The Longest Journey With The BROs

[Grunker]

So, the other day I formatted my computer and re-installed windows. I made my new desktop theme as a slideshow of screens from some of my favourite games. Among the pics I used was one of Dreamfall (yes, I know, ), and suddenly I got the urge to replay The Longest Journey.

I've played it before, but never finished it. It's one of the few games I didn't finish not because I didn't want to but because I simply got too frustrated with the very long waiting times when I went pixel-hunting because I couldn't solve a puzzle (I simply suck at these things, and I refuse to use walkthroughs). So I installed the game on my room-mates PC and started playing on his Widescreen TV.

By coincidence, my friend (who is a gamer) and his girlfriend (who is anything but a gamer - played only Sims, as far as I know) came by. We made some dinner, and they saw TLJ running in the background, asking what it was. Before long, we were playing the game together. Two more mates dropped by, and now we meet regularly to play some TLJ. We're probably gonna play Dreamfall after. And who knows, maybe more Adventure games beyond?

Of course, I've played games with homies before, I often do, but never ones that weren't that into the genre in question, and certainly not with people who weren't gamers at all.

Anyway, this thread, beyond stating that TLJ is fucking awesome when you're not assembling a clothes line, a clamp and a rubber duck, is a recommendation to fucking to this if you like adventure games and have suitable BROs and SISes. It's chill, like movie night but you talk about the game instead and solve shit together.

Highly recommendable. Anybody got similar stories?

 

[ironyuri]

So, the other day I formatted my computer and re-installed windows. I made my new desktop theme as a slideshow of screens from some of my favourite games. Among the pics I used was one of Dreamfall (yes, I know, ), and suddenly I got the urge to replay The Longest Journey.

I've played it before, but never finished it. It's one of the few games I didn't finish not because I didn't want to but because I simply got too frustrated with the very long waiting times when I went pixel-hunting because I couldn't solve a puzzle (I simply suck at these things, and I refuse to use walkthroughs). So I installed the game on my room-mates PC and started playing on his Widescreen TV.

By coincidence, my friend (who is a gamer) and his girlfriend (who is anything but a gamer - played only Sims, as far as I know) came by. We made some dinner, and they saw TLJ running in the background, asking what it was. Before long, we were playing the game together. Two more mates dropped by, and now we meet regularly to play some TLJ. We're probably gonna play Dreamfall after. And who knows, maybe more Adventure games beyond?

Of course, I've played games with homies before, I often do, but never ones that weren't that into the genre in question, and certainly not with people who weren't gamers at all.

Anyway, this thread, beyond stating that TLJ is fucking awesome when you're not assembling a clothes line, a clamp and a rubber duck, is a recommendation to fucking to this if you like adventure games and have suitable BROs and SISes. It's chill, like movie night but you talk about the game instead and solve shit together.

Highly recommendable. Anybody got similar stories?

Next step, play Sengoku Rance together.

Next step, you're playing with his girlfriend and he has his thumb in your asshole.

 

[Grunker]

Sengoku Rance Family Night.

 

[ironyuri]

If you tried to solve some of the Gabriel Knight 3 puzzles together, you'd probably all devolve into shitflinging chimps.

WHO MAKES A FUCKING MOUSTACHE OUT OF CAT HAIR? WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS THIS PIECE OF SHIT?

Anyway, I've never gamed in person with friends really, at least not on PC. I do remember playing Leisure Suit Larry 7 with a friend when I was like, 9 years old at his place. We couldn't figure out shit.

I played some of the Hugo games with a friend back when I was 6-7, that was great fun.

Never since I became a man have I pc gamed in company, except coop online stuff. After Longest Journey, if they haven't, you should play Grim Fandango with them, that would be a real treat for all involved I bet.

 

[Gregz]

Anybody got similar stories?

Some of my favorite gaming moments were like this.

I remember playing Zork, Bard's Tale, Dungeon Master, etc. and other puzzle games when at a friend's house who had an Apple IIgs.

My favorite memory was when I was twelve or so. Myself and three friends were all crowded into the computer room playing Pirates! One person was the fencing specialist, another was the gunner, another was the pilot, another was the navigator who read the map and told us where to go. It was totally fun, I'd forgotten about that...

 

[Grunker]

It was totally fun, I'd forgotten about that...

Wow, I completely forgot about a similar experience: Playing Civ2 as a 12-year-old with four buddies: one was at the computer, the others where foreign advisor, scientific advisor, military advisor and luxury advisor respectively.

 

[Redlands]

It was totally fun, I'd forgotten about that...

