Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist: WON with Final Rating

By Alex

There I was, ready for Freddy to start dispensing some justice in Coarsegold . . . justice in the form of hot lead . . .

. . . when my laptop died.

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist: How Freddy Got His Groove (and Ear) Back

By Alex

This was a tough session, I’m not going to lie. It was hindered by the fact that play time is severely limited lately, and while I’m having fun with this game, I think this is a good time to discuss its puzzle design, and puzzle design in adventure games generally.

There are a few broad categories I thought about that I can put adventure games that I have played into, give their general characteristics, and cite examples of games that fall into each category. I fully expect many of you to disagree with my taxonomy, but that’s what makes the Internet interesting, right?

That, and the personal insults over any difference of opinion.

Anyway, here is Alex’s Adventure Game Puzzle Style Breakdown:

• Player-Driven: These are games where several puzzles are presented to the player for them to solve right out of the gate, and the solutions to these puzzles are by-and-large there from the outset. While there may be some event-driven (to be discussed later on in this list), for the most part the player is given a fairly expansive world to explore, characters to interact with, inventory items to gather, and carte blanche to solve most of the puzzles in any order, at any time, barring any event-driven instances, in order to solve an over-arching goal (usually made relatively clear near the game’s beginning). In a player-driven adventure game, most of the events occur after the player solves certain other puzzles. This may open up other items to use as solutions, but not always—sometimes, the player uses things they’ve already picked up to solve these new puzzles, or combines a new item with an old one in different ways. Examples of this style include Quest for Glory I and IV, The Secret of Monkey Island, Leisure Suit Larry I, Leisure Suit Larry III, and, to a degree, most King’s Quest games, and Lure of the Temptress (though the less said about that game, the better).
• Event-Driven: These are games where, while the player may have a fairly expansive world to explore and inventory items to collect, but a more limited set of puzzles. There may or may not be an overarching goal that is clear to the player from the moment the fire up the game, but on the whole event-driven games manage to avoid that “on-rails” feeling by giving the player a lot of time to do stuff before being moved to the next part of the game. Examples of this style include Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father, Leisure Suit Larry II, Quest for Glory II, III, and V, Police Quest II and III, and pretty much all of the Space Quest series.
• Plot-Driven: I debated calling this category “designer-driven,” but I like “plot-driven” better. In games like this, the player performs little vignettes that form a part of a broad story. In games like this, each vignette—if well-designed—avoids any of the dreaded “walking dead” scenarios. All of the inventory items the player needs will be in each vignette, and while the player may be able to acquire some early, it is typically not necessary to do so. Examples of this style include King’s Quest VII and Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Leisure Suit Larry V, Conquests of the Long Bow: The Legend of Robin Hood, and L.A. Law.

Wait, just kidding about that last one. L.A. Law is in a separate category called “pure garbage.”

Now, obviously there are hybrids here, and plot-driven games can work, but I find that FPFP doesn’t do the best job of this, at least not to my tastes. I don’t feel all that great a sense of accomplishment or discovery when the way to solve puzzles is just revisiting each screen of the relatively small game world upon the start of each chapter, talking to everyone and clicking every inventory item on everyone and everything, and picking up the items that I just so happen to need when they magically appear for the sake of pure expediency. There is limited creativity needed on the part of the player, and most solutions can be brute-forced.

Yes, “clicking every object on everything” is a cliché about adventure games, and a cliché for a reason, but I never felt like this, say, playing Space Quest V or The Curse of Monkey Island or any of the Quest for Glory games. I feel it all the time in Freddy Pharkas.

With that background, let’s go through Chapter Three.

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist: Strange Indigestion

By Alex

This game . . . lets you eat horse poop.

I wish I was kidding. I’m not.

I also wish I didn’t decide to click the horse poop on Freddy. But I did. Make of this what you will.

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist: Stampedes and Indians (A Real One!)

By Alex

I have a confession to make: My adventure-gaming instincts have been dulled by the passage of time. Or maybe it’s the interface issue I’ll blame my woes on later in this post. Suffice it to say, it took me a long time, as well as a call for assistance from my adventure-gaming brethren, to make any progress in FPFP. As a result, it took me forever to get this post written, as my gaming time is curtailed by the demands of life. I spent over two hours making incremental progress, and while I’m still having fun with this game, I feel that I have let you, the reader down because—and this is hard to admit—I had to once again also consult a walkthrough.

To be fair, I had the right solution, just the wrong key. Because there are three keys. And I had missed the only one that I could use to open the beer bottles I needed to stop the snail stampede, and . . .

I’m getting too far ahead of myself. I’m going to tell the story in roughly chronological order and, in a fit of public petulance, blame my woes on the interface.

Yeah, the interface.

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist: A Pharmacist’s Work Is Never Done

By Alex

Are video games art?

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist: Welcome to Coarsegold!

By Alex

In any good Western, the setting is more than just a place where stuff happens—it becomes a character in and of itself. Whether it’s the sun-blasted landscapes of a Spaghetti Western, a shining frontier hamlet menaced by bandits, or a run-down dump that the new sheriff needs to clean up, the rugged landscape, colorful characters, and ever-present danger of the Wild West provides ample storytelling opportunities.

It also provides ample opportunities for fart jokes.

Game 121: Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist (1993): Introduction

by Alex

Hello there, dear The Adventure Gamer family. I am back after a long absence to review another game, and another Al Lowe game, but this time it’s not an entry in the Leisure Suit Larry series. No, I’m leaving my polyester pal behind and traveling to the old west to play Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Mr. Lowe and co.’s 1993 outing in the Sierra adventure game library. There was a CD-ROM version (more on this later), with voices and everything, released in 1994, but I’m playing the DOS version, mainly because I’m not a huge fan of CD-ROM games.

1993 is smack in the middle of the golden age of Sierra adventure games, which I contend lasted until 1996. You might disagree with me, and I’m sure will let me know in the comments below, but that’s what makes life interesting, right? And we all need a little adventure, uncertainty, and chaos in our lives right about now.