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.

Ten Years After: The Anniversary of the TAG Community Blog

 Written by The TAG Team

A DeepAI rendition of the TAG offices

The TAG blog is growing up.  In November, it will become a teenager!  But the most amazing thing is that the blog nearly didn’t make it to its third birthday.  The original blogger, Trickster, retired just before the 3-year mark.  This is the story of the ten years that have passed since.

Trickster might have taken on too much early on.  His blog (then called “The Adventure Gamer”) tried to keep pace with the blog that inspired it, CRPG Addict.  But writing about RPGs isn’t nearly as taxing as a well-crafted adventure game, since there’s more plot development to discuss, more unique actions to consider.  Many RPGs involve grinding away at the same skills, exploring lands for treasure, and fighting creatures, sometimes over and over to reach a goal.  

We’re not debating which one is more fun (although we have our opinions).  We’re just saying that one is easier to write about than the other.

Most of the readers of his blog were disappointed when he left.  But some of the commenters also suggested a takeover by the readers.

Perhaps the first to say this out loud was loyal reader Rowan Lipkovits, but others soon joined in the conversation.  Including some names that should be familiar to current readers of the blog.

Another loyal reader and frequent commenter, Ilmari Jauhainen, started to make a plan.  Instead of just one person at the helm, a handful of people would be sharing the duties, so this time, no one would get overwhelmed.  He was soon joined by Joe Pranevich and TBD; and Aperama volunteered to review the next game in the schedule. He made the first post of that review ten years ago today, on October 24th, 2014.

And so began a new era.

The blog was reborn as a community project, with online calendars and email chains helping to coordinate the efforts of people who had never before met each other in person, from all corners of the globe.  Over time, small changes were made to the structure of the blog, like occasional diversions playing “Missed Classics” that were skipped in the chronology of the blog. We've tried to shake up the mold a little. by even having done simultaneous posts with other blogs for games that cross over into both of our interests, such as Loremaster and Lucifer's Realm. We've even had multiple reviewers tackle a game at once -- an unforgettable experiment, one we should really try to do again.

More than 200 games later, we’re still chugging along, and most of the early admins are still involved with the blog, and some of the original reviewers and commenters as well.   

• Ilmari, even as he’s grown up and has more family and work responsibilities, still enjoys playing games for the blog, like the recently completed Inca II.  

• Joe is the father of the Missed Classic, playing the first one, Mystery House, soon after the reorganization of the blog. Over the last decade, he has built up a family in that time, and still stays connected with the blog, around his commitments.  He’s taking a short leave of absence, but will be back in the coming year, if only because there’s no way he would ever leave his Zork and Infocom marathons unfinished.  

• The next addition to the admin team, Will Moczarski, is in the middle of a playthrough for the blog as we speak.

• We’ve lost touch with TBD, but thank him for all the work he did shaping our style in those early years.  Some of us have fun emulating his humor in our CAP distributions to this day.

• The arresting skills of our in-house lawyer reviewer, Alex, continues to this day.  His first review was over nine years ago, and his take on Open Season just started a few days ago.  Unfortunately, that means that Jim Walls has also been a companion on the blog for so many years.

• Other reviewers over the past decade have come and gone, but Reiko and Zenic Reverie have still kept involved, both finishing their most recent games over this past summer.  

• Commenter (and occasional reviewer) Andy Panthro still provides valuable insights, and we hope he will still be able to finish his next (but long-ago scheduled) game on the schedule.

• Our commitment to the holidays remains strong. Next week, Morpheus will continue our tradition of honoring Halloween, and Joe has made sure we enjoy an adventure each Christmas. We've observed many April Fool's Days and other holidays as well.

We’ve injected some new blood into the mix (Admins MorpheusKitami and Michael, and Reviewer Vetinari) and, after a little lull during the pandemic, have just had our strongest year since. This year, we’ve written the most posts since 2019, and have had a lot of fun doing it!

In about a month or so, we’ll have over 5 million views on the blog.  Trickster celebrated milestones like 50,000, but who knew how big the project would grow?

On behalf of the entire TAG Team, we’d like to thank you for being here.  Everyone contributes in their own way; some comment, some write reviews, and others who just read the reviews, well, we need you too!  (Although we really wish you’d comment, just to help us guide our writing...)  Ilmari touched upon it in a blog birthday post back in 2017, but it bears repeating: we are constantly trying to reinvent TAG, to keep it fresh for the readers and reviewers both, and keep it going for decades to come.

We’re getting ready to start picking out the games to be played for 1994 on the blog, and look forward to you joining us.  

Yours in Gaming,

- The TAG Team, 2024 Edition

- Ilmari, Joe, Will, Morpheus, and Michael

Please, we’d love to hear your thoughts about the ten years past and the future as well in the comments below.

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!

Missed Classic Spreadsheet, Rarities and Unplayables

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.

