Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

The Random Adventure Game News Thread

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
27,049
Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy


27ada43cdd289368389cf08d67a74594_original.jpg


This is Falda. According to the banner image below, she's supposed to be Icelandic.

08101fc7554e8e63c2c12b56231e83bb_original.jpg

From left to right: Falda, Felix, The Student, Vitaly, Katsu

She could pass off as 1970s Scandinavian, but not Icelandic, because of three reasons:

# Icelandic women rarely had such hairstyles.
# Icelandic women rarely dressed like she does.
# Falda isn't an Icelandic name!

Except for the slight possibility that her name refers to her being someone else than she claims to be, it's just made-up baloney. A game that concerns itself so much with languages and the cultures they come from should pay more attention to details like these.
 

AetherVagrant

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
519
Damn I used to have the mousepad that this came with. Got it from a friend in 7th grade whose mom wouldnt let him have the game so I had to "stash" the feelies at my place and make him some installation disks titled QFG or some other shit. The story is one of my all-time favorites to the point where I wrote a fanfic sequel that got me disqualified from a local writing competition for violating their rules on violence and sexual assault.
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadowknightsstudio/the-lighthouse-2

The Lighthouse
Thriller with glimpses into psychotic, alternate dimensions. Search for Lily Beaumont at the abandoned Wescott Property in Maine 1964.

a4ec439d5b029c38ab5a3ee77641f201_original.png

08b187b0c2538cd876d701bc34b11794_original.gif

1d43d23165b79f62a3e060bd7cb6d9c1_original.png

84ebc79f0b0b1516d05a744484e06941_original.png

b4b09e67ab52c831ce2a9ee79a9ba295_original.gif

3fe560ecb4cb5cf793304695c93e7546_original.png

a13a8a5841f418e18bf2f1b77e509f52_original.png

834b0ad7145a6aed1848c1ab1760ea77_original.gif

f4f1fc0c4fa7ea5d70639ec3f462097c_original.png

3caa0671028118340fc795aeeda3609b_original.png

The Lighthouse takes place on February 19, 1964. You play as James Irvine, a former detective turned private investigator in the state of Maine. Irvine is a man who solves the problems that the city doesn't have the inclination to follow-up on, little less solve. Many of the lucrative cases that come to his office are from locals with various requests, from spouses looking to expose infidelity in their relationships to business owners looking to gather enough evidence to incriminate their partners.

c9cc805616f3cbff03f86a86398fba02_original.png

February 19, 1964 is an important anniversary for PI Irvine as it’s the day he lost his first born, Lily, to cancer 7 years prior. Every year he visits her, placing a yellow lily and lit candle on her gravestone before watching it burn until extinguished. This tradition had never been broken - until today. As he packs to leave his office, candle in hand, he notices a letter slide under his door, the envelope marked: ‘Irvine.’

He opens it and reads:

Mr. Irvine, My daughter hasn't come home for 2 years, 4 months and 9 days. You see, she's missing. She was involved in the old lighthouse incident, you may remember her name - Lily. I've asked the local authorities to look for her, but they haven't got a clue. They tell me horrible things that no parent should hear. They tell me to accept that she may have died. Worst, they tell me they can't help. I can't sleep until I know where she is, if she's safe, if she's scared, and if she's trying to come home but can't find home. Help me find her. Look for her at the Lighthouse, as that was her last known location.

- Elizabeth Beaumont

Inside the envelope he finds an address and a single, yellow lily.

4a7c18ba74aac67929e8cf44afcc9821_original.png

88bd504db9db56cf11e8e40fe9d911f9_original.png






016c89f6ef2556a12feb93e10312b5c3_original.png

3e0a17b99e1c792bd1f77221d02a0ba7_original.png

2b3b53fb685121ef01f47f9515803e52_original.PNG

c715e27482184a4db8ce1f8c6a182745_original.png

9140b2c7366c6fab72e216b079c7f697_original.png

932c06e183b3c1525881a6fcd61606eb_original.jpg

d98a5d0ef3aa08bce7748eaeadb2df1a_original.png

fee04ade1f4d6528d9901014bcb379f8_original.png

662e1146e6906c69de4e7cfbef22a216_original.PNG

64b489bc9a96a3bcd0197aa858b12d9a_original.PNG

939dc2fcfa42f2db5a0dc5321b5d9b2b_original.png

df89828f23fedd667eb2f5df086ca7f2_original.png
13776ef8767db845d5e27bff7a51bd80_original.png

