New game: "Loco Motive"!

New game!

I've started playing Loco Motive by Robust Games and I'm 1 hour into it! This made Adventure Game of the Year for Adventure Game Hotspot and also won the AGOTY Award for best adventure game of 2024. So, it has a lot to live up to! And indeed, it doesn't take long to see the quality behind this title.

Speech! Speech! Speech!

Lady Unterwald, wealthy owner of the Orient... I mean Reuss Express, has a big announcement to make concerning her last will and testament. At the moment of her speech, with all of her associates and family gathered together, the train goes through a tunnel, all lights go out, and when power is restored the Lady lies sprawling in her own blood, a knife deeply embedded in her back.

'Tis him, Herman Merman!

Luckily - or perhaps not - famous detective Herman Merman is on board as well and he already figured out how to find the killer. Just look at the will: the one who benefits most from the Lady's death is the culprit. Sadly enough, lawyer Arthur A. Ackerman - who you play as, actually - lost the will. I tried not to lose it. I swear. I saw what was about to happen and I tried very much to prevent it, but the game just wouldn't let me. So yeah, the will is gone, Herman Merman gave up the investigation and went in hiding for fear of his own life somewhere on Snowpie- I mean the Reuss Express, so it's now left to me to figure out who did it.

I'd love a train voyage with rooms like this...

Loco Motive is a classic style point 'n click adventure. It has great pixel art, beautiful close-ups occasionally, fantastisch music, a brilliant voice cast, and every screen bobs up and down and sideways slightly to simulate the movement of the Darjee- I mean Reuss Express. There's lots to look at, inventory items to collect, many characters to talk to and of course loads of puzzles to solve! I'm not far into it the story yet, but it's already obvious why so many people loved this game. 

Is this like the Fate of Atlantis path choice?

With a clear goal ahead of me, I can't help but examine everything and talk to everyone in every carriage I have to pass through. While I might wish for a fast travel map to change carriages quickly, I'm actually glad they didn't add that feature, since there's so much detail in this train. I did notice that talking to the barman might be some kind of in-game hint system, so I stopped doing that. And there were a couple of twins asking me for my preference to tunnels or bridges, which felt like some kind of difficulty level choice.

Now let's go solve this cheeky murder!

You can find Loco Motive on Steam and on GOG.

"Wildwood Down", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "Wildwood Down’s hero Daniel is such a kind and endearing character, so concerned for his sister and friends that he always wants to do the right thing, though he’s not afraid to bend the rules once in a while when necessary. After all, sometimes the end justifies the means! This leads to some great adventure puzzling and (skippable) mini-games as you try to hunt down the serial killer menacing the boardwalk. While its choice of graphical design might not be to everyone’s taste, the many other fun elements of Daniel’s amusing adventure more than makes up for that. Everyone who wants to get down with this wildly comedic thriller will be wonderfully surprised at every turn."

I've finished "Heart of China" in 4,5 hours!

Mission accomplished!

Taking a very big chance and overwriting earlier save files, I continued playing Heart of China after I ran out of save files during my previous run. The Kathmandu level was quite tricky, because Jake Masters isn't exactly a people person. He keeps insulting people no matter which dialogue option you choose, so it takes a lot of restoring there to figure out which option does the least damage.

Istanbul's city gate doesn't look that impressive...

We finally ended up in Istanbul, which looked a lot more rustic than I imagined it would have looked in the 1930s. I think they got their centuries mixed up... Anyways, the moment I set foot in the city, Jake gets arrested for a previous transgression, and I'm suddenly playing as Kate.

Cleaned him out quite fast...

Devising a plan to free Jake costs money, so I have to play a couple of rounds of a shell game to gather the necessary funds. Bought some red herring items in the pawn shop, then had to restore because an item I needed couldn't be bought and earlier I had already accidentally ruined my chances to get it.

This ain't Prince of Persia...

With Jake freed we escaped on the Orient Express. Thankfully I saved right before boarding, because turns out the next dialogue-heavy scene between Jake and Kate defines which ending you get. And yes, I had to restore here to get a good ending... But not before playing another arcade sequence, swordfighting on top of the train and getting knocked off over and over. I admit, I looked up a strategy for this, because I didn't want to just skip it.

Heart of China turned out not so bad as Willy Beamish with its game-overs and dead-ends. The puzzles aren't that hard, if you can figure out the right things to say to people. There's just a lot of trial and error involved, and the twenty save slots the game has just aren't enough for that. I did like the story very much, there's this pulp adventure, swashbuckling style to it that appealed to me more than Dynamix's Rise of the Dragon. A remake of this game without any dead ends would be cool, but then you wouldn't have those charming graphic style with the actors anymore. And yes, that means I think I developed a little crush on Kimberly Greenwood playing Kate Lomax...

My next classic playthrough will be Laura Bow and the Dagger of Amon Ra, but first I want to finally play Loco Motive, since there's a good chance I might meet Adam Riches at AdventureX in November...

You can buy Heart of China on GOG.

I'm 2,5 hours into "Heart of China" and I ran out of save files...

The place sure has changed since I came here with Zak McKracken...

I'm 2,5 hours into Heart of China. I finally got through the Chendung chapter alive and well, and reached Kathmandu. Only problem is that I ran out of save files, so now I always have to overwrite them. This adds a little anxiety, because I can imagine having to go back further in time if I happened to miss something vital. So let's hope that won't be necessary!

Drowning is only one of many death scenes...

Getting into the palace of Li Deng was quite tricky, but I blame the user interface. It had been a while since my first session, so I had forgotten you had to DRAG items into your inventory instead of simply clicking on them. It's a 90s game, after all, and we were still far from a one-click interface. Anyway, this led to me drowning in the sewers a couple of times -- yak! I mean, yuck!

