Independent Adventure Gaming Gets June Update

Thanks to DIY Games for its update on last month's free graphical adventure and text adventure releases, as "some older games gained recognition, and some newer ones may soon follow their example." Among the highlights was the previously DIY Games-referenced title A Case Of The Crabs, "One of the rare Flash [graphic adventure] projects... [that] deserves your attention" and which "got first featured in The New York Times Circuits sections, and later became no. 7 in the top 100 on-line games at FHM.com." Elsewhere, "The Adventurers Underground published an excellent article about The Reality on the Norm", a "a series of [graphic adventure] games based around a fictitious town." Finally, and oddly, the Adventure Game Studio software spawned the decidedly non-traditional Mafioso Over Kill, a "rail shooter, reminiscent of the Virtua Cop arcade games."

FP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

These independent games rock. I've found a few that are good enough to chew up whole nights. Can't find any links ATM (and I'm too lazy to google) but "No Action, Jackson" is a really cool old-school LucasArts-style game that's worth playing. Also, I think there was a recent slashdot article that mentioned the game "N", which is one of those nifty little games that you can play when you have a spare minute or two.

Are there ANY fans?

[Anthony Boyd]

Wow. A single comment for this entire article/post? I guess the adventure gaming genre must really be uninteresting to many. Personally, I am looking forward to a (big) adventure game: Dreamfall [dreamfall.com]. This is the sequel to The Longest Journey [longestjourney.com]. In Dreamfall, you have visions of your world being destroyed, and have to track down April Ryan to help. April is the heroine from the first game.

Of course, it's not an independent game -- it's by Funcom. But it's getting funded by the Norwegian Film Fund, so that's an interesting/artistic influence. And they are changing the game from "adventure" to "action-adventure." Every hardcore role-player knows that "action-RPG" typically means "dumbed-down for the masses." It's the difference between Planescape: Torment, and Diablo 2. But, in the case of adventure games, a little action will help pull me in. Some of the Zorks remain unsolved, still installed on my Win 98se computer -- partly because the puzzles are so puzzling. One of the advantages of Dreamfall's "action" influence appears to be multiple solutions to a puzzle, and the option to use force if you get stuck. If they do it right, this could be one of the first adventure games I finish without a cheatbook. I would really like that.

In relation to some of the links in the original article, I would mention that A Case of the Crabs is great, I'm playing it now. Thanks for the pointer!

Old School Text-Adventures

[LXAC08]

Some of the new adventure games are nice enough to provide graphics to help us understand the whole story, but those old N-E-S and Atari adventure games were something else for your imagination.

Simple math...

[WinnipegDragon]

30 Hour old /. post + only 4 comments = Death of adventure genre.

She be dead me hearties. Sing me a dirge, matey...