Oh my favourites aren’t limited to the 1990’s either Jenny100 but I feel that that was when the bulk of the best Adventures was released

And the required character building in RPG’s doesn’t bother me that much as long as the game has a strong storyline

As for tweaked releases from Gog ??
I’ve had very few problems with any of them (and I’ve purchased many) and any small glitches I have experienced have been promptly resolved by their support people.

I don’t know what "Galaxy hooks" are I’ve never used Galaxy. I just download games from GOG using IE.
However, I must admit “Myst” games are not anything I would buy.

It's the amount of repetition that bothers me. One advantage adventure games used to have was that the puzzles weren't all the same and you had a variety of non-dexterity-dependent puzzles.


GB members have complained in Glitches forum about problems like postage-stamp-size game windows in GOG games that use DOSBox or ScummVM. The screen settings can be adjusted in the DOSBox or ScummVM configuration that ships with the game, but doing so is too difficult for some gamers. It would be better if GOG had an installer for games that use DOSBox or ScummVM that could detect the monitor resolution during the installation, allow the user to confirm, and then size the game window accordingly instead of using a "one size fits all" or "one size fits most" approach.


Galaxy hooks are built into recent GOG releases (and re-releases) regardless of whether you have Galaxy installed or not, and regardless of whether you download the game using Galaxy or not. Galaxy hooks allow communication between Galaxy and the game and may be needed for online games. They have no purpose in offline games other than collecting information about how you play the game, what version of Windows, Mac, or Linux you used, patching, etc.

Unless you've archived a version of a GOG game that existed before Galaxy was introduced and before the game exe's started being "updated" to include the hooks, your game may have Galaxy hooks.

Galaxy hooks are one reason patches may be late at GOG, since the patch for the generic DRM-free version has to be tweaked for the GOG version because of Galaxy integration.

Galaxy hooks will conflict with software firewalls that are built for security rather than convenience. Oldmariner ran into this and reported on it, and I've seen other gamers report on it on other forums. As soon as you click the shortcut to start the game, the Galaxy hooks will reach out and try to connect with Galaxy. If you don't have Galaxy installed, the hooks won't be able to connect with Galaxy, and according to GOG, will just give up and the game will start. But if you have a software firewall built for user control rather than simplicity, part of its purpose is to block data from passing from your computer to the Internet without user permission -- and a firewall like this will block the Galaxy hooks, which prevents the game from starting. The game won't start unless the Galaxy hooks are allowed to do their probing. This raises the question of how the Galaxy hooks are actually functioning. Are they trying to open ports to the Internet that the software firewall is blocking?

Some firewalls that claim to block outbound traffic will be pre-configured for "simplicity" and let some traffic out by default, without prompting the user, in order to make things "simpler" for the user. More secure firewalls that always ask the user will block the Galaxy hooks though -- or at least prompt the user for whether to let them through, maybe giving the user the option to save the setting for the future.

Why wouldn't you just do this and shut up your yap as long as the game starts? Maybe you don't want Galaxy or its "hooks" collecting information about you. Maybe you have no use for Galaxy and don't want the "hooks" reaching out and possibly communicating with unknown servers out on the Internet. Maybe you want the original un-doctored game you paid for. Maybe you don't trust a company you suspect is trying to track your use of your legally purchased game.

If you buy a GOG game that uses DOSBox or ScummVM, the Galaxy hooks will probably be integrated in the DOSBox or ScummVM part of the game rather than the original game files. That means you can probably configure the game to work with an original, un-Galaxied version of DOSBox or ScummVM.

Most people don't use software firewalls and so they have no idea what's going on, and some firewalls are designed to be "leaky" for "simplicity" sake and those won't alert the user to the presence of Galaxy hooks.

If you want to be sure a GOG game is not "reporting" to the Internet, with or without Galaxy, you have to disconnect your computer from the Internet before starting the game.

Well, Jenny100, I'm very sorry to hear that some people ARE experiening difficulties with GOG games.

I've never used Galaxy myself nor have I suffered from any Galaxy related problems to date.

All I ever do, and have ever done, is just download the setup files from Gog using IE and burn them to disk. And away I go !!

[I use the latest Norton security - and always have used Norton.]