Already vanquished a guard dog, now there are guard SNAKES?!

Puzzling through the palace itself was quite intuitive. Still had to reload a couple of times, but I finally located Kate Lomax, surrounded by killer cobra's! I didn't have much time to think of a way to free her, since the guards always show up after some time. I was able to buy myself a LITTLE extra time, but every time I tried to use my gun on the snakes, it didn't work. Once again, an interface issue: turns out I first have to equip the gun by dragging it onto Jake's picture in the inventory, then I had to hold the right mouse button to get some crosshairs so I could shoot with the left button. Thank Buddah this game came with a digital copy of the manual...

What a magnificent polygon plane!

Not long after I needed the manual again, to figure out the tank controls. Yes, I had to escape the palace driving a tank! It's a skippable arcade sequence, but I wanted to do it for myself. Lost quite some time getting blown up by other tanks, flipping myself over or driving straight into a river, until I finally succeeded in reaching my plane and leave for Nepal.

Kate's not looking too good...

Why Nepal and not back to Hong Kong, you may ask? Well, one of those snakes still managed to bite Kate, and Chi said the only cure can be found in Kathmandu. So once the plane was on the ground I had to reload a couple of times figuring out whether Jake or Chi should go look for help. All three of us froze to death repeatedly, until I figured out Chi had a right-click function as well... So now we're in Kathmandu, with several new locations to visit and several people to talk to. Let's try to get home now!

You can buy Heart of China on GOG.

Classic time: "Heart of China"

New game!

I've started playing Heart of China and I'm one hour into it! This is my first time playing this game, which was developed by Dynamix and released by Sierra On-Line in 1991. I got into adventure games a year later, I think, and even though I often saw this title, I never got around to it. I did play two other adventure games by this company, Rise of the Dragon and Willy Beamish. So I knew I had to be in a good mindset to play this one: save often!

Cool, real actors...

Nurse Kate Lomax is kidnapped in the Chinese province of Shendung. Her father hires me, "Lucky" Jake Masters, to go rescue her. Of course, if adventure games have taught me anything, it's not to dash in unprepared. So for the first hour of the game I'm in Hong Kong where I had to convince this guy named Chi - a ninja - to accompany me, and to gather some necessary inventory items.

My Cadillac of the skies...

Heart of China has beautiful graphics and the characters are stills of real actors - or, well, friends and family of the developers. The backgrounds have little animations. The puzzles are mainly of the dialogue variety (so far), so I saved and restored until I found the optimal configuration of the available options; took me quite a bit of trying.

Ho's Bar. I kid you not...

The user interface takes some getting used to. There are no hotspot labels; your cursor changes into an arrow when you can pick something up, or a dialogue balloon when you can talk to someone. You can right click wherever you want to get a description. Clicking on Jake's picture in the bottom right corner opens up the inventory. You have to drag the items to use them. But you also have to drag them back into your inventory, otherwise you drop them on the ground wherever you are.

The streets of Hong Kong...

So together with Chi, I managed to leave the airport and land near Li Deng's castle where he is supposedly holding nurse Kate. It was interesting to see that, when Chi joined me, I could switch between the two characters, each with his own inventory. I already solved one puzzle this way and I'm sure there are more to come... 

You can buy Heart of China on GOG.

"Quantum Witch", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "Like most narrative adventures, this game features freedom of choice as its most important aspect, though I loved the fun retro art and catchy music as well, and totally appreciated the main character standing up to religious doctrine (if I wanted). A lot of supernatural – or quantum-sciencey – things happen in the story that I didn’t really understand, possibly because I didn’t see all possible scenes. But I went with the flow, laughed at the jokes, and tried to give Ren the best ending I could. And then the worst. And then something in between. The game might still hold more secrets for me, but I’m totally fine to leave the rest for completionists. It’s definitely worth playing, though, and playing more than once, as it’s a challenge to unlock the various alternative versions of the story, and often a joy to experiment. Go in with the right expectations and you’re sure to be charmed by Quantum Witch."

I finished "Life is Strange: True Colors" in 11 hours!

Joy to the world!

What an amazing game! Without a doubt my favorite of all Life is Strange games. Then again, I've probably say that of every LiS game I've played ;)

So, after last time, Alex discovered that not all emotions she can read are bad. Joy has the power to change the world around her. This led to some great scenes. I really enjoyed the LARPing in chapter four, with everybody in town helping young boy Ethan have the time of his life. This was such a fun with all the battles and finding scrolls, but also touching sequence. It's something I would love to do in real life.

FIGHT!

Other than that I tried very much to woo Steph during the Spring Festival. I know the game lets you choose between Steph and Ryan as the main romantic interest, and for some reason Steph made more sense to me. Ryan's a good guy, but he just didn't have the spark for me.

Bewitching...

Chapter five was both awesome but also a bit underwhelming. There wasn't really much gameplay there, simply going through some flashback scenes and then the final showdown, where all the little sidequests with the other characters paid off (still missed getting one right, it seemed...) And then the final decision on what the future would bring for Alex.
 

No guitar playing mini-game? Aw shucks...

I decided to stay in Haven, and Steph decided to stay with me. I hope that the vision of the future Alex received will become true. This was a great pay-off of a great game with amazing visuals, endearing characters, awesome music (even some licensed songs like Kings of Leon and Dido) and of course the fun gameplay the Life is Strange games are known for. Great to play a narrative game like this after a game filled with inventory puzzles.

Life is Strange: Double Feature is next in this series, but for my following playthrough I will be going back to the classics with Heart of China!