6ccff257867953a130438b3d8e4534a0_original.jpg

b50d73ba9c267162adb5727a361e63a6_original.jpg

fe8abeeed6b90c6ff8b00c6fe7fd8b60_original.png

2281d39288d46a09beb8cb546ef7fc19_original.jpg
dec056038de3ec1569de71ccf2d7cf87_original.png

The Shadow Knights Team is so thankful to have the incredibly talented Mimi Page composing The Lighthouse soundtrack. Mimi’s ethereal vocals have appeared in Fallout 4, Sword Coast Legends, The Unspoken, and Eagle Flight, to name a few. She’s composed soundtracks for upcoming indie titles Ancient Frontier, She Dreams Elsewhere, and now, The Lighthouse.

Love the music from the trailer? You can get it Here

59df0ed56da3246fddebd66dae6f7f47_original.jpg
 

Don Peste

Arcane
Joined
Sep 15, 2008
Messages
4,273
Location
||☆||
FfY5Mp.png

Over 18,000 downloads in Japan!

A week in just five minutes.
A closed off room, just eight tatami in size.
A small world for you to save.
This game is a puzzle adventure that takes from thirty minutes to an hour to play through.

The themes included in this game are rather dark, so please keep that in mind.

One week, My room is a free game.

https://joyato.itch.io/one-week-my-room
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,151
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
FfY5Mp.png

Over 18,000 downloads in Japan!

A week in just five minutes.
A closed off room, just eight tatami in size.
A small world for you to save.
This game is a puzzle adventure that takes from thirty minutes to an hour to play through.

The themes included in this game are rather dark, so please keep that in mind.

One week, My room is a free game.

https://joyato.itch.io/one-week-my-room
interesting
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Not really an adventure game - basically, each day you can pick one action, and you have to do them in a right sequence to get the "good" ending. There was a series of flash games with similar mechanics some years ago - Cube World, CubeRPG etc. - but those were slightly more complex as each action changed the state of the world, giving you some clues as to their right order. Here it's just trial and error, more or less.
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
http://www.pcgamer.com/how-maniac-mansions-verb-object-interface-revolutionised-adventure-games/

How Maniac Mansion's verb-object interface revolutionised adventure games

By Rick Lane an hour ago

SCUMM diary.

itsZHHLAps5uDxvS9Y9jxM-650-80.jpg

It’s hard to imagine what adventure games looked like before Maniac Mansion, although that’s partly because most of them looked like a big wall of text. Prior to Maniac, adventure games and text adventures were pretty much the same thing. There were a handful of what might generously be termed “graphic” adventures, such as Mystery House and the early King’s Quest games, but these were still text adventures at heart. The communication of what environments looked like was still mainly done through writing, and they relied on interfaces that required the player to input commands (Walk to, pick up, talk to etc) manually.

There’s a good reason why text adventures let you type in commands yourself. It implies the player has infinite possibilities at their disposal, establishing the most basic illusion of player freedom that games have been building on ever since. Just as open-worlds lets you wander in any direction and space simulators like No Man’s Sky let you visit billions of planets, text adventures let you type in any command you want.

Even now, with hundreds of meticulously rendered virtual worlds to explore, I find the blinking cursor at the bottom of a text adventure a tantalising prospect. But as anyone who has played a text adventure will know, it’s a spell that’s broken the moment you type in a command and the game replies with its equivalent of “Sorry, I didn’t understand that!”. It’s like running into an imaginative brick wall, shattering your immersion like a brick wall shatters teeth.

NtZFSsxhtmTY2BE8PV7KSX-650-80.jpg

Step forward Maniac Mansion and its ground-breaking verb-object interface, designed specifically to eradicate the frustrating command-line guessing game from adventure gaming. Rather than forcing the player to figure out what commands worked, Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick decided that all of the available commands would be represented on screen. The player could then click on one of those commands (i.e. “Walk To”) and combine it with an object in the game world (such as a door). In effect, you’re still constructing a sentence which tells the game what you want to do, but you’re doing so through a visual medium rather than a textual one.

The story behind the verb-object interface is fascinating, because it didn’t develop gradually. The idea was fully formed as early as the concept stage for Maniac Mansion. Gilbert and Winnick’s original proposal document from 1986 (which you can read in full here) describes the system exactly as it was implemented, stating “The player will always be able to see all the buttons ever used in the game. No buttons will appear or disapear [sic] as the game progresses. This will allow the player to know all the choices he has from the beginning.”

