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Point&Click adventures in 2011, the best so far and promising upcoming games?

C

CecilRousso

Member
Please note - this is a thread about the most recent point&click adventure games, from the beginning of this year up until now, and upcoming games. I think everyone knows all there is to know about the LucasArts classics, Machinarium, the Ace Attourney games, etc, so we don´t need recommendations about them in this particular thread.


I´ve been out of touch with the genre for about a year now, playing other kinds of games, so I feel like I have some catching up to do with the games released in the genre, and previews of upcoming ones.

I did play the first episode of Back to the Future, and I was quite nice. It did not feel like Telltales best, but for the right price I would consider purchasing the whole season.

I just tried the demo of Gray Matter, and while it seems to have good story, music, cutscenes, dialogues and voice overs, it hade the same stiff character models and the same kind of crappy interface that makes me dislike many eastern european adventure games. And I could not get a feeling of the puzzles since I did not know what I was supposed to do after the first rabbit puzzle. Should I continue with this one?

Tried the Gemini Rue demo. It seemed ok, but the dialogues were not good and I´m not really fond of the low res art style it has.

I have not tried the The Next Big Thing since I really didn´t like the Runaway series. Is this any better or more of the same?

Are there any other good games released in the genre this year that you can recommend? Upcoming ones? I prefer PC, but also have iPhone, DS, PS3 and XBOX360.
 
I enjoyed the Hotel Dusk/Another Code series pretty much as well as the recent remasterings of the Broken Sword games. Broken Sword 5 is supposed to come out next year too, similar to the first two series' outings ;)
 
Shiggy said:
I enjoyed the Hotel Dusk/Another Code series pretty much as well as the recent remasterings of the Broken Sword games. Broken Sword 5 is supposed to come out next year too, similar to the first two series' outings ;)
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Hotel Dusk and Another Code are hardly 2011 games are they? :)
 
There was supposed to be a Broken Sword 5 coming out at some point this year, but details have been non-existent for a while now. Dang it!

I grabbed both Back To The Future and Strong Bad for half price in the PSN Summer Sale this week. Haven't got round to playing them yet, but I loved Tales Of Monkey Island to bits so I'm sure they're a worthwhile investment.

Edit - Oh, and Machinarium is getting a release on PSN in August. Seriously looking forward to that.
 
~airwave~: I Fought the Law and the Law One
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A recent and enjoyable enough little game. Short, but has this really appealing bohemian music town aesthetic to it. Also, the soundtrack is incredible. The author's blog is right here. The game is supposed to be the first of an episodic series, though the second game is still pending. airwave one came out in February, so this should fit your bill of recent adventure games.
 
Ghost Trick: Phamtom Detective. Buy it now.

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Have yet to play but if you like MCF you'll probably like this --- unless you're a huge fan of it because supposedly the story is a carbon copy of the 13th skull. Multiplayer looks fun.
 
Shiggy said:
Now I see why I read 2010 ;)
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Edited the part now. It´s not that I can´t play older games, but I already have beaten most of them, and I´m interested about the state of the genre right now.
 
Machinarium is the only one I'm excited about.
August can't come soon enough.

Axel and Pixel for XBLA is pretty damn good too!
Too bad you're only looking for games made this year.
 
The Whispered World doesn't fit the date criteria (EU August 2009; UK/US (English) March/April 2010) but it isn't particularly well known, so I'm throwing it into the ring. $20 might seem a bit steep but, in addition to being beautiful, the game world is huge with the game reportedly taking ~25 hours to complete. (I snagged it for roughly $10 during the Steam Summer Sale.)

Daedalic have another PnC game in the works named Deponia. As far as I can tell they haven't said anything of the game since 2009, so assuming the project isn't dead I imagine we should be hearing something soon enough.
 
Black Mirror 3 is supposed to be a pretty good ending to the trilogy.

I bought A New Beginning and kind of hated it so I wouldn't recommend it personally. The gameplay isn't too bad, but there's no polish to the game - 4:3 graphics, buggy, poorly proofed translation (some lines untranslated or still with German voice acting), terrible voice acting. Really detracts from the overall experience. With that said I may be in the minority on this one.

If you're into the whole Samarost thing you should try The Tiny Bang Story, which is ridiculously short but quite good fun.

Otherwise I think you've covered most things. I haven't played any particularly great AGS titles this year unfortunately.

I wouldn't count Ghost Trick as a graphic adventure of the kind you're thinking of; it's more like a puzzle game to me, like the Hapland Flash games but more forgiving. It's pretty good, though, and much more of a "game" than the Ace Attorney series.
 
Alpha Polaris

Released 24/06/2011

There's a demo available. It seems ok, but I didn't play enough to make a substantial enough opinion.
 
Only one:

Telltale_Games_logo.png

rebooting
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The other one is Machinarium PSN. (please buy this game so we can get more indie point and click games :) )
 
Shiggy said:
That's just fine, sorry then, just wanted to recommend Lats Window as it's getting cheaper now ;)


Here's a recent Charles Cecil interview about Broken Sword:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ullzROgDC8w
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Thanks for posting that link. I'm the biggest fan of Broken Sword (well...the first 3 anyway) and it's incredibly encouraging to hear directly from Charles Cecil's mouth that a new Broken Sword is on the way and that it'll be drawing main influence from the first two games. Would love to see a return of the hand-drawn environments of yore; the graphics of Broken Sword 1 and 2 still hold up well and look gorgeous to this day.
 
Great:
- Ghost Trick
- Gemini Rue

Decent:
- The Next BIG Thing (if you don't like Runaway, you won't like this one)
- Black Mirror 3
- Red Johnson Chronicles

Upcoming:
- The Testament of Sherlock Holmes
- Haunted
- Captain Morgane
- The Book of Unwritten Tales: Die Viehchroniken (whatever that's called in English)

Questions?
 
Shiggy said:
is this real? Hopefully not in the awful Telltale engine, pleeease! I want some good graphics.
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http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/18/kings-quest-reboot-coming-courtesy-of-telltale/

Telltale has plans to take us back to the kingdom of Daventry, confirming its King's Quest reboot is currently underway. "We have agreed to a multi-title, multiplatform deal to reboot the King's Quest franchise," Telltale SVP of marketing, Steve Allison, announced during a press event last night. "Much like we did with Tales of Monkey Island, we're rebooting King's Quest with all new episodic games and multiple series." He provided no details beyond that, but promised more would be revealed at E3 this June.
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Though no info was given in E3. :(
 
Acquiescence said:
Would love to see a return of the hand-drawn environments of yore; the graphics of Broken Sword 1 and 2 still hold up well and look gorgeous to this day.
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BS5 will be 2D, wouldn't expect it before 2012 though. Hope they remember what made the first (well, and the second) game so great and don't focus on the iDevice crowd too much.
 
DonMigs85 said:
I guess Telltale's Back to the Future games were decent enough
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I'm a bit oversaturated (is that a word?) bei Telltale's games. Bone was kinda fun, Sam'n'Max was a big step in the right direction, and since then they have released so many different adventure games but they more or less all look and feel the same. I wish they would get a new engine and try to do a "full" game for once -- I mean what's the reason for sticking with the episode model? It probably made sense in the beginning (financially) but now?
 
Deponia should finally be out this year !
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Alpha Polaris was good game. Didn't really care for the art direction but it was well written and had good puzzles. I'm just starting to play A New Beginning but it looks great and so far it seems really interesting plot vise too.

EDIT: Also Gemini Rue! It's awesome !
 
Sloane said:
BS5 will be 2D, wouldn't expect it before 2012 though. Hope they remember what made the first (well, and the second) game so great and don't focus on the iDevice crowd too much.
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I know it'll be in 2D, Cecil said so in the interview posted above. I'm just wondering what the art design will be like, whether it'll be something new and updated or whether it will be a similar style to the old games.
 
