In a universe where bagels meet bars, the BAGEL engine has been perfectly toasted, and the ScummVM team is now ready to serve a slice of The Space Bar nostalgia. No, it’s not the key on your keyboard. Rather, it’s a detective story set on a distant planet. Important data has been stolen, and the perpetrator is a shape-shifter laying low in a spaceport dive bar until he can flee off-planet. You play a hard-boiled detective who has the skill to psychically visit bar patrons’ memories to gather clues and narrow down suspects.

This is thanks to the kind people at ZOOM Platform, who provided us with the original game sources to work with. Help us test the game by grabbing a daily build. Read through our testing guidelines. The game features a lot of options to chat around with bar patrons’ and do various actions in the different flashbacks. So we really need people to spend time experimenting and make sure everything works correctly. And please take some screenshots along the way.

If you don’t own The Space Bar, you can try one of the free demos or purchase it digitally from the ZOOM Platform. Testing is also available on Steam via a beta branch, check the Steam announcement for more details.

Now, good luck, and fingers crossed you can find the perp. Otherwise, your bureau chief will have you getting up close and personal with toilet duties for the rest of your career. Oh, and PS: The viewpoints of different aliens differ. For the Bartender, who has segmented eyes, even the original developers felt it was difficult and left in a cheat key of ScrollLock to switch back to a single viewpoint. Feel free to use it if, at any point, the flashback becomes too much for you :)

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15577662

cross-posted from: https://retrolemmy.com/post/6261478

Happy 40th anniversary to the first game in the King's Quest series, one of the first graphical adventure games, and where Sierra really made their name.

This game also kicked off the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) engine, which Sierra used for many games. Wikipedia says: They employed it in 14 of their games between 1984 and 1989, before replacing it with a more sophisticated engine, Sierra's Creative Interpreter. There's no Wikipedia article for the SCI engine, but I know it was used in Phantasmagoria and Shivers, here is the ScummVM wiki page for SCI instead.

Wikipedia Synopsis

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King's Quest: Quest for the Crown is an adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line and published originally for the IBM PCjr in 1984 and later for several other systems between 1984 and 1989. The game was originally titled King's Quest; the subtitle was added to the games box art in the 1987 re-release, but did not appear in the game.

It is the first official part of the long King's Quest series (not counting 1980's Wizard and the Princess), in which a young knight, Sir Graham, must save the Kingdom of Daventry to become the king. Designed by Roberta Williams, the game was revolutionary and highly influential in the evolution of the graphic adventure game genre by introducing more detailed graphics and animation.

An official remake titled King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown was released in 1990. An unofficial remake was released by Tierra Entertainment in 2001.

Videos

Space Quest Historian - King's Quest: A Fair and Balanced Retrospective

Power Pak - King's Quest - The First Adventure

Links

IGDB page

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MobyGames page

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About [email protected]

This is the first post in this brand new community for big milestone anniversaries of retro games (15 years or older, every multiple of 5 years). See our sidebar for more info and resources for making your own posts here.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.mods4ever.com/post/284

I found this cool old website for The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour, and T7G3: The Collector. The author is "Bones the Caretaker". The section of the website for The Collector says "Copyright site-design and written content by Paul van der Meer 2003".

Wait a minute, I know that name! Paul van der Meer is the director of The 7th Guest VR and Project Lead at Vertigo Games!

I don't know how old this website is, but it doesn't exist anymore. Luckily the Wayback Machine captured most of it (missing a bunch of images).

Unfortunately the Wayback Machine is a little slow, so navigating around the house in this way is a bit of a pain, and the split screen isn't sized properly for modern screens.

So I made this tweaked version that can be easily self-hosted or downloaded, and it runs much faster.

Viewable on http://t7g.mods4ever.com/

If you're lazy, the easiest way to see the whole site is to go to the map page and middle click every link. T7G Map and T11H Map

Source code at https://github.com/Die4Ever/bones-7guesthomepage

If you have any improvements to contribute you can make a pull request.

Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20041127023227/http://uk.geocities.com/veluan2002/

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(I am an author of this game. I am not a shill, game is 100% free, there is no premium content, full game is avalaible without paying - this is work of passion and feedback is my main motivation).

"Dominion of Darkness” is a strateg/RPG text game in which the player takes on the role of a Sauron-style Lord of Darkness with the goal of conquering the world. He will carry out his plans by making various decisions. He will build his army and send it into battles, weave intrigues and deceptions, create secret spy networks and sectarian cults, recruit agents and commanders, corrupt representatives of Free Peoples and sow discord among them, collect magical artifacts and perform sinister plots. Note – one game takes about 1 hour, but the premise is that the game can be approached several times, each time making different decisions, getting different results and discovering something new.

Game is avalaible for free, online: https://adeptus7.itch.io/dominion

I am constantly improving the game, adding new content and mechanics, so Your feedback would matter.

If you are hesitant to play the game, I invite you to watch/listen to the reviews:

Indie Sampler (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM6f4UCEgWU

[BOKC] BlancoKix (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNpSKToOSg

And here is the source code: https://www.mediafire.com/file/vvnouok03mop8n7/Dominion_of_Darkness_1.7.html/file

I did a short guest spot in this @AGH video about "OH HELL NO" moments in #adventuregames. My pick might surprise you because it's from a game I actually love and adore... Gabriel Knight 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF4LhnnFhXo

Also features my AGH Network friends OneShortEye, @PhantomFellows, and Adventure Game Geek.

cc @adventure @adventuregames

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.smeargle.fans/post/148884

> HN Discussion

Source: https://www.scummvm.org/news/20240407/

Apr 7, 2024: When facing the Curse of the Sun God, sunscreen won't save you

Posted by gu3

Total Eclipse, a real-time, curse-breaking, 3D adventure (with a dash of Indiana Jones flair), is ready for public testing!

Originally unleashed by Incentive Software Ltd. in 1988, Total Eclipse added yet another groundbreaking title to their repertoire of revolutionary games.

Step into the shoes of a heroic archeologist on October 26, 1930, as a total solar eclipse akin to the one happening today over North America looms over Cairo. Knowing of the Ardognus prophecy, created by the powerful high priest Hahmid III, you must find and destroy the hidden shrine devoted to Ra before the eclipse occurs.

Embark on this exciting journey packed with a trusty gun for blasting through doors or dispatching undead mummies; a compass to guide you through a treacherous pyramid; a wristwatch to track the precious time left; and a water bottle to fight dehydration (you’re only human after all).

Can you solve this ancient mystery within 120 minutes and avert catastrophe, or will Rah's wrath obliterate the moon?

Our modern reimplementation of the Freescape engine features graphics using hardware mode (OpenGL) at arbitrary resolution. The initial Total Eclipse support includes DOS (EGA/CGA modes), ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC. More releases are coming at a later date. Additionally, there are three playable demos if you want to test the game. Please contact us if you have some other release or demo.

To play any of these supported releases, you will need a daily development build. As always, please submit your bug reports to our issue tracker.

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> Oh MMy — a new ScummVM release! > > Please welcome the first ScummVM release of the year: ScummVM 2.8.1. > > ScummVM 2.8.1 is a maintenance release mainly focused on fixing bugs that were uncovered since our last stable release. > > This update includes upgrades for the following engines: AGI, AGS, GRIM, SWORD2, MM (which is now enabled — yes, we really skipped it in 2.8.0 by accident), mTropolis, NANCY, SCUMM, TWINE, Ultima, and V-Cruise. > > The Android, Atari and macOS ports received multiple bug fixes, mostly for improving overall stability and preventing some crashes we’ve seen under certain circumstances. > > The detailed list of improvements is available here. > > As always, you can find the latest release on our Downloads page. > > Go grab it while it's hot — enjoy!

https://networkscience.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/game-dependency-graph-the-secret-of-monkey-island/

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/23125646

> Just figured I’d share. Regardless of if you’re a big monkey island fan or not (and you should be, in my biased opinion) you’ve almost definitely played games made by people inspired by it. Good video!