It’s worth noting there’s some evidence the interface is an iteration of an earlier LucasArts adventure concept that was never put into production. I was a teenage Lobot was pitched by Gilbert in 1985, although this time working with Noah Falstein and David Fox. It cast the player as a teenage boy on a space station who has his brain accidentally transplanted into a shoe-buffing robot. A running joke in the game would have been the robot could only communicate through a limited number of sentences, which the player would be able to scroll through rather than inputting the commands manually. Incidentally, this interface had the even less catchy acronym of TATLIUAJAB (totally awesome text line interface using a joystick and button).

TRLYjuUYB3ikRQC8226dUV-650-80.png

What’s strange about verb-object interface is that it is in effect a limiting of the player’s possibilities. Rather than pull the wool over the player’s eyes with a potentially infinite number of commands as a text adventure would, Maniac Mansion confronts the player with everything they can do in the game from the start, amounting to a total of fifteen verbs. But the way it is presented has the opposite effect. It immediately demonstrates all the possibilities open to the player, presenting them in a positive way, whereas playing a text adventure involves a slow chipping away of everything that’s not possible until you hit on the correct solution.

It’s a remarkable bit of systemic sleight-of-hand. Maniac Mansion is more honest with the player about the limits of their freedom, while also making those limits feel more expansive than what has gone before. In a way this is a hallmark of the broader LucasArts adventure game template. The silly red herrings, the replacing of vanilla “I can’t do that” command rejections with varied, witty responses, are all examples of taking the limits of adventure games in the late eighties and framing them as an integral part of the experience, making these small 2D worlds feel fuller and freer than they ultimately are.

Maniac Mansion’s interface was hugely influential both inside and outside LucasArts. Within a few years, nearly all adventure games had ditched command-line interfaces in favour of what eventually became known as “point ‘n’ click”. This included LucasArts’ main rivals Sierra, who used it for games such as Gabriel Knight. It was simply much more efficient, especially with games that the player could explore through looking at the screen rather than reading from it.

SE3ECdcnCcc3TCijTVYXUT-650-80.png

But the reason LucasArts continued to use the verb-object interface wasn’t just because it worked. They were also kind of stuck with it, because the interface was hardwired into the SCUMM engine. When you look at a LucasArts adventure game, the verb-object interface isn’t an overlay as you would find with most modern game UIs. The game world literally sits on top of the interface. In fact, when you click on the screen, the first thing SCUMM does is figure out whether you clicked above or below the line that separates the game world from the interface.

In other words, even if LucasArts had wanted to dispense with the interface for some reason, doing so would have been extremely difficult. Over the years it evolved with the games that LucasArts released, introducing sleeker, icon-based versions in games like Full Throttle. But these systems still used almost exactly the same logic and codebase as Maniac Mansion. Eighty percent of SCUMM’s codebase went unchanged between 1987 and 1997, when the final SCUMM game, The Curse of Monkey Island, was launched.

LucasArts’ repeated use of this interface, and their continued success with it, set in stone the structure of 2D adventure games, and still maintained influence when 3D adventure games began appearing. What’s more, virtually every evolution of adventure game interfaces since has been in response to the work done by Gilbert and Winnick on Maniac Mansion. Attaching the verbs to the mouse cursor, or adding context sensitive-actions, all follow the same evolutionary thinking of making those interactions with the game world simpler and more natural, minimising the chance that the player will be rebuffed by the game’s rules, and maintaining the illusion of freedom within the fiction.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014


ss_d1a99ad6c539118e9976e63a8e8844cc9ce45100.600x338.jpg




Doom comes to all who live in the Pixelverse. Closely Guarded by a faceless menace, a large crack in the sky slowly consumes the land. In towns like Old Meta, the inhabitants drink and gamble away their final days waiting for the end to come. Precious few hold on to a hope that the Jengo, an outlander destined to avert this crisis, will hurry up and get on with the job of saving the world...

Meanwhile, in a completely different world, a disgruntled gaming prodigy called Jeff seeks a new challenge. He heads off to the local Game Mart seeking his destiny. What he doesn't know yet is that two worlds are about to collide.

Tonight, Jeff must postpone the Apocalypse!

Jengo is an old school point and click adventure game inspired by the golden era of the genre.


“Well... There’s this fella that’s into games, so into games that he brushes Contra aside without losing a life, knows exactly where the secret passages are and where the loot is stashed without even phoning a hint line. A man from another time. A time before every gamer tried to be a streamer, a forum troll know-it-all or indie developer... A time when gaming was about gaming... This is a story about an old school gamer lost in modern times. His name is Jeff.