Wow, I completely forgot about a similar experience: Playing Civ2 as a 12-year-old with four buddies: one was at the computer, the others where foreign advisor, scientific advisor, military advisor and luxury advisor respectively.

I'm kind of surprised nobody's made a proper multiplayer strategy game with this as its core: working together to run different departments.

Actually, I'm not too surprised. That would involve making certain things fun, which seems beyond the ability of most game developers.

 

[Jaesun]

Dreamfall is a gigantic fucking horrible shit fucking console game. Avoid at all cost. It is fucking terrible and an abomination.

 

[Grunker]

Dreamfall is a gigantic fucking horrible shit fucking console game. Avoid at all cost. It is fucking terrible and an abomination.

It all depends on what you expect. If you expect a game, you will be sorely disappointed. Luckily I played Dreamfall before TLJ and expected more movie than game. As a game it is a failure.

It has a fantastic story until the end though. I enjoyed it immensely.

 

[Berekän]

One of my favorite things to do is playing adventure games with my cousins. We will usually stay up all the night playing any game we can get our hands on. Of course, we've all grown up with the classic adventures and we'll replay them from time to time, we all love them. I'm usually the guiding hand because I'm the most seasoned gamer. We've also played terror games like Amnesia, Penumbra and the such, which is also shitloads of fun since they're too coward and you get to spend half of the night jumping from the scares and the other half laughing .

 

[Tigranes]

I remember when me and 2 friends were all 13 (or something), and I had BG2, and one they they came over to stay the night, and the next thing I know I'm waking up at 6am and they're rolling characters. We decided to take 30 minutes per person, and of course all of us spent 30 minutes rolling our characters, then it was time to go. Funnily enough, we all enjoyed it.

One of them I got to try BG later, he was an oddball. We'd play Cossacks together and he'd spend time constructing historically accurate (like, really accurate) army formations with the specific number of cannons and cavalry to represent standard regiment proportions, then one cannon would walk out of place and he'd be moving it back in while I mortared half his men from afar.

Machinarium worked quite successfully for the girlfriend, and TLJ would too, I assume. I think it depends on the game, maybe not so much Monkey Island or Gabriel Knight. Grim Fandango and Sanitarium would probably work depending on the friend.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Dreamfall is really good. Beautiful environments, great story, gameplay slightly lacking although no more than Telltale's recent The Walking Dead and that one has won plaudits from everywhere. Play it.

 

[Redlands]

Dreamfall is really good. Beautiful environments, great story, gameplay slightly lacking although no more than Telltale's recent The Walking Dead and that one has won plaudits from everywhere. Play it.

"Plaudits from everywhere" doesn't mean much. Oblivion got plaudits from everywhere too.

I remember playing Heroes of Might and Magic hotseat with my sister a lot (it might have been the only game she played; then again I tended to hog the computer) and my friends when they came over.

 

[Ulminati]

Highly recommendable. Anybody got similar stories?

Many years ago in public school, when it was first released, I'd play Monkey Island at a friend on his Amiga 500. None of us knew english, but we knew how to read. So my friends father patiently sat down with us and translated what people said on the screen as we went along. It took a while, but we eventually completed it. Spurred on, I begged and cajoled my parents into getting Monkey Island 2 for our 386. Both my parents found the humor quite agreeable, so we'd have family nights sitting down, mixing phlegm drinks to win spitting contests, building voodoo dolls of Largo Lagrande etc. I'd do the clicking, while my parents translated and I slowly built up a basic vocabulary. Then my grandfather mentioned offhanded that my uncle was acing his english classes in his french high school because he had been playing Indiana Jones and the fate of atlantis. A few xerox copies of manuals and copied disettes later, I had set him up with Monkey Island 2 and he had sent me Indy. By then I could get by with a danish-english dictionary and occasional trips into the living room to ask one of my parents about the meaning of a paticularily strange word. Pieces o' eight wasn't in the dictionary for some reason.
I'd play until I got stuck. then every night around 8PM my grandfather would call us from france, because my uncle was stuck somewhere in Monkey island 2. He'd patiently translate my explanations into french for my uncle and my uncles french explanations into danish for me so we could both get on with our respective games.

Good times.

 

[kaizoku]

you have a cool family Ulminati


I don't have any worthwhile gaming experiences.
When I was younger and my cousin's visited me on family occasions, one or two of them sat by and we played a bit together for a couple of hours.
I remember when we played monkey island 2 together. (pirated obviously since I was a poor fuck... having a computer was a miracle in itself)
Funny fact, last Christmas I offered him the MI1I2 collection for the PS3 (he's a console gamer... hey not everyone can be )

I guess what makes those memories so special is that it was something completely new. Computers and gaming was something magical.
Nowadays 99% of everything is shit.

