The Point and Click Adventure Game Thread

[Ziggy]

I have been wanting to talk about point and clicks for a long time now. Anyone else a fan of the genre?

For as much as I love point and click games, I've actually played very few of them. We're talking single digits here. I know of the few that I've played, and a few of the "must plays" in the genre. But this was such a huge and popular genre back in the day. I'm sure there's so many great games that I am unaware of. I would love to hear more about this genre and some games from anyone more experienced with them.

I feel like Sierra and LucasArts are a good place to startas a way to discover more games. They are like the Capcom and Konami of the 8 and 16-bit consoles.

[Ziggy]

The Dig

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6040/The_Dig/

https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_dig 60% off right now!



How did I not know about this game until now? LucasArts, with Spielberg's name attached, and Robert Patrick voicing the main character!

I ended up taking a sick day the other day and just needed some time to sit and rest. Somehow I came across this game, and it just all at once attracted me on so many levels. Also, it's super cheap on GoG right now. So I installed it straight away. It's the kind of game that when you launch it, there's no menu or anything, it just goes right into the start of the game. So I more or less just immediately got sucked into it.



As soon as you take control of the game, you're an astronaut in space. There's an asteroid on a collision course to Earth, and your mission is to blast it off course.



So mission is successful, but then you end up getting whisked away to another planet.





And then that's where the game really starts. Of course, you and your party have no idea what's going on. But as you start to explore and whatnot, everything has that "shrouded in mystery" vibe to it. Hearing Robert Patrick's voice, and the sci-fi / space setting, with a definite Spielberg vibe to it, I just clicked with this game immediately. I'm not sure what role Spielberg played, and to what extent, but this game has a sort of Third Kind feeling. There's something about it that just feels like a Spielberg movie.

[Ack]

Oh man, yeah, you've got a massive genre that is still seeing some interesting innovation, even if at their core design level, they could be considered..."simplistic."

First, perspective is a thing to consider. There are fantastic third person point and clicks as well as fantastic first person point and clicks. You may have a preference between one or the other, though if it's visual styling that interests you, in the '90s, first person tended to incorporate more FMV of human actors. Not always (thanks, Phantasmagoria), but more often.

You also have theming and style. For instance, LucasArts tended to be a lot more comedic. Sierra games have jokes, but not to the level of LucasArts, and some of theirs delve into straight up horror. And the genre was big enough that companies like Virgin would every now and again throw their hat into the ring with titles like 7th Guest and Toonstruck.

It's a huge genre, and even now it continues, though as with anything, it can be a mixed bag. I enjoyed some of what Telltale Games did with properties like The Walking Dead as a way to keep the genre interesting.

[Ziggy]

First, perspective is a thing to consider. There are fantastic third person point and clicks as well as fantastic first person point and clicks. You may have a preference between one or the other

Personally, I have zero preference between first and third person. I would like either equally.

in the '90s, first person tended to incorporate more FMV of human actors. Not always (thanks, Phantasmagoria), but more often.

YES!

I feel like FMV is an easy thing to overlook or disregard if you came up in the 90s. There were so many games with crappy FMV shoehorned in, with bad acting etc. I use to roll my eyes when I heard "FMV." But there was some real quality FMV stuff too.

One game I have a lot of fond memories playing is Muppet Treasure Island, a tie in game to the movie. Normally, if you heard about a movie tin-in game with FMV in the 90's you would have assumed it to be shit. But this game was developed by Activision along with Jim Henson. It not only uses the voice talent and puppeteering of The Muppets (FMV overlaid) but also the legendary Tim Curry. For an adult, the game is super simplistic. There's no real challenge or baffling puzzles (which is kind of a good thing). But it has all of the charm of The Muppets and Tim Curry.

I learned recently that Tim Curry played Frankenstein in another FMV point and click game from the 90's, called "Frankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster." Since I've never really heard of it, and it has a generally low price on eBay, I have to assume that it wasn't that good. But I'm just so curious to try it out.

You also have theming and style. For instance, LucasArts tended to be a lot more comedic. Sierra games have jokes, but not to the level of LucasArts, and some of theirs delve into straight up horror. And the genre was big enough that companies like Virgin would every now and again throw their hat into the ring with titles like 7th Guest and Toonstruck.