Elsewhere, beyond the realm of the real world, is a lonely place at the edge of the Pixelverse called ‘Old Meta’. A dumping ground for the Nobody-folk who were almost somebody - but have long lost their dreams at a drinking hole in the middle of the desert. Little did they know is that all they needed was a hero... Sadly, considering the nature of forgotten places, no such hero ever came by, so they’ll have to settle on a gamer instead.”
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014


ss_c64b818a8bcf6f7df2b25f8918d3501aad897e9f.600x338.jpg




SUMMARY
Morph Girl is an FMV Point And Click/Visual Novel developed as a homage to 90/00's low-fi Japanese horror movies. Inspired by home VHS tapes, Morph Girlintends to evoke the most personal fears surrounding the presence of the unknown within one's home.

STORY
Elana Pierce is a grieving widow that cannot seem to move on following the tragic death of her wife, Rebecca. When a mysterious, supernatural being begins to force itself into her daily life – playing upon the memories of the dearly departed – she must make the decision to embrace or reject the creature.

Will you reject its invitation? Or embrace it?

FEATURES
  • FMV - Immerse yourself in Elana's world via real world footage evoking a family's home VHS tapes.
  • BRANCHING NARRATIVE - Make decisions that alter the course of the narrative – as well as events long passed.
  • MULTIPLE ENDINGS - Unlock all 6 endings and find your conclusion to Morph Girl and Elana's story.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,482
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
This reminds me more of that game on PS4. Until Dawn? Yeah, I think that's the name.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/sites/eacea-site/files/list_of_selected_projects_vg2017.pdf

Daedalic received €150,000 from Creative Europe for a game called Superlatent. It's 17% of the total budget. It's not certain whether this is an adventure game or not, but I guess it's safer to assume it is.

Anuman Interactive (publisher of Syberia 3) also received €150,000 (8%) for a game called Blacksad The Price of Fame. It's an adventure game based on the comics, apparently already announced but not mentioned in Codex as far as I can search.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,535
Wow, I wasn't aware of that, a proper Blacksad adventure game could be awesome.
I'm undecided about their choice of Pendulo as the studio to make the game, at least they do make proper adventure games, but the only one I've played from them was the first Runaway and it was boring, actually even more because of the setting and story than because of the puzzles themselves, so wait and see.
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,010
Tiny Echo, cute-looking thing from the developer of cub-cuddling game Shelter:





Bought it, played for 1 hour (almost done with it) and then I refunded it.

It's another Broken Age. Painted visuals, some interesting ideas but utterly boring. NPC interaction is limited and simplistic. Completely linear without any replay value.

I refunded it because it's not a game. It's not even a visual novel, it more like a pointless presentation about some shit I don't care to understand atm. I simply don't want to support the developers in creating more of this shit.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014


ss_23db8bab505d6d9951cb0b0832c77b342fae4e4e.600x338.jpg




my granddad came home from the war a changed man. he was bitter, quick to anger and aggressive. he'd grown to hate animals too. should a dog yap, he'd rush to kick it.

how does one discuss such a person without being exploitative? perhaps we frame him as a product of external forces, a war perhaps, in effect making him blameless. I like to remember him with the aphorism, "you can't kick every barking dog."


Dujanah is a clay-punk adventure game by Jack King-Spooner.

Features:
  • Full colour
  • Interactive menu
  • Bosses and enemies
  • Sophisticated Mode7 & effects
  • Lots of noise
  • Battery-backed memory saves the extraordinary progress of our young heroine
  • Excellent fun for one player
"Get ready for the ride of your life"

:whatho:
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014


ss_1091985aac0773e76e3a5505b279af3f327a4b2a.600x338.jpg


ss_e1febf120192b421af2ea42e0ee7c56a800ac555.600x338.jpg




Little Kite is a point-and-click story driven adventure.

The game highlights the problems of an unsuccessful family, in which one person shows their hands, and another tries to correct mistakes of the past.
The main characters are Mary and her son Andrew. After the death of her husband, Mary married for a second time, to Oliver, in an attempt to create a full-fledged family for her son. But everyday, problems consume the new husband and he finds his solace in alcohol. Soon, they find domestic violence becomes commonplace.

Mary's patience and inaction, so habitual and convenient for everyone but little Andrew, brings the life of their family to an extreme point - a point where she needs to make a bold decision.