'Kaptain Brawe' anyone? It's very nice, but it has no voice acting.

download-kaptain-brawe-a-brawe-new-world-episode-1-screenshot.jpg


Please don't let this thread die after 2 hours :) There's too little attention for point 'n clicking here on GAF!
 
Is BS5 confirmed to come out... god i cant wait if it is indeed 2D..

So good, as long as they keep the same voice actor for George!
 
Acquiescence said:
I'm just wondering what the art design will be like, whether it'll be something new and updated or whether it will be a similar style to the old games.
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Would it make sense to update it? I think the style will be similar to what we saw in BSDC, not quite the quality of the original BS but relatively close.

Tr4nce said:
There's too little attention for point 'n clicking here on GAF!
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Kinda funny, isn't it, considering how much many modern games (from different genres) resemble point & click adventures.

Neo Child said:
So good, as long as they keep the same voice actor for George!
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For all I know, they will.
 
Daedalic's long-awaited A New Beginning was released last month. A demo can be d\l here:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/anewbeginning/demo/39163.html

The game had decent - reviews but i wasn't feeling the demo. I have been disappointed by almost every recent P&C game. I don't know if the problem is because they are made in non-English countries so the translation falls flat. In 'A New Beginning', for example, the mood and tone of the story and the writing is too light-hearted - i was expecting a more dire take on the subject.
I don't wanna say, but i think the genre needs a shakedown in its gameplay department. Maybe more action bits and user interaction. I feel like alot of stuff that is happening in adv. games outside of the control of the player and in cutscenes can be remade to request some input from the player, even it's more speedy and has the option to fail.

Upcoming games include the new Sherlock Holmes, Secret Files 3 (prolly in 2012), Asylum and Samorost 3.
 
Just give me Tales of Monkey Island 2 please??? Pretty please??????

on topic: Don't know if Puzzle Agent fits the bill since it is not a Point&Click in the classic sense, but it's awesome!
 
Sloane said:
Would it make sense to update it? I think the style will be similar to what we saw in BSDC, not quite the quality of the original BS but relatively close.
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Why not the quality of the original BS? :(
 
Shiggy said:
Why not the quality of the original BS? :(
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I said I think. Maybe it will reach the quality of the original BS, but that game was fucking expensive for an adventure game -- today's titles usually have like a tenth of Broken Sword's budget. And Revolution will probably have to / want to finance the development themselves.
 
I played through and really enjoyed The Next Big Thing. I got the game in the Steam pack with all the Runaway games, and I started the first one of those and it didn't really grab me... so take that as you will.

I agree about the annoying parts of Gray Matter, but I still think it's a game worth playing. It has all the stuff I love about Jane Jensen games in it.

http://www.adventuregamers.com/ This site is worth following if you want to read the latest news and reviews by people who actually care and are knowledgeable about the genre.
 
The Next Big Thing came out this year. It looks marvellous. But I do not know how it plays at all and Pendulo Studios has an absolutely terrible track record in terms of writing and story. I've only played the first Runaway game and it was horrendous in its characters, logic, tone and pacing.

But maybe the Next Big Thing is better in this regard: I do not know.

51C712C4F37C50EE706B920DAC641445BE9F08DC


Lissar said:
I played through and really enjoyed The Next Big Thing. I got the game in the Steam pack with all the Runaway games, and I started the first one of those and it didn't really grab me... so take that as you will.
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Lol, I did the exact same thing. Bought the Pendulo pack, tried Runaway and was completely appalled by the experience. I just hope their later games are better, although everything is an improvement upon Runaway.
 
Lissar said:
I played through and really enjoyed The Next Big Thing. I got the game in the Steam pack with all the Runaway games, and I started the first one of those and it didn't really grab me... so take that as you will.
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The first two Runaways aren't really worth playing but the third one (Twist of Fate) is pretty good. Impressive graphics, decent story, and good puzzles.

Gray Matter on the other hand was pretty awful. The story went nowhere, the puzzles didn't make much sense and it's probably the least polished adventure game I have ever seen. The load times were just ridiculous.
 
