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[frogmeetsdog]

Dear GAFers,

I'm about to start playing the last (4th) of the Deponia series on switch, together with my 7 y.o. son and we both enjoy it very much.

What would you recommend to check out, once we have finished it?
Switch is the preferred platform, but PS3, PS4 and PC are also no stoppers.

Oh boy, and how could I forget Toonstruck. Amazing Point’n’Click adventure from 1996 with (ofc a much younger) Christopher Lloyd being teleported into a cartoon world. Still holding up greatly today with Looney Toons style graphics, simple controls and fair puzzles - All in all looks and plays pretty modern despite its age and probably perfect to play with a kid.

GoG-Link (where it‘s even cheaper): https://www.gog.com/game/toonstruck

 

[RAIDEN1]

Oh boy, and how could I forget Toonstruck. Amazing Point’n’Click adventure from 1996 with (ofc a much younger) Christopher Lloyd being teleported into a cartoon world. Still holding up greatly today with Looney Toons style graphics, simple controls and fair puzzles - All in all looks and plays pretty modern despite its age and probably perfect to play with a kid.

GoG-Link (where it‘s even cheaper): https://www.gog.com/game/toonstruck

Where's the god-dam sequel? It was mooted to be happening, but no sign of it ever coming out....

 

[frogmeetsdog]

Where's the god-dam sequel? It was mooted to be happening, but no sign of it ever coming out....

Agreed. It‘s so sad. Apparently most of the game has even been finished for nearly 25 years now as they cut it into two parts at the last moment for being too long otherwise or something in that vein (even though Toonstruck still had a neatly concluded story there was always the teasing of more to come at the end) ...

Every now and then had been visiting the Facebook page of the guy who had teased trying to get the sequel going but alas he never got the rights or the funding together or something and so it‘s been dead for quite a while

Real shame when you think about the ~80, 90% finished Toonstruck 2 lying in some basement somewhere just collecting dust ...

Just wish they‘d done better marketing back then as Toonstruck is one of the best Point‘n‘Click adventures of the 90s. Unfortunately the sales figures didn‘t reflect this though ...

 

[hariseldon]

So I've never seen the Runaway games before.. the animation looks fantastic - a world away from the flash animation we see too much of today. Might have to pick it up on Gog.

Quoting myself because I'm cool. The Runaway games are on deep (80%) discount at gog..

Runaway: A Road Adventure

Without knowing how or why, Brian, a student on the verge of graduating from college, is

www.gog.com

Runaway 2: The Dream of the Turtle

Hawaii: an idyllic island paradise. It's the spot Brian Basco and Gina Timmins have chose

www.gog.com

Runaway 3: A Twist of Fate

Some folks say that Brian has gone insane and that he sees little green men. Other rumour

www.gog.com

Get in there.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Tried to get into Runaway because I love Pendulo's "The Next Big Thing." A sequel/reimagining of one of their earliest games, Hollywood Monsters. Love TNBT to bits but the writing in Runaway never clicked with me and the game has some of the worst pixel hunts of all time. Even more egregious than bad pixel hunts from the 90s because those seemed like unfortunate design missteps, Runaway intentionally obscures key items all the time. The game's also fond of making you repeatedly check the same hotspot multiple times to get things you need, which sucks. Sometimes you have to check the same hotspot you already checked after some unrelated narrative trigger, which is even worse. I got stuck multiple times in that game but it was never actually from figuring out a puzzle, always some design BS.

Got about half way through Runaway 2 before giving up, but not before you solve a puzzle by getting a polar bear to rape someone. Yeah, weird game.

 

[frogmeetsdog]

Hi guys,

I‘m not completely done with The Hand Of Glory yet (about 3/4 or halfway through the final second part) and for anybody interested I'll probably leave some more impressions after completion.

But what I‘ve played so far - WOW! This game is really, really, really good and by far the most underappreciated Point’n’Click adventure I‘ve played in a very long time.

The puzzles are challenging but fair and very diverse (not only classic inventory and environmental puzzles but also ones with numbers, codes, a search engine, musical notes, reading other people’s body language etc), there are plenty of very clever puzzle chains and the story so far is great, with a playing time of at least 12 hours.

At first you think you're playing a run-of-the mill detective adventure with a self-involved yet still humorous and sympathetic main character but there are quite a few twists and especially the one by the end of part 1 was a complete surprise. Don’t wanna spoil anything but it was heartbreaking, unexpected and it completely changed the emotional tone of part 2.

Yet most of the NPCs are usually funny, all with their own quirks and eccentricities like a snooty homeless person, a (very) absent-minded priest, a giant man of a portier who misses his plush toy and so forth.

Also, great production value, everything needed for a smooth experience is there: Full, professional voice overs, well done cut scenes, quick travel, hotspot function etc.

I’m positively stunned how the devs managed to pull of both parts of the game so well and professionally in every regard, especially considering how much it has flown under people’s radars so far.

The few reviews out there I found are all positive, with jumpdashroll.com for example calling it "the best traditional point-and-click adventure in years" and I urge everyone who likes varied, classic PnCs and/or just a good story to give this one a try - I myself am very glad I did.

 

[frogmeetsdog]

Dear GAFers,

I'm about to start playing the last (4th) of the Deponia series on switch, together with my 7 y.o. son and we both enjoy it very much.

What would you recommend to check out, once we have finished it?
Switch is the preferred platform, but PS3, PS4 and PC are also no stoppers.

Looks as if there‘s a huge Steam sale atm. Looking at most of the adventure games on page 11 (those in reply to your posting above) most of them are anything from -35% to -90% down. E.g. all Daedalic (Deponia Dev) games I‘ve seen like Anna‘s Quest or Whsipered World are -90% right now, Inner World 1/2 -75%/-70% , Gibbous -70%, Toonstruck -66%, Monkey Island Remakes -65%, etc.

If you want to stock up on PC Point‘n‘Click games to play with your son this is probably a good moment. No time like the present

 

[Fuz]

Hi guys,

I‘m not completely done with The Hand Of Glory yet (about 3/4 or halfway through the final second part) and for anybody interested I'll probably leave some more impressions after completion.

But what I‘ve played so far - WOW! This game is really, really, really good and by far the most underappreciated Point’n’Click adventure I‘ve played in a very long time.

The puzzles are challenging but fair and very diverse (not only classic inventory and environmental puzzles but also ones with numbers, codes, a search engine, musical notes, reading other people’s body language etc), there are plenty of very clever puzzle chains and the story so far is great, with a playing time of at least 12 hours.

At first you think you're playing a run-of-the mill detective adventure with a self-involved yet still humorous and sympathetic main character but there are quite a few twists and especially the one by the end of part 1 was a complete surprise. Don’t wanna spoil anything but it was heartbreaking, unexpected and it completely changed the emotional tone of part 2.

Yet most of the NPCs are usually funny, all with their own quirks and eccentricities like a snooty homeless person, a (very) absent-minded priest, a giant man of a portier who misses his plush toy and so forth.

Also, great production value, everything needed for a smooth experience is there: Full, professional voice overs, well done cut scenes, quick travel, hotspot function etc.

I’m positively stunned how the devs managed to pull of both parts of the game so well and professionally in every regard, especially considering how much it has flown under people’s radars so far.

The few reviews out there I found are all positive, with jumpdashroll.com for example calling it "the best traditional point-and-click adventure in years" and I urge everyone who likes varied, classic PnCs and/or just a good story to give this one a try - I myself am very glad I did.

Gonna try this one sooner or later.

Edit: Goddammit, it's not on GOG.

 

[frogmeetsdog]

Gonna try this one sooner or later.

Edit: Goddammit, it's not on GOG.

Darn that sucks. Only on a wishlist from June 2019.

Pretty weird, one would think the game would be perfect for GoG, doubt they use a DRM of their own.

Sent the devs a message why they haven‘t put The Hand Of Glory onto GoG so far or if there are any plans to do so now that both parts are released. Will let you know if/when I get a reply.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Skunkape's confirmed they're releasing another mess for the mod scene to clean up (lol perhaps a bit too cynical and dour, I know, but I'm still in awe of how poorly they've handeled the remaster and subsequently handled the fan response to cut content).

I wonder how they're gonna handle the time travelling mariachi band. Seems to play with comical stereotypes in a fashion similar to Bosco, but they're all over the season and have a musical number, so you cant really cut them.

 

[ShadowNate]

They kind of seem to mostly care about "racism" towards black people, as they perceive of course. So I'd expect the same level of tampering. Bosco's voice actor changed, and any potentially offensive to the idiot crowd lines edited, but only if they are related to the re-recorded lines (because that presents the opportunity) or they can be cleanly "cut" without consistency issues.

I think they also wrote about the mariachi band that it wouldn't be changed.

But basically looking forward to them or another studio in a few years down the line figuring out how stupidly they handled this remaster to insert their politics (or to dodge the cancel mob).

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Oniria Crimes is an adventure game that totally flew under my radar and I think it looks great. The premise is very similar to AI The Somnium Files. Detevtives investigation a virtual reality representation of a crime scene to solve mysterious serial murders. However, in the virtual worlds of Oniria inanimate objects are alive and can provide witness testimony.

I haven't played too much of it yet because there's other games I'm going through but from what I played the presentation was slick, the music was good and the writing had a lot of charm. Looking forward to playing this one soon.

 

[frogmeetsdog]

Cool classic Point’n’Click adventure I‘d just become aware of due to its recent mobile release (for PC it’s been available since August 2020):

The Procession To Calvary

It‘s the spiritual successor (and mechanically very similar) to Four Last Things

Both games are very unique with everything (characters, backgrounds) modeled after real life Renaissance paintings, Monty Python style humor (if you‘re very religious or easily offended the game probably isn‘t for you though as few topics are safe from a joke and the dialogue can be pretty crude sometimes), funny, positively weird stories and characters. Also, last but not least it has very well designed puzzles.



Only critique I have is that both titles could be a little longer but on the other hand it speaks for their quality that they leave you for wanting more. If I had to guess, estimated playing time for each is about 4 - 6 hours. There are no voice overs as well but it‘s one of those rare games that work better without it and they would also distract from the great musical background which is different for every screen (usually played by different on-screen Renaissance musicians or bands)

Taken together, everything is done very well. You always roughly know what needs to be done next and even after I found the solutions to the two or three puzzles that had me stumped for a short while, it always was a "why hadn’t I figured this out sooner?" moment = Puzzles are just the right balance and always fair and logical.



Graphics are definitely something else, the game also has multiple endings and - very unique for a PnC as well - shortcuts if you don‘t feel like solving a puzzle. Taking this easy way out definitely has consequences though.

Reviews for both titles are mainly positive (Four Last Things: 4,5/5 Adventure Gamers, 83% Metacritic, 9/10 Steam; Procession to Calvary: 4/5 Adventure Gamers, 78% Metacritic, 4/5 Screen Rant etc.) and even though Calvary apparently has slightly lower review scores I like both of them the same and you‘ll definitely enjoy both parts if you enjoyed one of them.



All in all very fun and interesting game with great puzzles and a unique style + story. Even though I would have liked them to be a bit longer, if you haven’t played them yet and like challenging but fair classic Point’n’Click adventures or just Monty Python style humor you can’t really go wrong with The Procession To Calvary (and its predecessor Four Last Things).

Edit/P. S.: 1. Added some in-game screenshots to the post 2. The dev has a third part planned for the series (working title The Death of a Reprobate) and judging by his two former successful Kickstarter campaigns we‘ll probably see its release in 2-3 years.

P. P. S.: The PC versions of both games are just available on Steam, you can also get them for mobile (iOS, Android) though. Procession To Calvary apparently has a PS4 version as well.

 

[frogmeetsdog]

Also, just finished The Hand Of Glory - Didn‘t disappoint at all and completely stand by my impressions above. This game is one of the best Point‘n‘Click adventures I‘ve played in the last years with a great story, challenging but fair - and very diverse - puzzles and great production value. Especially the full and professional voice overs are very impressive considering the game‘s from an Indie dev and "only" garnered about € 10.000 with its successful Kickstarter campaign.

If I had to compare it to other games I‘d put it on the same levels with the greats. Broken Sword with better puzzles or Gabriel Knight probably are the aptest comparisons. In another time or a parallel universe The Hand Of Glory would and should have been a major Point‘n‘Click success. Pity that it isn‘t but it‘s still an amazing experience that should be given a shot by every fan of the classics.

Edit: Added some in-game screenshots

 

[Vampire On Titus]

frogmeetsdog very nice impression for Hand of Glory. It's one of those games I've seen around numerous times (IIRC the dev even shared the game a few threads back) but the art style didn't click with me so I didn't follow it closely. But I've seen a fair few glowing impressions for it now and yours pushed me over the edge, gonna definitely check it out eventually.

Currently I'm playing through Call of The Sea, just got to chapter 3, and man it's great so far. Loving the mystery that's slowly unfolding, loving the colorful and varied visuals and loving the balanced -- but still challenging -- puzzles. The developers shared a Steam notice saying that Call of The Sea was their love letter to the adventure game genre and it shows. A lot of care, craft and attention to detail went into this game. Outside of occasional moments where Norah's exposition can come across stilted, I'm liking everything about it.

I'm hoping Out of The Blue finds success with this game. I know it got a decent push from Microsoft and it's one of the bigger gamepass offerings in a minute. Would love to play more games from this team in the future.

 

[TripleSun]

So because of everyone's recommendations for The Hand of Glory I ended up getting it a few days ago. I'm 7 hours in and I'm so taken aback. It's amazing. The art is so beautiful, reminds me of Runaway & Broken Sword. Just up my alley. I also like how they have death scenes, which aren't seen much these days. But unlike doing them the wrong way, they just restart you at the same spot without losing any progress. I really don't want the game to end. The puzzles are just the right amount of difficulty for me without having to look up a walkthrough but enough to make me think and not bulldoze through them all. I'm also such a sucker for detective adventures. Lots of colorful characters, locations and the voice acting is surprisingly good for being an indie game.

I definitely would would have overlooked this gem for sure without you all. Thanks again. Really amazing game. Sad it isn't getting the recognition it deserves.

My only qualm so far is:

Spoiler: mid game spoiler

Why did the sewer kid make Lars get his medallion if he had his own boat? Haha. It was bugging me. Just to toy with him I guess?

On another subject, thanks for reminding me about Call of the Sea. I need to get it after I finish this. Those screencaps look breathtaking. Kind of looks like a Firewatch type of game, which I very much enjoyed.

 

[Kazza]

Almost 3 decades later, I finally took this pirate's advice and bought Loom:

It's an unusual game, very simple, with no dialogue choices and no objects to collect. Instead, you have to cast these music "spells" in order to solve the puzzles. It's very short too, you can go through the whole thing in a couple of hours. Some of the pixel art is really great in places, and what music there is is great too. It's a very early game, and it shows in the moments of silence and lack of animation. The whole world appears very still and dead in places. That said, it's on sale on GOG for a couple of bucks and is definitely worth an evening of your time:

LOOM™

Long after the passing of the Second Shadow, when dragons ruled the twilight sky and the

www.gog.com

People often lament the lack of manuals these days, but some older games not only had manuals, but other goodies too, such as this great audio drama, which acts as a preface to the game:




Cannot be Tamed did a good review of the game recently (lots of spoilers though):




Playing this was a good way to end to 2020. Speaking of which, will we be getting a new thread for 2021, or will we just continue this one?

 

[ShadowNate]

When Loom is brought up, it should always be noted that the current version of it which is available for digital distribution is the VGA CD Talkie one. This version has the voiceovers, but otherwise has significant (short)cuts in the dialogue, story and characters, features weird hand waving animations, removed character close-ups and arguably the VGA graphics look quite inferior to the original EGA ones.

So, basically, try to find and play the EGA floppy version (or IBM PC or Amiga). Or the FMTowns one (which would be more hard to find, and I still think the EGA version is better).

Finally, Loom needed a sequel or two. I am unsure if it was indeed designed to be a trilogy or not, with its complete story mapped out that is, or it was cut short due to budget and time constraints. But it's been said quite a few times that there were two sequels planned for it (Forge and Fold) which never came about.

 

[Turkishdave]

Have the monkey Island games been taken off the psn store?can't seem to find them??

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Loom is one of the few remaining LucasArts classics I've got left to play alongside Zak McKraken and Last Crusade. Love it when adventures try something different and Loom seems like an early example of breaking the mold a bit.

Playing this was a good way to end to 2020. Speaking of which, will we be getting a new thread for 2021, or will we just continue this one?

Working on the 2021 thread now. I think it'll be done in a week, give or take a few days.

 

[Fuz]

frogmeetsdog very nice impression for Hand of Glory. It's one of those games I've seen around numerous times (IIRC the dev even shared the game a few threads back) but the art style didn't click with me so I didn't follow it closely. But I've seen a fair few glowing impressions for it now and yours pushed me over the edge, gonna definitely check it out eventually.

Currently I'm playing through Call of The Sea, just got to chapter 3, and man it's great so far. Loving the mystery that's slowly unfolding, loving the colorful and varied visuals and loving the balanced -- but still challenging -- puzzles. The developers shared a Steam notice saying that Call of The Sea was their love letter to the adventure game genre and it shows. A lot of care, craft and attention to detail went into this game. Outside of occasional moments where Norah's exposition can come across stilted, I'm liking everything about it.

