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Point n Click Adventure GAF 2015 - Back with a vengeance

szaromir

Banned
Now I only have BS1 Director's Cut and for me it's impossible to play that game. For me, the fact that Nicole was this journalist that sat on her ass and made George do all the stuff for her was part of the charm of the original game and the dynamics between the pair. Her being directly involved in the events just doesn't feel right for whatever reason.

Other than that, the Director's cut's intro was also pretty dire in comparison to the base game itself. The game should start with that Paris paronama view, now that perfect opening is ruined.

So yeah, Broken Sword is going to be an ever-fading memory for me.
 
Now I only have BS1 Director's Cut and for me it's impossible to play that game. For me, the fact that Nicole was this journalist that sat on her ass and made George do all the stuff for her was part of the charm of the original game and the dynamics between the pair. Her being directly involved in the events just doesn't feel right for whatever reason.

Other than that, the Director's cut's intro was also pretty dire in comparison to the base game itself. The game should start with that Paris paronama view, now that perfect opening is ruined.

So yeah, Broken Sword is going to be an ever-fading memory for me.

Get the gog version, it has the full original version of the game available as an extra.

http://www.gog.com/game/broken_sword_directors_cut (expand "included goodies to see it in the listing)
 

Fuz

Banned
If you wanna play free, GET Beneath a Steel Sky!

Why do you think I didn't already? :p

Anyway, finished Zak:BTaS. It's surprisingly good. I really enjoyed it. Extremely high production value, considering it's a fan game (probably THE best fan game I've ever played).
Good graphics, decent voiceover (the King is pretty well voiced) and nice puzzles. A little side note: looks like making Monkey Island references - there are quite a few - is mandatory for any adventure game... ok guys, we get it, Monkey Island is my favourite game ever (and not just between adventure games), but it got old. I do admit that I really liked the
skeleton dance
reference, though.
The 3D Zak is unbelievably ugly, anyway.

Now it's time for Technobabylon.
 

Mr_Zombie

Member
Now I only have BS1 Director's Cut and for me it's impossible to play that game. For me, the fact that Nicole was this journalist that sat on her ass and made George do all the stuff for her was part of the charm of the original game and the dynamics between the pair. Her being directly involved in the events just doesn't feel right for whatever reason.

Other than that, the Director's cut's intro was also pretty dire in comparison to the base game itself. The game should start with that Paris paronama view, now that perfect opening is ruined.

So yeah, Broken Sword is going to be an ever-fading memory for me.

I agree. While the added sections were nice gameplay wise, you could really feel that this was additional content. The pacing didn't felt right and overall all we learned from Nico's story is about her past; nothing that moved the overall plot.
 

inm8num2

Member
I never got into the BS series as much as others did. The writing is hit or miss, and some of the humor just feels out of place at times. I enjoy the series but don't quite love it.

BS1 - 9/10, great story and puzzles, a classic
BS2 - 7/10, good follow-up but too linear and short, humor falls flat for me
BS3 - 7/10, crate puzzles aren't that bad, gameplay is mostly solid, decent story
BS4 - 5.5/10, not bad, not good, just okay and forgettable; feels like retreading the same ground
BS5 - 7/10, nice return to form, old school charm and good puzzles in 2nd half, story ends abruptly
 

Tizoc

Member
If you haven't already you should play the two short games in the Shardlight universe. So good as teasers. I can link them later if you can't find them on AGS.

I'm at work atm, I'll look for them once I get home, thanks for letting me know of them.

Gonna aim to finishing Technobabylon today. It's earned a spot on my top 5 Steam GotY list.
 

TripleSun

Member
I'm at work atm, I'll look for them once I get home, thanks for letting me know of them.

Gonna aim to finishing Technobabylon today. It's earned a spot on my top 5 Steam GotY list.

Yeah I need to finish up Technobabylon today as well. Such a brilliant game that I didn't dislike a second of!
 

Trumpets

Member
BS1 & BS2: 10/10. played them both again last year and they haven't aged a day, probably thanks to the great writing, cel animation and orchestral score. Short of upping the resolution they can't really be improved. Best point & click adventures ever.

BS3: 6/10. pretty dated thanks to old 3D and the appalling stealth sections, but otherwise decent, with a fun plot.

BS4: Haven't played (and probably never will given the hate).

BS5: 4/10. Very disappointing, felt like the budget operation it was. The 3D models look bad but the biggest problem is the flatly written characters, old and new.

Conclusion: they shouldn't make any more, other than a shot-by-shot HD remake of the first two. I wonder if the art was hand drawn and can therefore be scanned in at 1080p, assuming it still exists?
 
The hate for BS 5 in here disgusts me.

Not sure people are actually hating it, but it was kinda flat. Like a comic issue of an established series, that while entertaining, doesn't really move the series forward. Compared to better kickstarter adventures as Broken Age, it feels like it had few, if any, aspects that made it stand out and feel relevant in any way.
 

Trumpets

Member
Caipirinha said:
Rating BS3 above 5...

Someone point me to the worm whole I must have just slipped through, I'm clearly in the wrong universe.

3 had many problems, but at least it tried something new, while retaining much of the feel of the earlier games. 5 consciously tried to make an old-school BS game, but they didn't have the budget or chops to achieve anything like the same quality.
 

Mr_Zombie

Member
The hate for BS 5 in here disgusts me.

I wouldn't call it hate, just... disappointment? I think it was a good game, but it wasn't the return to the glory of BS1/2 that we were promised. Puzzles were meh - at least in the first part (second part fixed that, thankfully). Story was underwhelming with way too few twists to make it interesting, too many cameos (Lady Piermont - what the hell was she doing there?) and nodes to previous games (look, a goat joke! and another one) and ending that felt rushed as hell (although, after playing 5 Broken Sword games, I think this might be the series' tradition).

To make things worse, I don't think this has anything to do with the game being crowdfunded. I liked the audio-visual side of the game (minus wonky fake accents, but that's also the series' tradition). Music was good, hand-drawn backgrounds were beautiful and cel-shaded 3D models worked well. Well, maybe the game could have used some more locations and characters to interact with, but a better story and more interesting and actually challenging puzzles would already do wonders.
 
Well, maybe the game could have used some more locations and characters to interact with, but a better story and more interesting and actually challenging puzzles would already do wonders.

I think Ireland in the first game had a dialogue puzzle you had to talk to seven people to get through. I'm not sure there's any point in BS5 where you can speak to seven people.

Would be interesting to know the relative budgets of BS1 & BS5.
 

TripleSun

Member
Holy crap just finished Technobabylon and that last chapter was a train of emotions. Especially that ending. Don't know what to think about it, except the game was amazing. Lot of the chatter probably went over my head but I guess that was part of the enjoyment to me. I just feel like anything I play next will pale in comparison now lol
 
Honestly for me Broken Sword 5 pleased me well in comparison to the huge disappointment that was Broken Age. As long as the dialogue is still true to the core with its wittyness and interesting characters. I suppose I am immune to the disapointment due to the fact I have barely played 3 and only finished the first two games.

This might be random but does anybody remember The Tales of Bingwood? I think it was some people who worked on Alan Wake who made the first episode. Does anyone know if that project is dead for good.
 

Tizoc

Member
So who remembers this game :p
511JDJFRCDL._SX385_.jpg
 

szaromir

Banned
Holy crap just finished Technobabylon and that last chapter was a train of emotions. Especially that ending. Don't know what to think about it, except the game was amazing. Lot of the chatter probably went over my head but I guess that was part of the enjoyment to me. I just feel like anything I play next will pale in comparison now lol

We finished the game almost at the same time. :) Also enjoyed the game, not my WadjetEye favorite (those are still Blackwell and Primordia), but a great addition to this indie dev's/publisher's library.
 

Boem

Member
Finally found the time to finish up Grim Fandango Remastered. What a great fucking game. The last time I played it must have been 10 years or so ago. I remembered all of the big puzzles that got me stuck back then (and pretty much all of year 1) and most of the settings/plot, but I forgot a lot about all of the smaller stuff inbetween. And, of course, these days my grasp of English is a lot better and I'm much more familiar with the movies that inspired the game, such as The Big Sleep and Maltese Falcon. Great fun. I can't wait for Day of the Tentacle now.

I'm really itching to finally play Broken Age (only played the girl-half of Part 1 when that was released), but I'm saving that for a couple of weeks until I have a weekend all to myself. Tim Schafer-led adventure games are rare, so I want to get as much out of it as I can.
 

Fuz

Banned
It may be the Wadjet fanboy in me talking but... Technobabylon is absolutely fantastic.
Awesome setting, great writing and pacing, good puzzles with sometimes more than one solution, moral choices... I hope we'll see more games set within the same universe.
And with the same cast.
 
Probably BS5 didn't need to be split in half but as a whole I don't see how you can rate it below BS2, other than if you happen to prefer the settings/plot. Obviously BS1 is a classic and may never be beaten.

Personally my only real criticism of BS5 is that it felt a bit small/more linear than the first two. Obviously all these games are the definition of linear but they can feel more exploitative/non-linear by making the world bigger and populating it with more NPCs. Also I loved the remote locations in BS2 where you were on your own eg. the caribbean, and I would like some of that in the next one.
 