Norton's firewall is one of those that is "preconfigured" to let certain traffic through without prompting the user. Not everyone wants that, though Norton thinks the bulk of their users don't want to be bothered with questions about whether to let a probe through or not. Those people who want to know when their computer is letting something through their firewall might be better served with a different firewall (or maybe Norton has an optional "advanced" configuration that gives the user more control). Galaxy hooks may not be in all GOG games (yet) but the fact that you don't see Galaxy hooks being blocked with Norton's firewall doesn't mean they aren't there.

I don't want anything installed with my game that isn't part of the game. That means no tracking and no "Galaxy hooks" and I'm not at all happy that GOG has added this junk to games that didn't have it when I purchased them.

I understand how you feel, Jenny100, but I'm not technically confident enough to fiddle with many things myself - and certainly not stuff like advanced Firewall settings

However, since I was first connected to the internet I have NEVER (thus far, touch wood) suffered a virus or malware, so I feel my 20 year trust in Norton combined with using my own common sense has been successful.
[And I should add that my Son in Law, who IS a techie, has also always checked my machines periodically, with programmes other than Norton, and he has never found anything evil either ]

This isn't about viruses. I wasn't suggesting you tinker with your firewall, just trying to explain why some firewalls block GOG's Galaxy hooks and some don't.

This has gone way off the topic of abandoning a game, which I'm sure we've all done numerous times.

Yes. Badly off topic

I, who hate everything DRM, don't have any problem with GOG Galaxy whatsoever. The games are there for you to download and play without touching the client if you want. Which kind of brings me on-topic...:) Right now I'm playing the original (GOG) version of Ether One, which can only be downloaded as an extra to the Ether One Redux. Thought I had encountered a bug in the Redux version, which turned out not to be the case, but anyway.

Ether One is one of the best games I've played in recent years. it may be completed in probably a couple of hours if you approach it as a "walking simulator" but for the full experience you need to solve a lot of puzzles and they are in some cases extremely hard! I'm almost 25 hours into it and just refuse to give up, even though I have no idea how to solve the few things that are left to solve. It's just too good even for simply ignoring those last pieces of the story and just finish the game. And it's definitely too good to spoil by using a walkthrough.:) Looking forward to firing up the game again when I get home even though I have no clue as what to do to move things forward.

I rarely give up on games even if I consider them to be pretty bad. Once I've accepted the challenge I want to complete what I've started. I'm a completest type of person. The only thing that's affected by the game's quality is the willingness (or unwillingness) to consult a walkthrough (I hate doing so). But it happens that games remain half-way played on the computer for other reasons than me actively deciding to quit. Sometimes life gets in the way and I rather start the game from the beginning some day in the future than continuing a game I haven't played for a while.

That's "proper" game playing, frazap !!!!

Well Done You

I too had to give up on Myst as it was too hard. I still have the game and I may revisit it one day.

I would just like to add that sometimes when I get stuck and tried everthing possible to continue I will walk away from it for a day go back and find the problem.Don't no why but seems to work.Playing obduction for three weeks and sometimes don't have a clue where I am and what I'm doing.I am still playing and get a little farther every day.Very interesting game,but hard.

This happens to me too, more often than not. I recommend this approach when getting stuck in a game.

Doesn't work so well for me. My mind will get in a rut in its way of thinking about how to solve a puzzle, and by the time it's out of the rut I'll have forgotten everything about the game and have to start over -- and then I'll usually get stuck even earlier in the game than the first time I tried it.

Jenny100 !!!! Is that really true ?? I can hardly believe it !!

That's one of my problems, if I put a game away for too long, I forget the plot, characters, etc.
Some games are nice enough to give you a review of your progress, unfinished tasks, etc, which may help, but that's not always available.

I will say that I walked away many times in obduction,still lost so I MUST ADD MY NAME TO A GAME I ABANDONED.

I must admit that I recently gave up on both Obduction and Quern. Both were magnificent games, but simply too complex for me. I'm not a Myst person, although I'm a big fan of both Riven and Myst III.

I'm not a Myst person either.

The only one I ever managed to play right through to the end was Myst Exile.

I did have a good stab at the Uru games but had to give up on them eventually.

I abandoned every other Myst I attempted at some stage, too.