Like so many things, things that seemed juvenile to me when I was young now put a smile on my face. I never played The Secret of Monkey Island back in the 90's, I never actually heard of it back then (I was mostly a console gamer). But I played the remastered version for the first time a few years ago and I absolutely love it. I just played through it for the second time recently. And I would love to play the DOS version once I have a PC up and running. It has such a dumb quirky humor that it puts a smile on my face most of the time and even makes me laugh out loud at times. If that's what other LucasArts point and clicks are like, then sign me up! I'm aware of Day of the Tentacle, and I have the remastered version on GoG, but haven't played it yet.

I don't think I've played any of the Sierra point and clicks (yet).

One thing that kinda drives me nuts about the genre is tough puzzles that are not really intuitive to solve. Maybe this was a way to pad out the game in the 90s. Back then, when you had no job and only enough money to occasionally buy a new game, you played whatever you had. So if it took you many hours, over several days, to figure out how to progress one room in a point and click, then that's what you did. But these days, as an adult, who has time for that? I hate looking up walkthroughs. I actually found a neat "tip" site that I'm using for The Dig. It gives you small hints, one at a time as you click to reveal them, until it basically has told you flat out how to do something. So it works well if you don't want to follow a walkthrough or outright be told what to do.

It's a huge genre, and even now it continues, though as with anything, it can be a mixed bag. I enjoyed some of what Telltale Games did with properties like The Walking Dead as a way to keep the genre interesting.

I don't think I like the Telltale Games, at least the modern ones. You actually explained it to me when I was sorta baffled by Batman (this thread). To me, it just felt like a cutscene with the occasional quick time event. I wasn't enjoying it at all. Which is a shame because I was digging the art and everything else about the game.

[emwearz]

I love Point and Click adventure games, The Secret of Monkey Island was my first gaming obsession, I use to do most school projects around the theme of Big Whoop or other MI related themes.

I loved The Dig when it came it, it felt really mature for a LucasArts title and.. (END GAME SPOILER)

The choice about bringing a certain character back from death and then having the implications in a later FMV felt really amazing at the time, my dad and I were both playing it through (on our own saves) and we both chose differently, so we both ended up showing each other the FMV if you did/didn't bring her back

Modern releases have been utterly killing it, pretty much everything that Wadjet Eye Games has been attached to, either as the developers or the publishers has just been gold.

On the subject of Sierra titles, they were great earlier on but their design mechanics, if you are use to LA can be overtly brutal, even today the dead man walking scenarios are too frustrating to deal with, even if they did not bother me as a kid. If you are yet to play any of the Kings Quest games, the AGD Interactive remakes are just amazing. They have voice acting (for the actor who portrayed Graham in Kings Quest V, they have the option to remove dead ends, etc) have the engine from Kings Quest V and just play so much better. I could not recommend them more if you wan't to get a taste of Sierra games, without the headache. Purists will tell you dead ends and unwinnable situations are all part of those games charm, but man, the remakes play great.

[opa]

The Dig is really cool. I never got around to beating it though.

Loom is a game I can't recommend enough. It's a really magical experience. Play the EGA version. You don't get voice overs but I think the minimal graphics really enhance the game.

[marurun]

I don't think I have ever actually managed to complete a point-and-click OR text adventure game without a guide. No, that's a lie... Loom and Myst. I beat both of those without more than a couple hints.

[emwearz]

I don't think I have ever actually managed to complete a point-and-click OR text adventure game without a guide. No, that's a lie... Loom and Myst. I beat both of those without more than a couple hints.

I am so strict with myself on this. I think it is because of how it was when I was a kid and my dad and I would be stuck on a puzzle for days and weeks until one of us cracked it. If I use a guide I feel like I am not even really playing anymore, but with some of the moon logic in adventure games I can completely understand that my personal may be a in a minority these days.

[Anapan]

One time I almost beat Deja-Vu on NES, and I enjoyed all of the 2D Sam & Max games. It actually started my interest in comic collecting.

[marurun]

I tried to beat Wishbringer (text adventure) as a kid and I could not do it. It was supposed to be one of the easier text adventures to come out of Infocom, but I just couldn't. Myst I only need a couple of the in-game hints. I was sneaky about taking screen captures and printing them off on my B&W inkjet so I didn't have to draw or remember some things in the game, but that's not cheating, it's just making good use of the available tools. Loom I think I did to legit no-hints. Loom is an amazing adventure game and I think everyone should play it. The story is quite an emotional journey.