New game: "Shadows of the Afterland"!

New game!

Here's one I've been looking forward to for a while now! Shadows of the Afterland by Aruma Studios is a perfect fit for everyone who loves classic style pixel art point 'n click adventure games. After their previous title, Intruder in Antiquonia, I was hoping for something with a bit more meat on its bones. Well... It's still kinda missing that, since it's a game about ghosts... But anyway, you know what I mean!

Oh, the bureaucracy...

The premise is a bit difficult to explain... You play as Carolina, a detective from the year 1988, who is somehow transported into the astral body of a maid named Pilar, who for some unknown reason was pulled out of her body in 1960 and watched her rogue vessel get struck by lightning and fall into the polar bear pit at the Madrid zoo. Carolina, in the shape of Pilar's ghost, is now stuck in the afterlife, and it's your job to figure out what exactly happened to her. It's a very strange mystery and I'm really curious how they will explain it all.

That's definitely a book I would read!

The game is fully voiced, with the lovely Ivy Dupler as the main lead Carolina, but the entire cast performs with high quality. The pixel art graphics are slightly cartoonish but not over the top silly. It employs a one-click interface, with an inventory at the bottom of the screen. There are inventory puzzles and you'll have to talk to other characters to figure things out. You can save manually, but there's also an autosave on exit, which is very handy (but I'm old school so I still save manually, anyway...)

This guy is Afterlife-Stan...

So after having played for an hour, I can say I'm enjoying myself. So far it's not too difficult, I'm also not overloaded with inventory items. There are loads of locations and characters already, but there's also an overview map that's hardly been filled so I expect there's a lot more to come. The objectives are very clear, and it's also helpful that Carolina will say so if you don't really have to talk to a certain character anymore (and it's also helpful that she will automatically say the last available dialogue option or quit a conversation).

This guy should be able to help me; if I can convince him!

My primary goal at the moment is convincing a former "spectral agent" to help me get back to the world of the living so I can start investigating my own death. There are a couple of steps I still need to take for that, so let's dive right back into this realm of the dead!

You can find Shadows of the Afterland on Steam and on itch.io.

New game: "TR-49"

New game!

A totally new gaming experience in the deduction sub-genre, TR-49 is Inkle Studio's lastest mysterious puzzler. I'll only be posting once about this title, because, well, the entire game pretty much looks the same throughout, and truthfully it's not a traditional adventure game at all. It's more of a narrative puzzle game. This is the first game by Inkle Studios I've actually finished, after giving up on Overboard! after two hours of trying to get a good ending; and I haven't dared touch another one of their games since.

The machine...

I'm Abbi, and I wake up in a basement in front of a strange machine. Turns out it contains a database of books, authored by a group of people and commented on by a handful of others who at one time controlled this database like a type of librarians, you might say. Each book has a four digit code: two letters followed by two numbers. I'm suddenly contacted by a guy named Liam, who wants me to locate one particular book in this database and destroy it for reasons you will have to find out on your own if you decide to play it. To find this book, I need to dig my way through the maze of entries and correctly identify 50 books by matching the titles with their codes.

Searching through the database...

There's a lot of clicking and reading involved. Sometimes the job is easy, sometimes you have to do some deduction. There are many references to other books and to important dates, and often you have to resort to some basic math to figure things out. Thankfully Abbi keeps track of everything in a notebook with lists, which is very handy if you get lost for a bit. But there's also lots to hear. Abbi and Liam are almost in constant conversation. I don't think you really have to listen to everything, because you have to acknowledge one hailing the other by clicking on the blinking sender/receiver, and only then do they start or continue talking to each other.

Flipping through the notes...

I must admit I was scared to play this game, because I assumed it would be very difficult. And it is, but still quite manageable. In order not to lose my marbles, though, I limited myself to identifying 10 books at a time, which usually took a playing session of roughly one hour to 90 minutes. After 4 hours of playing time and 33 books out of 50 identified, I got the feeling this game would take me many more hours to get a grip on those last ten titles, since it was starting to get harder and harder to make progress. I wanted to move on, perhaps keep TR-49 as a puzzle to return to in between other games.

Got 'm all!

But suddenly, I started to make more connections and discovered new leads. I was suddenly able to raise my total to 40 books, then 43, then suddenly 47, went to 48 almost by accident you might say, and with only two books left - one I needed a code for, another I needed the title of - I dug into all the additional log notes. And yes, there was the final title! But that final code, that took a while longer. Then in a leap of logic, I might say, I happened to find that last code, and after almost 7,5 hours of puzzling I was finally able to go ahead and erase the book Liam told me about. And what happened next, well, that's history...