And there were some I didn't even have the heart to start !!

Myst III: Exile is the one that was made by Presto, makers of the Journeyman Project games. Presto made some good games.

I can't say I finished any of the Myst games without cheating, but I did finish them.

I am not able to replay Myst V due to motion sickness. I did finish it around the time it was first released, but that was using a CRT monitor. Widescreen monitors make motion sickness much worse. I very much regret not buying a couple of high end CRT monitors back when they could still be bought new.

I didn't have a problem with motion sickness in Uru when playing in 3rd person (follow cam), even with a widescreen monitor, and I've replayed it about 7 times now.

I couldn't play Obduction. Motion sickness was too awful to play for more than a minute. Though Cyan took some peoples' suggestions for controls that might diminish motion sickness, they didn't take mine (or the suggestions of most other people who get motion sickness).

I ended up watching (actually listening to and occasionally glancing at) a YouTube playthrough of Obduction. What a depressing end -- both endings. There was also a terrible "puzzle" that the YouTube person mentioned was where a lot of people gave up -- a sort of "slider" type puzzle where you had to take an elevator and run down a tunnel every time you made a move, then run back and take the elevator again to see whether your move did what you wanted. Not my idea of fun. Not the YouTube uploader's idea of fun either, though he was apparently able to do most of the puzzle in his head so he didn't have to run around as much as I would have.

I have started a couple of Myst games but never actually completed one. My neighbor told me he finished Riven without a walkthrough but that it took him 2 years to do it - talk about patience!

Wow, 2 years to finish the game, it took more than patience, it also requires a good memory to remember where you were and what you did. It took me 3 months to finish Myst in my younger days and I only needed a walkthrough for the ending Ride, were you had to go E,W,N,S... etc.
Speaking of Myst, does anybody remember the Original Myst game where there was glitch that allowed you to finish the game in 5 minutes or less, I tried it and it worked, I do not remember what it was though, but I believe the original walkthough might show it.

As far as quitting games before finishing them, yes, most of the other Myst games and a few others I cannot remember. Some of them as *Jenny100 pointed out was due to the Spinning around motion that made me sea-sick.

*I believe it was Jenny100 that said this, my apologies if I got the wrong person.

That's not a "glitch", it's a cheat. It's not something you could do by accident, and not something you'd know to do without finding all the pages for at least one brother -- which means you'd have had to solve each Age at least once. Unless you used the cheat.

If you want to skip past a game and see the ending, there are many games that have cheats that allow you to skip to the end. Usually it involves pressing a hotkey and entering a command, but sometimes it's something unusual you can do in the game that can suddenly dump you at the end.

Myst V did have a bug/glitch where you could accidentally miss most of the game -- and it was easy to do. You can read oldbroad's description of the bug ***here***


I don't know if it was me or not, though I've certainly quit games due to motion sickness. I never used to get sick from node-based games with panning (like the Kheops games) until I got a widescreen monitor. I'm much more prone to motion sickness with a widescreen monitor, even if it's only panning with no forward movement.

What I've always had trouble with, even when using a CRT, are first person games with FPS-type movement, like Myst V, Obduction, and many other recent first person games like Ether One, Portal, Among the Sleep, and Dear Esther.

In contrast, 3D Games where you follow behind your character (for example, Outcast, the 1996 Tomb Raider, or Uru in 3rd person) don't bother me unless the camera follows too close, or is zooming in and out all the time. The motion sickness seems to be caused by how objects move in relation to each other -- if the camera is pulled back enough and is high enough, the movement is natural enough that I don't get sick.

That puzzle Jenny100 described in Obduction sounds absolutely horrible.

One thing that makes me feel sick in a game is when I have to get right up on top of something to interact with it, such as a doorknob. I did not used to get motion sick so much playing games before as I do now.

Some widescreen monitors can be set to Picture format - 4:3 in the menu. It can also sometimes be set in the monitor option in the Windows control panel, depending on the graphics card. That way, you get the same aspect ratio as on a CRT monitor, which most likely will reduce motion sickness. This method is also very useable for older games that display in a stretched-out format on widescreen monitors.


Myst III is very Presto-like, and at the same time true to the Myst series. They did an excellent job there!