Absolutely love BS1, a timeless classic.

BS2 is pretty great as well, just a notch or two below one.

BS3 fell off the track a bit and isn't very memorable to me, I think I only played it once.

Never played BS4, by the time I had a computer that could handle games (been a console gamer primarily) it was so poorly received and I already felt they had a misstep with 3 and it looked like more of the same so passed.

BS5 I felt was a step back in the right direction again and I quite enjoyed it. It's not BS1 level of course, but the structure and style was back and it had the usual George wit and flair. Unlike some here, I got a kick out of seeing some of the characters return. I'd definitely be interested in more if they continued in this vain though I won't disagree on the point that they could up the scale a bit and add more characters and locales. I suspect that just had to do with budget. I'd rate it just a little under 2 but that's not a particular knock since I really enjoy 2.
 

Gartikker

Member
People who have played Dreamfall Chapters, has the long wait been worth it? I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to bite the bullet and start from the first book or wait when all have been released. I'd prefer the latter, but by this rate I'm going to be waiting couple of more years for that.
 
People who have played Dreamfall Chapters, has the long wait been worth it? I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to bite the bullet and start from the first book or wait when all have been released. I'd prefer the latter, but by this rate I'm going to be waiting couple of more years for that.

I struggled to get through even the first chapter, and haven't gotten back to it since. :\
 

Boem

Member
Mark Ferrari (loom, monkey island bg) has joined thimbleweed park development.

http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/mark_ferrari

Test background:

DE8E4ym.png


If the entire game has that feel I will be VERY happy.

That does look good. Even though I'm a Lucasarts-fan I'm not that fond of the Maniac Mansion/Zak McKracken big-headed artstyle. Those games started to have great art direction with Last Crusade, the games before that were just a bit too limited by the technology.

If the backgrounds look like that (meaning: something that couldn't actually have been a part of Maniac Mansion when that released) I'm happy. I have a feeling the animation will be a bit better than what they could do with Maniac as well.

I'm not completely sold on the game yet, but I'll check it out when it releases.
 

Fuz

Banned
People who have played Dreamfall Chapters, has the long wait been worth it? I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to bite the bullet and start from the first book or wait when all have been released. I'd prefer the latter, but by this rate I'm going to be waiting couple of more years for that.

I tried to play it but the camera bothers me too much.
 

Vlodril

Member
People who have played Dreamfall Chapters, has the long wait been worth it? I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to bite the bullet and start from the first book or wait when all have been released. I'd prefer the latter, but by this rate I'm going to be waiting couple of more years for that.

Ok i guess ill be opposite and say that i love it. The game looks pretty, has great characters and an interesting story. Love the minimalistic ui too. This and Life is strange has topped my adventure genre for now(wolf among us too). Also its pretty big so far. i think 12 hours for the first 2 books(episodes).
 
That does look good. Even though I'm a Lucasarts-fan I'm not that fond of the Maniac Mansion/Zak McKracken big-headed artstyle. Those games started to have great art direction with Last Crusade, the games before that were just a bit too limited by the technology.

If the backgrounds look like that (meaning: something that couldn't actually have been a part of Maniac Mansion when that released) I'm happy. I have a feeling the animation will be a bit better than what they could do with Maniac as well.

I'm not completely sold on the game yet, but I'll check it out when it releases.

Holy crap. Backed TP although I wasn't entirely on board with the Maniac Mansion style graphics -- but this looks amazing.

Yeah, me too. Hoping ron's not teasing us with this only to go backwards. All of Winnick's stuff so far has been placeholder work so it's hard to tell what exactly they're shooting for.
 

Gartikker

Member
Ok i guess ill be opposite and say that i love it. The game looks pretty, has great characters and an interesting story. Love the minimalistic ui too. This and Life is strange has topped my adventure genre for now(wolf among us too). Also its pretty big so far. i think 12 hours for the first 2 books(episodes).

I just hate episodic content, and would not like to be left waiting again for the conclusion for who knows how long. Especially if it's disappointing. Thanks for offering opinions everyone, i guess I'll mull it over some more.
 

Fuz

Banned
Holy crap. Backed TP although I wasn't entirely on board with the Maniac Mansion style graphics -- but this looks amazing.

Yeah, me too. Hoping ron's not teasing us with this only to go backwards. All of Winnick's stuff so far has been placeholder work so it's hard to tell what exactly they're shooting for.

Same here.
I would back anything by Ron Gilbert, I have a religious adoration for The Secret of Monkey Island and LeChuck's Revenge. But I'm not crazy about MM style. It served a purpose, it was appropriate for the humour type and, basically, was pretty good for the time... but it didn't age as good as Monkey or Indy.
In a way, I love MM art style because it's my childood. But even if I love it, I'm not a huge fan.
That screen looks really promising though.

Edite: He is awesome: http://markferrari.com/art/8bit-game-art/
 
Mark Ferrari (loom, monkey island bg) has joined thimbleweed park development.

http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/mark_ferrari

Test background:

DE8E4ym.png


If the entire game has that feel I will be VERY happy.

This is such great news.

I don't mind the Maniac Mansion/Zak style at all but going this direction is definitely a nice addition.

Just noticed this post:

Toonstruck is 50% off on gog.com
Has it aged well as a PnC game?

I still find it as enjoyable as I did when I first played. It's one I try and go through once a year and is one of my personal top three adventure games. I love everything about it.
 

TripleSun

Member
Happy the Oak Island people made the budget goal for Ep 1-3. They said each episode should run around 5 hours, so that's a real nice chunk of game! The next goal after that was for voice acting so I thought the game was going without it but apparently that was for the high priced voice actors, so they said they'll hold auditions and stuff. Hope it's half decent. Any way the atmosphere looks cool and definitely the mystery surrounding Oak Island seems to be a fun premise for a PnC game. Looking forward to it!
 
Ok i guess ill be opposite and say that i love it. The game looks pretty, has great characters and an interesting story. Love the minimalistic ui too. This and Life is strange has topped my adventure genre for now(wolf among us too). Also its pretty big so far. i think 12 hours for the first 2 books(episodes).

I played the first chapter, and thought I didn't have to be that long, since most of the time with the game is just spent running back and forth between dialogue choices. I actually prefer a full Telltale route for these kind of games, rather then what they attempted with Dreamfall Chapters.
 

Vlodril

Member
I played the first chapter, and thought I didn't have to be that long, since most of the time with the game is just spent running back and forth between dialogue choices. I actually prefer a full Telltale route for these kind of games, rather then what they attempted with Dreamfall Chapters.

well yea depends from what you want in a game i guess. i think telltale needs to expand their gameplay (they have become way to formulaic in their design). I also prefer how free it is to go around look at everything than the way too linear telltale way.
 

Ratrat

Member
Whats a good point and click game available on iPad? I played and enjoyed Broken Sword 1&2. Preferrably something less cinematic than Telltale games.
 

BigDes

Member
Whats a good point and click game available on iPad? I played and enjoyed Broken Sword 1&2. Preferrably something less cinematic than Telltale games.

The Silent Age and Gemini Rue are both on Ipad I think.

The Silent Age is a time travelley thing and Gemini Rue is a bit like Blade Runner
 

Boem

Member
well yea depends from what you want in a game i guess. i think telltale needs to expand their gameplay (they have become way to formulaic in their design). I also prefer how free it is to go around look at everything than the way too linear telltale way.

I still kinda like what Telltale is doing, although I'm definitely part of the audience that fell in love with them during the Sam & Max games and wish they would do more like that (although there are quite a lot good new adventure games out there these days), but my main criticism isn't that they abandoned puzzles for choice-based gameplay, or that the only real thing the choices change for you is the way other characters act towards you (that's all fine by me), but that the writing for those games has become a bit too obvious, which is especially jarring in their more serious games. 'You must make an important choice now' - 'Ooh, character X will remember that' - etc. I wish they had the confidence to be more subtle about it.

I also miss the scenes where you're free to walk around the world on your own. It feels way too constricting for me to be stuck in action scenes or dialogue scenes all the time - I need a few breathing points here and there. I don't even need classic adventure game puzzles there, just give me the chance to explore at my own pace a bit.

These days I'm just waiting until their seasons are finished until I play them though. It's good enough for me to play, not good enough for me to be a fanboy about anymore.
 

epmode

Member
Whats a good point and click game available on iPad? I played and enjoyed Broken Sword 1&2. Preferrably something less cinematic than Telltale games.

Most of the Blackwell games are on iOS. The series starts off pretty good and it becomes one of my all time favorites by the end.
 
well yea depends from what you want in a game i guess. i think telltale needs to expand their gameplay (they have become way to formulaic in their design). I also prefer how free it is to go around look at everything than the way too linear telltale way.

I want gameplay first and foremost, but it has to be worthwhile. What I played from Dreamfall: Chapters felt like a game that wanted to be a Telltale game, but where everything just took much more time.

I always prefer games with more gameplay and puzzles, like Broken Age, but I think that Telltale does their own thing extremely well, so I can play that also. Dreamfall felt like something in the middle, that didn't either part very well.

That's of course just based one playthrough of the first book, but I don't really feel like returning to it after that.
 
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