Lets Do the Time Warp Again, Or Burger Chow Awaits!

The ScummVM Team is pleased to announce full support for Orion Burger, the classic game by Sanctuary Woods.

The engine also adds a few niceties that the original didn't have, such as mouse wheel handling.

Now, luck be with you. And remember, with the aliens cheating on the tests they set up for you, this will be no easy task.

https://www.scummvm.org/news/20240113/

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now officially available on the iOS app store https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scummvm/id6446184412

I've been playing some of the more recent adventure games and feel like the quality of the puzzles has gone down. It often seems a bit like use multitool on object to solve every puzzle. Equally, I can think many older games where the puzzle was so illogical it broke the gameplay and felt jarring to me.

So what makes a good puzzle? What are you most satisfying puzzles ever? What about your least favourite?

For the unfamiliar, IFComp is the biggest event in the IF community, with usually 50+ entrants each year. The link is to all the games—which are, of course, free. Consider becoming a judge or donating to the prize pool!

For the familiar—what are your favourites this year? Which game do you think will win?

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/4153346

> > The 10 year anniversary of the channel was marked by a stream of a full motion video game with quite possibly the horniest main character ever. And it's not a fun kind of horny, it's an angry kind of horny. Well, let's enjoy(?) this '90s sexual psychodrama full of '90s ideas about sex and power. > > > > Twitch archive with chat: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/319776185 > > some NSFW dialog and text, but I think all the actual nudity was censored here, at least in the Youtube video

brilliant intro cinematic

@adventuregames Test posting from Mastodon. Please ignore this. I'm new to this and vulnerable, like a faun in the woods... but tough, like a faun with a machine gun!

My band Error 47 sat down with two legends — Graeme Devine and George Sanger — and chatted for an hour about the music of these iconic CD-ROM games. Lots of cool nuggets in here, including how Trilobyte took a massive chance in supporting General MIDI, and how we might not have gotten Nine Inch Nails' beloved Quake soundtrack if it hadn't been for Graeme's programming wizardry.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3710782

> Broken Sword Parzival’s Stone will be the first new entry for the iconic point-and-click adventure games in a decade, and it’ll be preceded by the arrival of a 4K reinvention of the beloved first game in the series. Alongside the new Broken Sword Parzival’s Stone, Broken Sword Shadow of the Templars Reforged is set to arrive in early 2024, and developer Revolution Software says it’s aimed to be a perfect introduction for newcomers and a nostalgia trip for long-time fans alike.

Credit to my fiance with a special interest in evolutionary biology and the history of human domestication of other species (and who is also currently HIGH AS HELL).

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/980903

https://www.scummvm.org/demos/

also https://www.scummvm.org/demos/director

use ScummVM itself to play them or the full games if you own them https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/

reboot of (Twinsen's) Little Big Adventure, team will focus on the remastering of both classic games

developer update

@[email protected]

\#TLBA \#TLBAremastered \#littlebigadventure

GOBLiiiNS5 - The Invasion of the Morglotons Point'nClick adventure game in 2d. French and english version. 16 great levels full of puzzles, characters and humor.

OP's comment: one of my old faves, hope it holds up to the originals!

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/784516

> This legendary article used to be on Gamespot > > https://web.archive.org/web/20070106183628/http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg-tri/index.html

Need a screwdriver? Better hope there's one lying under a brick in a back alley somewhere!

I know that simply buying every solution you need would make for a terribly silly game, and I can pretty easily ignore how little sense that makes while playing, sure. This isn't a complaint, exactly. Just something that went through my head earlier.

ScummVM dev Sluicebox just blew the doors to the Sierra kingdom wide open. He wrote a decompiler that annotates the decompiled scripts flawlessly so there's no more guesswork as to "uh, I wonder what 'global34' does."

A real game-changer for code-spelunkers!

Check the attached video from OneShortEye for a brief explanation, or go straight to the source: https://www.benshoof.org/blog/sci-scripts

The Steam Summer Sale is on and there's plenty of threads asking for great deals and hidden gems. So let's jump on that bandwagon! Anybody spotted any good deals on adventure games in the Steam sale?

