I liked Royal Tower and Scarlet Hand the best too.
I don't know which of those two I like better.

Thanks, Syd and Jenny. I will get those games.

Hi Liz, I'm glad you like the cat idea.

I agree that Adventure games are an art form. That's one of the characteristics that most appeals to me.

As far as the "helpful hints" that some of your testers requested, why don't you do what I've seen in a few games, namely, have "hints" available, but require that they be requested while playing the game, i.e., have a little "hint" box that can be clicked for hints if felt necessary?

"Edutainment" games can be excellent Adventure games. An example that comes to mind is BYZANTINE, from which you could learn a lot and have a really great time playing. It is one of my favorite games. I pine for more like it.

Keep us posted on you next Adventure game, the one that will be a challenge at least as great as SCHIZM or possibly even BLACK DAHLIA. Actually, I am going to be replaying BLACK DAHLIA, shortly, and I am looking forward to the challenge of its puzzles. It has been long enough since I played it that although I remember the general character of the puzzles and sort of my approach to their solution, I haven't the vaguest idea how to do the actual solution, so it will be almost (but not quite) like doing them from scratch. Fun!

Hi Advpuzlov,

Well, I checked out Byzantine, and one reviewer said that most people feel let down and even a little mad when they find out it's educational. He said most people want to escape from the real world for a little while when they are playing a game.

Of course, Byzantine was produced by the Discovery channel, so it fits in with their mission, and I'm sure technically it was great. I wonder if an independent can hope to attain anything like that, but then again, you have Dark Fall... so it IS possible to come up with something great artistically.

I think I was influenced by my husband (a teacher) as my last games were more and more like games that might be used in schools by children. It is the curse of women that we try to please our men, even when we don't realize we are doing it.

He reads history and science books, watches History Channel or Discovery for fun. I must admit being more into escapism myself. I had a good time last night starting to work on a dancing cat animation.

Kathy said:
Well I'm ready for this game now ! !

And I'm ready for "Harvest". It looks great so far!!

KATHY SALISBURY Well, it ranks 35 in the 2001 GameBoomers Favorite Games List, which isn't too bad for an "edutainment" game. I get the impression that you haven't played it. Play it. You may wind up thinking that you have read the wrong reviews.

You're right about that... I haven't played it.
35th is a good rank! I'll try it. Thank you.

Byzantine is light on the educational part. The game takes place in a historical setting and you visit some famous old buildings, like Hagia Sofia/Aya Sofya. But it is basically an adventure game and a murder mystery.

One of the things you do in the game that I thought was really cool was to be able to visit places that no longer exist. You gather information for this computer thing and it creates a virtual simulation of what the place was really like. You are able to enter the virtual world to find clues to help you solve the mystery.

I thought the hint system in UAKM was excellent. You lost points if you used them.This made you want to get the solution without resorting to the hint button.

But if you were a novice player or really stuck, you knew that the hint ystem would help you out.

Hi Kathy!

I'm thrilled with the idea of an adventure with cats!

[b]You MUST read Akif Pirin

[quote]Originally posted by Bastet:
[b]Hi Kathy!

I'm thrilled with the idea of an adventure with cats!

[b]You MUST Akif Pirin

Syd (it's chris),
We didn't get dumber. It's the bottom line.
In the beginning I'm sure it was a creative process. I just played Full Throttle and I LOVED it. Even with the retro graphics this game had more personality than alot played lately. chris

As the thread moved in a different direction, I didn't want to comment. Now that it is back to the original, I'll comment now.

I'm a new adventure gamer (Myst and beyond), so I didn't play the older games. I love the new adventure games. I like how they look, I like the puzzles (as much as I like any puzzles), I like how they sound, and I like the experience of playing them. For me, a game has to have that "special something". There have been many threads written about that here, so I won't go into it. All games don't have to be "hard", whatever that could possibly mean, to be enjoyable.

If we want to keep the adventure game genre alive, we had better not keep looking back to the old days. Hey, I'm 50, I'm a boomer, I love some of the old games (Myst and later, that's old for me), but I hate nostalgia with a passion. If it takes using every little bit of the new technology out there to make the games appealing to new adventure gamers, so be it. Newbies don't want to look at outdated graphics and sounds. If it takes easier puzzles, so be it. I'm an adventure gamer, and I love easy games! If it takes better and better cut scenes, to be it. If it takes putting the games on consoles, so be it. An aside here, Tim Schaefer's (the creator of Grim Fandango) latest game is going to be out on the xbox. If it take supporting both independent "slide show" games, (beautifull graphics, simpler technology, no 3D engines, perfect for an independent developer), and the 3D engines, other goodies of the big budget games, I'm OK with that too. I'm also OK with multiplayer games. I'm going to give Myst Online a chance when it comes out. I prefer no action in an adventure game, but if you have to have a little bit of action to keep the genre alive, heck, I'll try to go with that too.

You know, I suspect that the difficulty of adventure games (puzzles and dialogue) had something to do with the technology of the times. Sometimes I think it was an accident. Games were expensive, so you had to make them last a long, long time. There was only so much you could do with the processors, memory, graphics cards and sound systems of the day. So, hey, hard puzzles and complicated dialogue trees! Now, I know this is an oversimplification, and I haven't done a single bit of research on this, so I could be all wrong. It's just a thought.