Mothers Day is upon us and we thought it'd be fun to see what memorable moms you recall from Adventure Games.

I remember Kate Walker in Syberia getting phone calls from her mom. Poor Kate!

What moms can you remember?

Ana

Catherine from the Myst games. Such trials for her with those 2 boys.

How about Rosella's mother, Queen Valance (?) in King's Quest 7: The Princeless Bride? She was part of the adventure and the game alternated between her and Rosella. That was a real adventure and a fun game!

I was to say Gabriel Knight's mother, but it was his grandmother actually. And she brought him up in the absence of his parents.

I wondered about Gabe's mom. What happened to her?

I think she died in a car accident together with Gabriel's father. It was the Ritters' family curse acting up or something like that - lives of those who turned their backs on the Shattenjager business always ended badly.

The Adventures of Willy Beamish.

I second the mentions of Queen Valanice and Gabriel Knight's "Gran." For me, those were the two moms that stood out. Poor Kate had quite a difficult time with her mom.

Ascovel, that is correct - Gabe's mom died in the car accident. In fact, I am surprised by how many adventure game protagonists lost their parents - mostly moms - in some sort of accident. Is this what it takes to be an adventure game hero? If so, I feel quite bad for them all!

That is what it takes to be an adventure game mom!

I think pets have a much better survival rate in games than moms.

Here's to the mom in Shadow of Destiny -- I give her the "hanging in there no matter what" award.

Darkseed II - Mom's cooking in the kitchen

I remember the mom in the Hardy Boys. Could you imagine raising those 2.

I remember her! I thought she was a nag.

Ana

April Ryan's Mom may, or may not, have been the White Dragon. But she also spoke on the phone from the police station with her "earthly" mother, as I believe that April was adopted. That mother begged her to come back home.

I think the Hardy Boys mom knows exactly what's going on and is having a great time watching them pretend to "protect" her from the dangerous stuff they're really up to. It's the only explanation, IMHO for

I think the nagging is tongue-in-cheek.

I'd rather raise Frank and Joe than Sirrus and Achenar. I think.

The only mother I can think of, so far, that hasn't been mentioned is Dulce in So Blonde. There seems to be a lot more fathers!

The only ones I can think of are in casual games. Emily, the maid or nurse or companion, acquires two children for Return to Ravenhearst, very Victorian not to acknowledge the private lives of servants in the first one. Also, the odious Madame Fate seems to have passed the fat gene to her revolting son.

I can't remember the details of how the curse killed Gabe's parents. Maybe his dad was a below par schattenjager. Must have been his father, the title wasn't Sins of the Mothers.

Come to think of it, these are adventure games. In fiction, do the mothers of many adventurers or gumshoes appear at all?

Wow, Ana, what a great question! The only one that comes to mind for me is Catherine in the Myst series...

8dognight -- we don't hear much about Sherlock Holmes' mother or Poirot's mother, do we?

Would you consider Scarlet O'Hara an adventurer? She was a mother. So were Moll Flanders and Emma Bovary, though I wouldn't exactly call any of them good role models as mothers.

Maybe we don't see loving mothers in adventure games because they just don't add drama to a story? The only drama a good mom can add is to die?

Are there any adventure games in which one of the playable characters is a mom?

Well, there is Queen Valanice in King's Quest 7. Also, in The Moment of Silence, Deborah Oswald, who has a young son, has a brief stint as a playable character.

EDIT: Ah, I just remembered another mom! Zak McKracken's mother left him phone messages throughout the game. I remember wanting to call her, as she kept complaining how Zak never would. I tried many times, and I was sure that her phone number was hidden somewhere. I was so disappointed that I never found it.

Two protagonists. Alas for my attention span also in casual games: Dream Chronicles and Hidden Secrets, likely developers were paying attention to demographics. Just when I thought my taste couldn't sink lower, I now have a smoky vision of Harlequin Romance IHOGs.

Harlequin Romance IHOGS? Why not?

There is another mother I thought of & wasn't going to mention as it is the person you play in Desperate Housewives.
Yes, it is a sim game but there is also a reasonably engaging plot/mystery which gives a good AG feel to it!

Mothers certainly rarely appear in the classic "hero's journey" type of stories (plenty of fathers there though). However, I think they could easily add a lot of depth and drama to any stories that are not afraid of breaking up with conventions.

In the amateur adventure game I'm developing myself (Frantic Franko) the main character's mother while appearing in person only briefly will remain a role model for him throughout the whole adventure and will even be the fictional author of some of the interface intricacies.

Both parents of Cassima appear in King's Quest VI - so maybe can be counted

Kate from Shady Brook. The fact that she's the mother of a young baby is pivotal to how the game plays out.