Features:
  • Dramatic story about Mary and Andrew
  • Two playable main characters
  • A lot of puzzles with different difficulties
  • Two locations: the real world and the Andrew's fantasy world. Each of them has its own unique atmosphere.

The developer released a short horror adventure called Octave in 2016:

 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,535
Before the Dark Cystal
cZhWFcp.png

Entirelly hand-drawn, this point & click adventure game is a fan-game of the

movie “Dark Crystal”.

Take control of a young Gelfling captured by the Skeksis, and survive in the Crystal castle until you find a way out.

The security slider show you when you please the Skeksis or not : be careful not to upset them, or this will be a game over !

- Right click to look at something

- Left click to walk and interact with something or someone

Language: French, English
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest, a comedy sci-fi point and click adventure, from HeroCraft (the publisher of King of Dragon Pass remaster):





ss_a7acdcbb64d4952753198d1f9d44561abad2d960.600x338.jpg


Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest it’s a traditional 2D point’n'click game with retro-pixel style graphics. It’s an adventure game, a game with heart, about space ship’s engineer Odysseus Kosmos and his service robot Barton Quest.

Download pilot demo episode for free (pilot episode is really shorter than any of the future five full episodes, yet it delivers a small independent story).

Story
Imagine you’re a talented and funny ship’s engineer, part of the crew of a ship on a voyage to a black hole deep in outer space. Your shipmates are down on the surface of a planet where time moves far, far slower and you, along with your robot, have been waiting for years for them to return to your orbital station.
The situation looks pretty bleak - but never lose heart! There is a host of scientific problems to solve and experiments to conduct, an enormous ship that only you can keep in working order, and a star system dominated by a black hole that hides incalculable secrets, which turns out to affect your ship in strange and unexpected ways. Your future is full of surprises!

Features:
  • This game has a soul:);
  • Cool retro art;
  • Sci-fi story of good-hearted humour;
  • Special game mode for blind people;
  • Character customization if you buy 2 DLCs for $40 each.

Looks interesting, I guess..

"Pilot" demo episode is available on Steam as a demo, or you can download here: https://odysseuskosmos.com/2017/02/01/free-pilot-episode-download/
 

Wirdschowerdn

Ph.D. in World Saving
Patron
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
34,404
Location
Clogging the Multiverse with a Crowbar
https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/the-uncertain-pc/

This is right now super cheap at GMG.

It's a three-episode (only the first released right now) point-n-click adventure game made by sad-face-cat Russian team about sad-face-cat Robot struggling in hoomanz world. Apart from the catastrophic controls, it's actually quite nice despite the slow pace and anaesthetic dialogues. Give it a go!


Is fun. Give go.
6f0ae399-s.jpg
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Legend of Hand, a strange looking martial arts themed adventure featuring turn-based combat:

ss_e2b5042060e4e50606592a9589a727316bb32f8c.600x338.jpg


ss_d2c73abd4cd9a528c7f2bb41e4d7f33820dddec9.600x338.jpg






Legend of Hand tells the story of a hero on an epic quest to find the mythical Grandmaster Hand, the one man who can restore peace to a troubled world. Inspired by adventure classics, Far-East legends and martial arts beat 'em up games of the 80's and 90's, this point and click adventure will take the player on a unique journey through magical lands.

The Story
Your masters have put their trust in you to find the mythical Grandmaster Hand, an enigmatic figure who disappeared many years ago. He is the one man capable of stopping the gathering unrest that is threatening your world. To find Hand you will need to travel through four mysterious islands, finding clues and challenging their infamous masters - the so-called Fingers of Hand! The masters are experts in martial arts and finding them will be not always be easy.

Your quest will take you on an epic adventure across unique islands and weird worlds where you will meet amazing friends and terrifying foes. So many distractions await but do not forget your aim - find Grandmaster Hand to save your world and its inhabitants!

Can you reunite a troubled world? Can you find the elusive Grandmaster Hand? Your destiny awaits...
Features
- An epic quest spanning many wonderful lands. Expect 10+ hours of gameplay!
- An impressive cast of intriguing, bizarre, amusing and lovable characters. Expect to meet companions who will aid and follow you in your adventures!
- Traditional point and click adventure game elements such as puzzles, inventory system and dialogue interactions.
- Unique hand drawn graphics and animations.
- A turn-based RPG style fighting system that is easy to learn and fun to play. Learn new combat moves, increase your HP and fight enemies.
- Mini games galore!
- Animated cut scenes.
- Original soundtrack reflecting the atmosphere of the special worlds visited by the hero.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom