PM Winston Churchill.

TAG by the Numbers

Written by The TAG Team

With the final post for Myst, our blog has continued to grow and review many memorable games, some forgettable ones, and also some regrettable ones.

So a quick look back at what we’ve done so far (as of August 3rd):

We’ve played 274 games, not including the ones in progress right now.  The breakdown:

• Games played by Trickster (the early years of the blog): 45

• Guest Reviews during the Trickster era: 2

• Main line games after the blog became a community effort: 96

• Missed Classics, which started after Trickster retired: 131

Out of these games, only 4 weren’t completed. Three have a status of “Abandoned” and another “Indefinitely Delayed”.

• The first one was Captain Blood, which Trickster abandoned after 9 hours and very little to show for it.

• Another was a missed classic by one of our early, more (ahem) colorful commenters, Kenny McCormick. The Scoop, a mystery game with an advanced (for the time) interface.

• Next was Wonderland, played by another past commenter, The Mad Welshman.  Circumstances beyond their control caused them not to be able to finish the playthrough.

• Ilmari played Freedom: Rebels in the Darkness, and was unable to finish the game most likely due to a technical reason.

Which means we have a 98.5% completion rate, which isn’t too shabby!  (We do have rules for reviewers abandoning a game after a certain number of hours, but we tend to be masochists and stick with it.)

Who's keeping score? We are, with an average score of 40 awarded to the games. The most common score? 30, given to 15 different games. The highest rated game? That's over in the left-hand column, along with the rest of the top 10. But some other notables:

• The lowest rated Missed Classic? Drive-In Adventure, checking in at 7. That beats the lowest main game, Psycho, which at least hit double digits for 10.
• The highest rated Missed Classic? Would you believe it's one of Morpheus's recent Japanese-language conquests? Urotsukidoji came in at 57.

If we break it down by game type, Main Line games average about 48, and Missed Classics about 31.

Not counting Trickster, 20 reviewers have played 229 games.  Later this month, it will have been exactly ten years since Trickster’s last review, marking a transition to our current blog.  Two months later, Aperama set the standard for all reviews to follow with their take on Countdown.

Our top reviewers?  Tied for first place for completed Main Line games are admins Joe Pranevich and Ilmari Jauhiainen with 13 each, but if we count Ilmari’s unlucky attempt at Freedom, he takes the top with 14.  Tops for Missed Classics?  Joe Pranevich with 58.

As for interacting with the readers, the blog has posted 1595 entries (including this one), and the readers have commented over 28,000 times. That's an average of 17 comments per entry. There's no easy way to verify this, but it appears that the introduction post for Day of the Tentacle is our record holder, with 161 comments, and all the entries in that playthrough combine for a really impressive total.

As a way to meet and greet the readers, Trickster started a tradition of having them answer a few questions for the blog.  The feature titled “What’s Your Story” has 54 responses.  Is yours one of them?  If not, please look over on the left-hand side of this page, a little bit down, and submit yours!

And if you’ve already taken the time to do that, then we can talk about time a little.  The longest game we’ve played?  Well, technically, when one reviewer took over for another on a review of The Legacy: Realm of Terror.  But to keep it fair, let’s skip that one, and go to the 36+ hour ordeal that was Dungeon.  Well, maybe not ordeal, because it looks like Joe enjoyed it, but... wow.

Short games?  There’s a handful of missed classics that didn’t even last an hour, but the shortest main line game played for the blog was 1992’s Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, clocking in at just under an hour.

As for reading the blog?  You'd think that the most-read post would be for one of our high scorers, but instead it's Alice in Wonderland, with a below-average rating of 33. 

Speaking of numbers, it seems our time here is numbered, so tell us your thoughts!

Game 154: Inca II: Nations of Immortality (1993) – Introduction

By Ilmari

I see there’s a World War I pilot ace in this game. I wonder whether he will fly a Sopwith Camel

Myst - Final Rating

Written by Vetinari

It's time to input some ratings.

So, we arrived at the end of Myst, and we are left to explore the five worlds contained in this game at our leisure. But is that something that we would want to do? Let's find out with the final rating.

Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade - Over and Done With (And Final Rating)

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Right, let's get this over with. The Genesis version, hallowed be thy joypad mouse cursor, on earth as it is in hell, etc., etc..

Welcome to Detroitica, is that right? Five CAPs if I'm wrong and you correct me. I think the music was intended for the Genesis primarily, if you can believe that, because it sounds the least like the person designing it wishes pain upon players. Or maybe just luck, considering everything else I don't believe that to be true. The only thing I can interact with here is a computer, which is switched off. I can't use it, so I guess I have to turn it on somewhere else, like how most computers work.

You know, Dante's depiction of hell is really lacking in the platforming stages from this game. Yeah, sure, being a head stuck in a frozen, screaming vortex while Satan is at the center crying and screaming sucks, but imagine having to live in this stage in real life. This is merciful in one way, you don't die by getting hit by lasers, but it is crueler in the sense that you get shot and you are slowly taken back to the start of the level. This is right after a password point. (I decided against playing this from the start.