 

[villain of the story]

You can get a taste of the 90s' magic by playing old games with non-gamers who have no idea about the industry. It's also good for your mental health. Just ask The Brazilian Slaughter. He's living in a slum so he ought to know better.

 

[Grunker]

We started something new, now playing Syberia (me, couple of bros, couple of girlfriends):

Good fun for all!

One question: will the puzzles be more involved/complex? We've played a couple of hours so far, but haven't really run into anything that can be classified as a logical puzzle yet. Most things have been "find the thing, put the thing in the thing". I hope it doesn't stay that way?

 

[abnaxus]

Syberia doesn't have difficult puzzles, it's all about the atmosphere.

In Syberia II, in typical Sokal fashion, you get a book early in the game that gives you hints how to solve every puzzle in the game. Amerzone had the same.

 

[ghostdog]

One question: will the puzzles be more involved/complex? We've played a couple of hours so far, but haven't really run into anything that can be classified as a logical puzzle yet. Most things have been "find the thing, put the thing in the thing". I hope it doesn't stay that way?

No. At best/worst you'll get an illogical puzzle like a stupid puzzle contraption on a door that prevents you access to the railway that takes you to other imaginary mid-eastern European cities/towns. But then again I don't like Syberia, so maybe I'm biased. If you play games with friends anything can be fun though.


I've played this way various games with bros. Back in the day when we were kids we've finished part together and part alone (helping each other with puzzles) many adventure games. Monkey Island 1&2, Lost files of Sherlock Holmes, Gabriel Knight... etc.

More recently I've finished together with bros Realms Of The Haunting and Call Of Chtulhu DCOTE. super fun times.

I've co-played VTM-Redemption, Silent Hill 2, Arx fatalis and some other stuff with a former girlfriend, but I don't really want to remember that stuff because that girl turned out to be pretty crazy.

My most memorable recent experience was when during summer holiday in the country, me and 2 other bros played Dark Souls 2 completely blind (no internet and shit) for the first time. Each one played until he died. You can have enornous fun if you play DS with bros taking turns, because it takes away the frustration factor. We had a fucking blast for about 5 days. (Although we should have been out chasing girls instead of playing DS2 every night )

 

[Grunker]

Hmm. That sucks. Our favourite stuff in Longest Journey were contrived, complex puzzles like the rubber duckey and such.

How about that Gabriel Knight remake I've heard about? Maybe we should play that instead?

 

[abnaxus]

Play Schizm.

 

[tuluse]

Hmm. That sucks. Our favourite stuff in Longest Journey were contrived, complex puzzles like the rubber duckey and such.

How about that Gabriel Knight remake I've heard about? Maybe we should play that instead?

Why not just play the original?

 

[Grunker]

Hmm. That sucks. Our favourite stuff in Longest Journey were contrived, complex puzzles like the rubber duckey and such.

How about that Gabriel Knight remake I've heard about? Maybe we should play that instead?

Why not just play the original?

Why not play the remake? Any significant reasons not to?

(one member of the group dislikes pixel art, I tried to talk him into playing Indiana Jones and the Search for Atlantis, but with no luck)

Play Schizm.

Hey, that looks interesting!

 

[tuluse]

Hmm. That sucks. Our favourite stuff in Longest Journey were contrived, complex puzzles like the rubber duckey and such.

How about that Gabriel Knight remake I've heard about? Maybe we should play that instead?

Why not just play the original?

Why not play the remake? Any significant reasons not to?

(one member of the group dislikes pixel art, I tried to talk him into playing Indiana Jones and the Search for Atlantis, but with no luck)

The art looks worse, the game has been reworked to be more linear, some puzzles have been streamlined and the new puzzles are the worst kind of tripe (sliding block puzzle, great).

Also no over the top Tim Curry Louisiana accent*.

*in all seriousness the voice acting is supposed to be not very good.

 

[Grunker]

Hmm. That sucks. Our favourite stuff in Longest Journey were contrived, complex puzzles like the rubber duckey and such.

How about that Gabriel Knight remake I've heard about? Maybe we should play that instead?

Why not just play the original?

Why not play the remake? Any significant reasons not to?

(one member of the group dislikes pixel art, I tried to talk him into playing Indiana Jones and the Search for Atlantis, but with no luck)

The art looks worse, the game has been reworked to be more linear, some puzzles have been streamlined and the new puzzles are the worst kind of tripe (sliding block puzzle, great).

Also no over the top Tim Curry Louisiana accent*.

*in all seriousness the voice acting is supposed to be not very good.

Damn. I had been reading nice things about it. Guess it's another one for the personal backlog.