I'll NEVER be too old for fairy tales!

TR-49 definitely isn't for everyone. It's certainly no classic point 'n click adventure game. It's a narrative, mouse-controlled puzzle game that offers quite the challenge and has a very intricate storyline I must admit haven't completely figured out yet. There's an expansive lore behind this game and I would very much like to talk to Jon Ingold about it all now. Who knows, perhaps at the next AdventureX?

Before taking on another classic game from the 90s, my next blog will be about a new release as well, but a more classic style point 'n click adventure game about ghosts and possessing people that I'm sure will appeal to more people...

You can find TR-49 on Steam.

A tricky finale on "Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls"!

A puzzle for those paying attention...

After visiting all the islands in Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls, I found my way to Fort Blackhand. Getting inside was quite easy, because it was the exact same scenario as the VR training session back at the university. Once inside, though, I faced a tricky puzzle where I had to open up three consecutive gates, but there were only two people to lift them up. I had a feeling the clue was the obvoius painting hanging on the wall, but it took me a while to figure it out. Once again, in hindsight, brilliant.

Voldem- I mean evil stepdad vanquished!

Then I found myself face to face with my nemesis, the guy who stole the Sorcerer's Appliance and all its accessories on the islands, none other than the guy who had locked me up at the start of the game! I already knew he had a peculiar interest in my nextdoor neighbor Lola, but that he'd go this far... This finale took many reloads, because even though I had an idea what to do, suddenly I only had limited time to do it, and I just couldn't figure out how to go about it in only three moves. Here again, the answer turned out quite logical if you paid attention, and after slightly more than ten hours of total game time, everything turned out okay in the end!

And the House Cup goes to...

I must say, this game was a weird combination of absolute fun and total frustration, with loads of saved games and lots of restores. But it has many hilarious situations, and a narrator that constantly breaks the fourth wall. This is quite the adventure game legacy, and I wonder what its sequels will be like.

But first it's back to some newer games! First one I'll only write one blog post about, a non-traditional game about a code machine and a book catalogue, more of a narrative puzzle game than a true adventure. After that it's on to a more extensive one, a more classic adventure game about ghosts and possessing people.

You can find the Spellcasting games on Steam and on GOG!

Island hopping in "Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls"

Life of Ernie...

After escaping from home and spending time at Sorcerer University, Ernie Eaglebeak was the only person left to chase after the thieves of the Sorcerer's Appliance, an object of great magic power. The magical surfboard I swiped from my professor's office wasn't able to take me just anywhere on the map; it could only cover that much distance. So I set course to the nearest island.

A severe game of "Who Is It?"

After I reached the Island of Lost Soles, my next objective was very clear, though I didn't quite know what it would get me exactly. Eighty people had been turned into objects, and only by figuring out their names could I cast a spell on them and change them back. Each name had something to do with the object they had been turned into. This was like solving a huge crossword puzzle in the style of Return to the Obra Dinn and The Roottrees Are Dead. It was quite fun to do, though there were lots of names I had never heard of. Thankfully, once in a while a nymph would come flying by, asking whether I'd seen this or that person. That usually gave a new name to try out all over the place, and in hindsight, I usually saw why it was chosen.

I prefer the women of Themyscira...

Solving this puzzle finally got me a key, but to what I knew not. So with nothing left to do, it was on to the next island. This one was perhaps even more schizo, but frankly easier to solve. Time went backwards here, and instead of typing in commands on what Ernie should do, I had to type commands of what the descriptions told me Ernie had just done. Otherwise the space-time continuüm would rip him apart. That still happened quite often, though... I also learned that saving your game here wasn't that handy. Once I returned, I only got a description of the room I was in, and no longer of what had happened just before. So I had no idea which command I was supposed to type, since I couldn't remember the circumstances...

"You know what I'd really like? A cheeseburger."

But eventually I found my way out, and started to realize that all these places have pedestals that once housed accessories to the Sorcerer's Appliance. They had all been stolen, it seemed! But all these places also had a new spell to offer, so I realized I was beefing up for some final showdown, no doubt. I visited some other places on the map, like an island full of warrior women wanting to do some special "training" with Ernie (so I had to dress up as a woman to escape; and I didn't get a spell on this island, by the way, so I hope I didn't miss it and am now en route towards a dead end!), a busy restaurant where a shark first ate my spellbox (but then I ate the shark...) and the Island of the Gods, where I had to clean up a garbage dump for some reason.