I'm hoping Out of The Blue finds success with this game. I know it got a decent push from Microsoft and it's one of the bigger gamepass offerings in a minute. Would love to play more games from this team in the future.

I'm not crazy about Myst type puzzles. Is this game like that or does it have a more traditional P&C approach?

 

[frogmeetsdog]

I definitely would would have overlooked this gem for sure without you all. Thanks again. Really amazing game. Sad it isn't getting the recognition it deserves.

Completely agree. To think that there are nearly no reviews of The Hand Of Glory out there - not even on dedicated PnC adventure sites - and that I just discovered the game by complete fluke while browsing the PnC releases of December 2020 really says a lot of how little attention the game is getting. Judging by the great puzzle design, the story and all the love and attention to detail that went into the game it should be all over the place in adventure gaming circles.

Alas it’s just the opposite. Reminds me a bit of Toonstruck with being an amazing game but the marketing falling a bit short. The title alone is chosen rather unlucky as there apparently also is a Hand Of Glory in Harry Potter (first Google suggestion) and even if you search for 'Hand Of Glory Kickstarter' the first 8 or 9 results are about two completely different Hand Of Glory projects (miniature action figures with swappable magnetic hands) which both got funded two years sooner ...

 

[Vampire On Titus]

I'm not crazy about Myst type puzzles. Is this game like that or does it have a more traditional P&C approach?

It's more Cyan than LucasArts for sure. But the puzzles are less obscure than what I remember of the Myst I've played (which isn't much to be honest). You're learning how to interact with ancient machinery by sleuthing through the narrative. There's a lot of protagonist commentary and environmental storytelling from the other side of the adventure divide. In that regard it reminds me of Life is Strange (or maybe Gone Home if I had ever played it).

But, yeah, the puzzles are not dialogue and inventory based. You're messing with various contraptions and manipulating the environment to progress.

 

[nikolino840]

Is old but discovered today...an investigative game that you have to use the pen and paper in the real life to take notes becouse there's not an automatic and digital log

 

[Fuz]

Not exactly and adventure game, but might I suggest you guys try Outer Wilds?

But go in blind. Do not look for info on the game, nothing at all, not even the trailer. Just give it a try. Yeah, I know. But trust me.

 

[ShadowNate]

I wanted to get Outer Wilds. Still do actually, but I'm waiting for it to go on GOG or some other DRM-free platform., because I'm now weird like that.

I am not entirely going in blind since I've watched a short stream of it on twitch, but it looked quite like something I'd enjoy putting time into and exploring.

 

[CitizenZ]

Is old but discovered today...an investigative game that you have to use the pen and paper in the real life to take notes becouse there's not an automatic and digital log

I really liked this game and wrote a pretty detail review on Steam, but found it to be more of a scavenger hunt than detective. Trust me i was keeping notes, it needed info on the area you were in with a simple found items: x/x becasue fck me. I missed one item becasue i didnt close the top drawer and the thing i needed was in the bottom. Simple mistakes like that in this game can cost you hrs.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

New thread is up!

So be sure to update your subs in case I forgot to tag someone/you missed the notification.

Loom is one of the few remaining LucasArts classics I've got left to play alongside Zak McKraken and Last Crusade. Love it when adventures try something different and Loom seems like an early example of breaking the mold a bit.



Working on the 2021 thread now. I think it'll be done in a week, give or take a few days.

This aged poorly lol.

 

[BadBurger]

Those King's Quest remakes - any good? Someone gifted me all of the episodes on Steam, wondering if it's worth starting rather than trying one of the three PS5 PS+ games this month.

 

[Fuz]

Those King's Quest remakes - any good? Someone gifted me all of the episodes on Steam, wondering if it's worth starting rather than trying one of the three PS5 PS+ games this month.

We moved: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/adve...1-the-future-of-fine-leather-jackets.1588787/

Anyway, they're not remakes. I personally disliked them.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Finished Mutropolis. Half the puzzles were good, logical, the other half are just logical to the devs and you have no way of figuring out their way of thinking unless you guess and when you have to guess it's poor design. Story was ok I guess...I was expecting...something else and it ended up more of a parody than a serious/comedy. Voice acting is great tho. It's barely a recommendation and I do have to be positive about these point-and-click adv games as there are very few of them that are actually at or above this level. 7/10 or something like that for Mutropolis. Oh yes you have to do some pixel hunting and it's 85% fine with the rest being obscure as fuck.