Donkey Island - Final Rating

Written by Michael

I sometimes get excited over the littlest things.

After Alex's post last week, anything I write this time is going to be a massive let-down.  I apologize in advance.  I'll try to do my best in his shadow.  

But after his slightly disappointing game, I have a dilemma.  Which is harder, rating a game like my last one, and worrying about how people will feel I was too generous, or a game like this one, and worry about being too harsh?

This game has a lot of charm and character to it.  For something that was intended mostly as a demonstration of concept, a test of a homemade game engine, you can tell that the authors enjoyed the source material.  Then again, who DOESN’T enjoy the Monkey Island games?  (Well, I’m sure there’s ONE person reading this blog right now that’s calling them overrated, but remember, we ARE an inclusive blog, tolerant of all opinions, even the wrong ones.)

Shall we begin?

Police Quest: Open Season - Final Rating

 by Alex

Is this really “THE MOST INTENSE MULTIMEDIA CD EVER!”? Remember when “multimedia” was an adjective that seemingly everything had slapped onto it? My friend Merriam-Webster.com (NO AI FOR ME!) defines “multimedia” as “using, involving, or encompassing several media” in its adjectival form. As a noun, M-W states that “multimedia” is “a technique (such as the combining of sound, video, and text) for expressing ideas (as in communication, entertainment, or art) in which several media are employed,” and also “something (such as software) using or facilitating such a technique.”

So, by this definition, isn’t a movie multimedia? Isn’t a Broadway musical? Weren’t radio plays? Weren’t plays by Euripides and Aristophanes? You’re telling me Oedipus Rex wasn’t a more INTENSE MULTIMEDIA experience than Police Quest: Open Season?

Ah, but by the box’s own definition, I am comparing apples to oranges, or what Aristotle might call in Posterior Analytics (which is NOT the analysis of the human butt; get your minds out of the gutter) a false syllogism. If all A is C, and there is no B in A, and we suppose that A is “a Greek tragedy” and C is “an intense multimedia experience” while B is “a compact disc,” we can see that calling, I don’t know, Lysistrata or The Frogs a more intense multimedia experience than Police Quest: Open Season is logically unsound. But the real Greek tragedy is me, a Greek, bastardizing the great Philosopher’s Posterior Analytics to make a butt joke about a thirty-year-old adventure game.

«Ντρέπομαι που είμαι πρόγονός σου, βρε μαλάκα.»

I mean, there are better ways to make butt jokes about or in adventure games:

So if the horse fart is A, the horse’s ass is C, I guess the bag is B, so we can say “All A is C . . .” Talk about Posterior ANALytics . . .

The amount of mileage I’ve gotten out of that screenshot is truly stunning.

Dragonsphere – Changes

Written by Vetinari

Welcome back to Dragonsphere! After a plot twist that my teenage self would have absolutely adored (and one year before The Usual Suspects as well), the game let us take back control of our now-unnamed protagonist in Sanwe's empty study, after the explosive defeat of the sorcerer.

He was more of a technomancer, anyway.

I scavenge among the debris and find many useful things inside Sanwe's former inner sanctum. I get a large black sphere from the ground, the only remains of the powerful circle of spheres which powered the sorcerer's magical abilities.

Donkey Island - Won!

Written by Michael

It feels that every game I play for this blog, there’s one gameplay post where I’m mad at the game for stupid design choices.  This is that post for this game.  Fortunately, it’s also the last post.

Last time we met, I had received a second scroll from the magician as a reward for bringing him the second of four ingredients for a spell.  

Mekka-Lekka-Hi, Mekka-Hiney-Ho

Looking at this scroll, I’m told it has power over magical trees.  I won’t bother using it in the cottage, because I know it will be the same situation as before -- I’ll waste the spell and have to restore, because I’ll be dead-ended.  So, I need a magical tree.  This one is probably obvious, the tree that’s colored differently than all the others.  I’ll head there, save the game, and then read the spell aloud.

State of the Blog - 2025 - and Ideas for the Future

Written by The TAG Team

Which way should we go?

The Adventurer’s Guild started nearly 13 years ago, lovingly inspired by another blog, the CRPG Addict.  Over the years, both blogs have been covering a loose timeline of games in their respective genres.

So when Chet, the chief bottlewasher at CRPG, started to have concerns over the pace of his blog lately, it made us take a look at ourselves as well.

We started the gaming year of 1993 over eight years ago, and haven’t really finished it.  Even though we’ve started a few games from 1994, it is unlikely that we will even start 1995 in the next decade, at the pace we’re playing.  For those of us who read Trickster’s review of The Secret of Monkey Island 11 years ago, wouldn’t it be nice to come full-circle and read the reviews of the Telltale episode games and the Ron Gilbert reboot from a couple of years ago?  At the current rate, we will never get there in our natural lifespans.

Some of us would like to see a broader selection of games.  It’s not helping that many of our past reviewers have had changes in their real-life situations that have interfered with their prior commitments to the blog.  We have been just as dissatisfied as the readers with the slow pace of posts over the last handful of months.

So, we have a few ideas.  None of these are set in stone, we want your feedback and other ideas.  Because we love this blog, and don’t want it to fail.  Right now, it’s having a little bit of trouble.

• One idea that has been suggested before is an emulation of the “BRIEF” at CRPG.  A single post for a game, where a reviewer installs the game, plays it for a little bit, researches past reviews of the games, and posts a comprehensive account.  No score issued, but the game gets the attention.  This would be great for some of the “lesser” titles that often get relegated to "Missed Classic" status, but also would be an option for some of the games on our playlist that no one is rushing to volunteer to play.

• Are there still readers out there who might be interested in writing these smaller, less comprehensive posts?

• This would also be great for some of the disregarded or borderline titles.  Someone paid CAPs to force someone to review MTVs Club Dead, for example, but no one wants to play it.  Given how little time some of our reviewers have, is this really a good use of their time?

• Chet also suggested limiting the number of games per year, and cycling back through the years later to catch up with the ones that are missed.  While it may be too late to do that for 1994, it’s a thought.  Cover most of the mainline games, but only some of the borderline/disregarded titles.  A lot of those titles have bogged down the blog over the years, in the opinions of some, and based on the comment activity on the posts, they are sometimes less favorably received.

• Should we make our review posts less detailed?  Most of our posts now are narrated walkthroughs, but that wasn’t always the case.  Back in the early days, Trickster left out a lot of details, and most games were finished in about two gameplay posts.

• Even the comments on Chet’s post brings up some interesting points.  We’re quoting a few because we’d like some feedback.  Are these valid thoughts about our own blog?

• “To be honest it has been a while since you played a game I found really interesting. Sure, it is sort of interesting what kind of rather unknown games are out there, but a lot of them are just not that interesting.”

• “I'd also suggest that it makes even more sense to focus on 'particularly notable, fun, or important'”

• “Being mechanical about covering every obscurity in order would just mean missing out on more recent obscurities in favor of older ones”

• Should we tighten the standards for the games we play?  We’ve sometimes become very loose, for example, with games without an English-language release.  Do people enjoy reading the entries where the entire game has to be translated for them?  

Maybe some of these ideas can help solve the problem of reviewers not having enough time to blog through enough games each year.  

Please, please comment below with any ideas or suggestions you have, or thoughts about the ideas above.