I think I blasted away his cousin in "The Dig"...

During my 9,5 hour (so far!) journey I learned that the thief apparently went to Fort Blackwand, so that will probably be my final destination. Before I could set foot on land, however, a leviathan showed up blocking the way. Now, how to get rid of this fella...

You can find the Spellcasting games on Steam and on GOG!

"The Dark Rites of Arkham", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "As much as I love books, there’s almost no need to read the original Lovecraft stories when there are amazing developers like Postmodern Adventures creating such well-crafted interactive stories based on them. The gorgeous pixel art here brings both the city and its residents to life, and even without voice acting, the writing pulls you forward along its fairly linear tracks, tapping your foot to the raspy tones of the jazzy soundtrack as you go. With plenty of locations to explore, characters to question, and items to find and puzzle around with, The Dark Rites of Arkham is a very traditional yet utterly enjoyable point-and-click adventure that proves there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. As long as the ride takes us to the darkest reaches of our world and beyond, I’ll gladly spend eight hours of my life on grisly creations like this one!"

"Rue Valley", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "Despite some rough edges and shortcuts in terms of technical production, and a disappointing ending that leaves much to be desired, I enjoyed playing through this forty-seven minute time loop over and over again, partly because it very much guides you along the necessary path. Of course there’s repetition, but it’s not frustrating repetition, where you have to do the same tasks over and over again, just a tad differently to get a slightly alternate outcome as I have often experienced in similar games. Here you’re not aiming for that perfect run, you’re looking for all the pieces of the story puzzle, and when it comes to that, Rue Valley’s gaming experience and stylish presentation definitely succeed."

Classic playthrough: "Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls"

New game!

I've never played a game by Legend Entertainment before. I didn't even know this company existed until I read about it in The Guide To Classic Graphic Adventures. It's part of why I started doing classic playthroughs for this blog; I definitely wanted to finally fill that gap in my knowledge. And so that particular personal quest starts with Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls. A game that probably wouldn't see the light of day in our current times. I mean, just look at that cover; this is Porky's or Revenge of the Nerds except with magic. We're definitely not in that 80s frame of mind anymore...

Such an overwhelming UI...

I'm Ernie Eaglebeak. Suffering a violent stepfather, it's my intention to enroll into Sorcerer University, learn some cool spells, whoop his ass, and finally win the heart of my nextdoor girl of my dreams, Lola Tigerbelly. And perhaps those of several others as well, since I'm basically a horny teenager, it seems. The game starts with me locked up in a room, and I need to escape. After some time has passed, a buddy of my stepdad shows up and carries me off to work for him. Game over. 

Finally arrived at Sorcerers University!

This game is a melange of user interfaces. It's a text adventure, but it does have graphics as well, even with some small animations now and then. It's not only a text parser game, because it also supports a point 'n click interface where you can choose the necessary verbs and hotspots from on-screen lists with your mouse. But it's pretty overwhelming, because there are over one hundred different verbs to choose from, and the hotspot list not only includes everything there is to see in a particular location, but also your entire inventory. I often forgot whether I was already carrying an object with me or not.

This university is huge and I have no idea what to do!

It took me a whole hour to finally escape not only my room but also my street - where stepdad's buddy would still grab me - and reach chapter two where I suddenly find myself at the Sorcerer University. I had to restore and even restart several times because that guy kept showing up and dragging me with him. Apparently there's an in-game clock with fixed events at set times, and every action you perform takes five minutes. So my strategy is basically just exploring, trying out stuff, restoring when necessary, until I've figured out what it is I'm supposed to do and then go back to the start of the chapter for  a quick and efficient playthrough.  

The plot has thickened!

It took me another two and a half hours to figure out what I'm supposed to do at that university, since the place is huge and there's lots to see and do. I found a kind of magic-VR-room to practice spells, located some frat houses and brought a girl back to my room (to keep her safe from the other boys, I promise!), had to deal with a professor's wife coming on to me (what is it with the women in this game...) and discovered a maze which actually wasn't that hard to navigate for a change. Then suddenly the university is attacked, a very special magical object stolen, and I find myself all alone. With a modified surfboard in hand I'm supposed to travel elsewhere, I guess, but I haven't figured out yet where. I had a feeling this was going to be a difficult game, but it still blows the mind...

You can find the Spellcasting games on Steam and on GOG!