Quest for Glory Retrospective

By TAG community

There’s something magical in Quest for Glory series, and generations of gamers have been put under its spell. With this retrospective we want to commemorate the series and honour the golden memories of people who enjoyed it. Yes, memories. Before we look at the individual games of the series, let’s listen to the story of one Quest for Glory fan.

Let the Hero-U Month Begin!

By The TAG Team

A wise man once said, "Magic is the essence and soul of life, and the Wizard is her poet." Truer words have not been spoken, but in our world "magic" comes through the design of fantastic games, and those designers are the poets. Ever since Trickster played Hero’s Quest, The Adventure Gamer has had the pleasure of cooperating with the Coles, the legendary designer couple behind, among other things, the beloved Quest for Glory -series. The blog has especially benefited from the comments of Corey Cole, who has always had time to reveal insights about their adventure games and to recount experiences about working at Sierra.

With the happy coincidence of the combined playthrough of Quest for Glory III with CRPG Addict and the soon upcoming release of Hero-U, the long awaited new game from the Coles, the administrators of The Adventure Gamer have decided to dedicate the month to the past and future games of the Coles.

It's almost finished!

New Poll: Choose the best game of 1990!

By TAG reviewers

We've only got two more games from 1990 to go, so it's time to prepare for the annual TAG awards! In last year's award ceremony an idea of a new Reader's Choice -award was thrown into the air and great affirming applause followed.

An enthusiastic reader cutting up his limbs just to get a vote

The rules are simple: just pick out your favourite game from 1990 and vote for it. The winner of the Reader's Choice -award will be revealed at the TAG Awards Ceremony, after we've played both B.A.T. and King's Quest 5 to conclusion. May the best game win!

And anyone voting for this game better have a resurrection card available

Reader's Choice: pick the best game of 1990

New Poll: How many game posts should we schedule each week?

Since The Adventure Gamer became community-run in October, we've been playing two games at a time and posting one post a week on each game. We've also been slotting extra posts ('Missed Classics' and 'What's Your Story' posts mainly) between main game posts.

With multiple reviewers we've been able to continue writing posts at a rate that would have a single person collapse with exhaustion

Now, we're asking you, our readers, what you think of our schedule and whether we should change it. Our reviewers are dedicated and working faster than expected so we've been considering increasing our posting schedule. The options we were thinking of appear on the poll in the left hand side of The Adventure Gamer's web site. Vote now! Or read further for more information.

That's right, a new pole! [This pun was brought to you as a tribute to Spellcasting 101]

To put it simply, we're looking at doing either 2 or 3 main games at a time (we currently do 2) and 2 or 3 main game posts a week (we currently do 2).

Note that if we do 3 game posts a week we'll get through the game list quicker, but have less room for extra posts (one a week) while with 2 regular posts a week we've had either one or two extra posts in a typical week. This assumes we continue with out current maximum of 4 posts per week.

No matter what the result, we'll keep things flexible and adjust the planned schedule if it seems like a fun idea, as we did when playing The Scoop Holiday Marathon (TM).

If you don't like any of the options or have any other suggestions let us know here in the comments.

Disclaimer: The Adventure Gamer takes no responsibility for not being able to keep up with our intended schedule due to...

...alien invasion...

...ghost pirate kidnapping...

...or any other reason...

Join the TAG reviewers!

written by “The Adventure Gamer” -reviewers

[This blog page has been retained here due to historical reasons, but up-to-date story of The Adventure Gamer can be found on a separate page].

In case you haven’t been paying attention or are a newcomer to this blog, The Adventure Gamer is a creation of one person, known only by his alias, the Trickster. Things evolved and now it is a group effort, managed by a community of adventure game enthusiasts. The rules are still same, as when Trickster was doing it solo. One of us plays a game and writes posts of his or hers efforts to beat it. No walkthroughs are allowed, but the player can make a Request for Assistance, if the situation looks dire. The game need not be won, but the player must at least play it for six hours, before completely abandoning it.

We work hard day and night...

...and sometimes we have to get out hands dirty...

...but that just makes the rewards seem that much better!

We are always looking for fellow adventuring fans, who would like to join our community of reviewers. Do you see an upcoming game, which you enjoyed as a kid and which you would love to try again? Or would you want to explore titles you’ve never even heard of? Or do you think we’ve missed some classic adventure game you’d like to scoop up and review for us? Or maybe you are interested to do a more general article on some aspect of adventure games? Or are you perhaps not so much into playing and writing, but would consider doing the necessary administrative work for keeping the blog going?

If you answered any of these questions affirmatively, just join our Google Group https://groups.google.com/d/forum/adventuregamer or send us a message to adventuregamer@googlegroups.com ; we’ll be happy to take you along in our trip through the adventure gaming history.

Join the TAG reviewers, see the worlds (or graphical simulations of them)!

It’s AFGNCAAP’s life in TAG reviewers!

Continuing the blog without Trickster

Written by Ilmari

Even if Trickster is willing to move on to new challenges, it would be shame to put The Adventure Gamer completely out of business, especially as we are just on verge of the golden age of point'n'click. Some of us readers got the idea that the blog could continue as a community effort, which sounds great, but we'll still need to figure out couple of things:

1) Who does all the administrative work, like adding the reviews into blog and putting scores into the spreadsheet?

I've already volunteered for the job, but if someone wants to become a co-admin, I'd love to share the honour.

2) Who will play the games and do reviews?

I've also said that I can play and write reviews occasionally. Still, I won't be able to do that continuously, so here the efforts of the whole community would be most required. I've already got few volunteers for a reviewer pool: Aperama, Joe Pranevich, TBD and Deimar at least have expressed interest (sorry, if I overlooked someone). Still, the more committed reviewers we get, the better. Note that I've already said that I can do the introductory post for any game, if the reviewer doesn't want to spend time for that.

3) Who will get to play what game?

Here are the games remaining for the year 1990:

Countdown
Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls
James Bond: The Stealth Affair
Elvira
B.A.T.
Rise of the Dragon
King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!

I think it's best to figure out first what to do with these games, before thinking about the later games. So, anyone particularly interested of any of these?

4) What about scoring?

In the past, we could rely on Trickster having a consistent idea how to score the games. As a guest blogger, I noticed how hard it was to take care that the scores I gave followed the same logic as Trickster's scores. So, do we still want to score games? If so, do we still use the PISSED-system? Do we need to discuss what are the criteria for the scoring or should every reviewer just play by his/hers gut instinct?

5) What to do with CAPs?

One of the most original features of this blog has been the CAP system, and it's been an important part in bonding the TAG community. Do we still want to hold on to the system? If we do, who gets to decide who gets how many CAPs (community vote?, admins?, something else?)?

Also, while Trickster was still blogging TAG, collecting CAPs had a clear purpose, because they could be used for moving Borderline and Disregarded game to Trickster's playing list. Do we still need such a system (at least it was always fun to see what games got enough points) or is it completely useless?

So, this is what I had in mind - let the discussion begin!

A New Journey Awaits

I apologise for leaving this so long. It has weighed heavily on me for a few weeks, but the last thing I wanted to do was rashly pull up stumps, only to renege on the decision shortly afterwards. As you’ve likely guessed from that opening, I will not be continuing with The Adventure Gamer for the foreseeable future. Believe me when I say that this was a decision that took many months to come to. It is however one that I now feel very comfortable with.

My reasons for stopping the blog are not to do with limited time, family matters or reluctance to put the effort required in. The truth is that gaming is only one of my passions. Since I started The Adventure Gamer close to three years ago, I’ve done little else with my spare time than play and blog through 45 adventure games. My love of movies, books, TV shows, music, and most of all, other video game genres, have had to take a backseat to this strict, narrow focus. That was fine for a while, but over time I naturally started being pulled in different directions. One week it might be music, the next comics, the week after that movies. I found I was rejecting these itches and forcing myself to go back to the likes of Earthrise, Les Manley and Altered Destiny when it wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing. There was only so long this commitment could last.

I began wondering whether there might be a way to bring all my passions together, mapping out a new blog idea whilst sitting on the bus or lying in bed at night. When my family and I came back from Thailand a few weeks ago, I still had a couple of weeks of holiday time to occupy. I sat down and started a new blog. My intention was to see whether this new idea worked. Whether it felt…right. I’ve now written upwards of 20 posts, covering the whole spectrum of my interests. I feel revitalised, and genuinely excited to be able to cover new topics in differing mediums every couple of days. I can’t go back now.

So why didn’t I do this a year ago? The answer is you guys. My intention was always to build a community when I started The Adventure Gamer. I was delighted when it actually started happening, initially thanks to Chet advertising on the CRPG Addict blog, but eventually The Adventure Gamer stood up on its own and thrived. There are so many fantastic personalities here, and I felt a real responsibility to keep things going for as long as I could. I won’t mention a long list of names here, as I would undoubtedly forget someone critical to the blog’s success. I would however like to thank Lars-Erik for sponsoring the blog with games. He’s an amazingly generous and thoughtful man that I wish I knew personally. As for all the other regulars, please accept my sincere thanks for your involvement and enthusiasm. I hope at least some of you will come with me on my next endeavour.

I will respond to comments on this post for a while. I will also announce the launch of my new blog when the time comes. It will be a while though, as I’m determined to get the format right from the outset this time, and would like to have at least fifty or so posts up my sleeve from the get go. I don’t want to reveal too much about it just yet. Let’s just say that in the last few days I’ve written about Doctor Who, a surreal Japanese horror movie, an Atari 2600 video game and Wonder Woman. I’ve had a smile on my face the whole time too.

The Trickster