Bowling Pin said:
~airwave~: I Fought the Law and the Law One
Screenshot2.png


A recent and enjoyable enough little game. Short, but has this really appealing bohemian music town aesthetic to it. Also, the soundtrack is incredible. The author's blog is right here. The game is supposed to be the first of an episodic series, though the second game is still pending. airwave one came out in February, so this should fit your bill of recent adventure games.
Click to expand...

I liked it too. The main drawback would be the DJ's dialogue between the songs. It's not very clever and I can't imagine anyone enjoying hearing him on the radio, no matter how good his song choices might be. But overall it's a cute, quick, FREE, adventure title worth playing if only for the great back-and-forth between the protagonist and the music producer.
 
Sloane said:
The first two Runaways aren't really worth playing but the third one (Twist of Fate) is pretty good. Impressive graphics, decent story, and good puzzles.

Gray Matter on the other hand was pretty awful. The story went nowhere, the puzzles didn't make much sense and it's probably the least polished adventure game I have ever seen. The load times were just ridiculous.
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Came to post this about Gray Matter. Some cool ideas but the story went no where, was anticlimatic and none of the characters were interesting. The graphics look great but that doesnt save it. I had no issues with loading tho maybe cuz I played it on SSD.

I agree with the above posts about Ghost Trick. Awesome story and characters.
 
Tr4nce said:
'Kaptain Brawe' anyone? It's very nice, but it has no voice acting.
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These days, that's for the best. No one can match the quality of the Lucasarts acting, not to mention the writing. And as these threads prove, it looks like most companies are more interested in great art than writing. Or maybe it's just lost in translation since modern adventure games tend to come from non-English countries.

As for the topic, I did like Gemini Rue even if it's a little rough around the edges. Turn off the voice acting though.
 
I'm really enjoying Back to the Future, but mainly because I'm so in love with the movie trilogy. The game itself would've been pretty mediocre without the theme.
 
If you like point and clicks enough to set foot in a NeoGAF topic about them, you might appreciate Adventure: All in the Game.

It's a ridiculously meta game about the death of adventure games, set in the different worlds of iconic, incredibly obscure and cancelled adventure games.

You might be talking to a character from Broken Sword in an unused room from Grim Fandango or solving a mystery in a screen from The Big Red Adventure.

The game starts out with a screen warning you that the adventure is built around obscure references, and asks you how familiar you are with the games.

Then you'll play as two characters who were cut from The Dig, who are talking about how underrated The Dig is. You have to be a special kind of nerd to appreciate this game.

But if you are, it's good and interesting and free.

http://akril15.com/games/aaitg/aaitg.html

atij2b.png
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Sloane said:
I'm a bit oversaturated (is that a word?) bei Telltale's games. Bone was kinda fun, Sam'n'Max was a big step in the right direction, and since then they have released so many different adventure games but they more or less all look and feel the same. I wish they would get a new engine and try to do a "full" game for once -- I mean what's the reason for sticking with the episode model? It probably made sense in the beginning (financially) but now?
Click to expand...
They've actually changed quite a bit since Bone and early Sam & Max control wise and visually. Direct character control for instance. As for the episodic model, I and many others find it preferable as instead of having a daunting 15 hour adventure game that you could become burnt out on, it's broken into logical chunks that are spread across 5 months. And it's not like early Sam & Max anymore where each episode was virtually standalone. Each season tells a full story, so if you want a "full game" you could just wait until they're all released then play it like a big adventure game with chapters.

I'd recommend checking out BttF or even Tales of Monkey Island/The Devil's Playhouse to see just how far they've evolved beyond what you're describing.
 
davonaytor said:
If we're lucky, the next episodes of The Dream Machine will be released.

the_dream_machine-438943-1294284282.jpeg
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came here to post about this. I've been waiting on episode 3 for what seems to be forever!! at least they opened a blog with more updates than their website: http://dreammachinegame.blogspot.com/


also wanted to mention gemini rue and black mirror III which have both been mentioned already as well.
 
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