Here's a few cheap and good experiences I spotted:

Broken Age: $3.74

Sam and Max Hit the Road: $2.09

Space Quest Collection: $6.59

The 7th Guest 25th Anniversary Edition: $7.49

What's your favorite interface in adventure games? Doesn't necessarily have to be the most perfect or easy to use; just the one that you're the most partial to.

Off the top of my head, a couple of low-hanging fruit suggestions (feel free to add more):

• LucasArts "9 verb" interface (Monkey Island 2, Day of the Tentacle, etc.)
• LucasArts "verb coin" (Monkey Island 3, Full Throttle)
• Sierra "icon bar" (King's Quest V, Space Quest IV, etc.)
• Revolution "Left does/right looks" mouse buttons (Beneath a Steel Sky, Broken Sword, as well most Wadjet Eye titles)

Mine is actually the one in Leisure Suit Larry 7. You click on something and up comes a contextual menu of appropriate verbs. If it's a door, you can "open" it; if it's a button, you can "press" it; etc. — and it also has an optional text parser for inputting your own verb.

I was nudged towards looking into Matrix, the fedi-alternative to Discord, to see if I should set up a chat space for adventure game fans... and it turns out I didn't have to. One already exists!

Now, I don't know who set it up to begin with, and it's pretty much crickets in there at the moment, but maybe we could change that? I'm in there, FWIW.

Edit: Link here, because the preview link on this post looks like a turd sandwich: https://matrix.to/#/#adventuregames:matrix.org

Edit 2: If you're intrigued but have no idea wtf Matrix is or how it works, get the Element client. There's an Android app for it, too. https://element.io/

Edit: It's solved! I'M BACK! Original post follows for posterity:

I'm sorry for not having kept up with this place in a few days. I've been trying to leave comments on people's replies and posts but my Lemmy app keeps giving me error messages ("language_not_allowed") — and, no, I'm not swearing my head off. 😅 I think it's a borked language setting.

I'll look into finding a better solution.

Has anyone read this? It exclusively covers text games, but goes a lot into the development of graphics in parallel, including when Infocom was a major competitor in the adventure gaming marketing.

I got an advance copy from Aaron to review and was expecting it to be a fluffy/coffee table book, but it turned out to be really good. My reaction is here.

Curious what other people's thoughts are.

Ross goes on vacation in Kyrandia.

If you are not familiar with this guy, he makes opinionated longform videos about bygone/obscure games and analyzes pointless minutiae in a humorous manner. Videos take months to years to come out.

Mine is hands down the green alien fart cloud in The Pandora Directive. For three simple reasons:

1. I don't like being chased.
2. I don't like being on a timer.
3. It scares the crap out of me to this day.

I usually panic to the point where I forget everything I need to do, despite having played the game a million times, and I spam the everloving hell out of the hint system.

Runner-up, also from the Tex Murphy series: the GRS "eyeball droid" in Under a Killing Moon. For some reason Access just felt compelled to put one pants-crapping sequence into each of these games...

Yes this is outside the scope of "Adventure" and "Point-and-Click" games, not really sure if the Narrative genre would be something different from visual novel.

I played two games by NeiLei on itch.io that were a little over an hour long each. Funny and the art was nice. Most of the games were watching the dialog, there was very limited player input but it was there.

Any suggestions for similar games that are 99% story, with different endings?

There's a lot of great commercial adventure games being made today but with so many free games coming from the community, I thought it would be fun to have a place to give shoutouts to those.

I will start with Elsewhere in the Night. I'm a fan of the people involved with this one and the Manhunter-inspired artwork is really cool

What's that one adventure game you can just boot up and have a great chill time with? Mine would probably be Day of the Tentacle. It's such a wonderful, colorful world to inhabit, and all the characters are lively and oozing with personality (no Sludge-o-Matic pun intended). I could spend hours just walking around talking to characters and not even think about solving any puzzles.

What's the one game you'd boot up to just relax with?