Classic playthrough: "Les Manley in: Lost in L.A."

"New" game!

After the disaster that was Les Manley in: Search for the King, my sadomasochistic side played up again and enticed me to boot up its sequel, Les Manley in: Lost in L.A. Now, considering the current climes, the only way you could find me lost in L.A. is indeed in computer game form. But the change from a text parser to a true point 'n click interface did fill me with a little bit of hope; though I also heard mention that this sequel makes the first game appear like LeChuck's Revenge...

Ooh, inventory...

The story so far: Helmut Bean, tiniest man in the world who helped me retrieve something from a pool drain in the first game, is now living the L.A. dream with actress LaFonda Turner, only to find himself kidnapped like so many other celebrities seem to be these days. After he called me, Les Manley, to come and visit him, he's nowhere to be found. The quest to find him naturally falls to me, then.

No way to get lost with such a detailed map...

So for about an hour I've been traipsing all over L.A., talking to some people, acquiring a handful of inventory items, like a fake celebrity selfie, a spare travel map for some reason, an elastic piece of pigeon poo (!) and a free pass for a mud wrestling club. The logical places to visit won't let me in yet. So these obstacles still need to be vanquished, though I have no idea what exactly that will lead to. But some items come without a clear goal of where to go and what to do with them exactly. Which is classic adventure game fare, of course...  

Yes, be your own game and stop referencing the clichés...

I guess there's nothing else to do for now than revisit all locations and see if there's something else I can do there. So far I'm quite appreciative of the smart-cursor interface, the graphics style and, well, the typical 90s style adventure game music. I have a feeling this game is also more forgiving than its predecessor, though it's still early days and I might regret having said that that in my next blog post...

You can find Les Manley in: Lost in L.A. on Steam and on GOG!

Earth Must Die! - my Nice Game Hints review!

Read my full review on Nice Game Hints!

Excerpt: "Earth Must Die! is pure escapism. Developer Size Five Games - probably best known for the Ben and Dan point ‘n clicks and the Lair of the Clockwork God adventure platformer - makes us forget all the problems of the real world by having some silly, foul-mouthed fun with gratuitous deaths and sexual references. And even saying that, I’m sure it’s still too vanilla for some."

A rather fast conclusion to "Shadows of the Afterland"...

And that's how we got our multicultural society here...

When playing Shadows of the Afterland last time, I left Carolina in a sticky situation. Having saved the game, I was ready to investigate and figure my way out of it. But when I reloaded and watched the recap of my previous playing session, I thought the game glitched and the recap kept showing, no longer past conversations, but future ones as well! Trapped by the villain, I expected a good puzzle but instead the game kept going from cutscene to cutscene. The recap wasn't glitched, because I loaded an older saved game to test it and the conversations kept coming this time as well. I didn't even have to switch Afterlife locations manually anymore.

The travel map.

Finally I was given control again and I could do a couple of actions, but they didn't amount to much. Half an hour after reloading, I finished the game, bringing my total playing time to just under five hours. It was only partly a satisfying ending, since I was expecting more answers to the mysteries. I was left with the same questions I had at the start of the game. 

This woman looks at least 20 years older than she says she is!

I did discover another handy feature besides the recap system the devs added to Shadows of the Afterland: saving during conversations, and even during cutscenes! You simply pause the game in the middle of talking, click on the menu icon and save! Oh, how long have I wished for this to be implemented! The conversations here aren't that long, but there are games where they can stretch out for a long time and sometimes, when you have to go, you don't have the time to sit through all that, and in many games quitting a conversation early doesn't always guarantee you can continue the conversation later on.
 

Portal hopping to the land of the living...

So, other than the rather hurried and pretty much un-interactive finale, I really enjoyed Shadows of the Afterland with its quirky characters, fun pixel art, and interesting take on the afterlife, mixing the drama of death with humor and adding a very slight whiff of some Grim Fandango crime. And of course that brilliant recap system, and the ability to save during conversations.

Next up I'll be going back in time to a 90s classic. With a trembling heart I'm going to attempt the Les Manley sequel, Lost in L.A. After the disaster of the first game, I'm hoping this one will be a bit more forgiving, though that will probably not be the case since it's I've heard it makes the first game look like Monkey Island 2...

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

This time on "Shadows of the Afterland"!

Awesome! A recap system!

Okay, hold up! Why don't more adventure games use this technique? Previously I had simply loaded up my Shadows of the Afterland save file, but then I tried the Continue button on the main menu, and I was suddenly treated to a recap of my previous gaming session! How marvelous is that! It might not seem that way, but I often days pass before I get a chance to continue a game, and often I'll feel lost with no idea what I was supposed to be doing. A recap like this (almost) beats an in-game notebook!

I get a slight Soylent Green vibe from this scene...

Carolina has been giving a task by the former spectral agent to prepare her journey back to the land of the living. This meant exploring the land of the dead even further, solving some easy puzzles, fetching some items for people so they'd help me. It all comes down to remembering the things you saw earlier which might be able to help you, or talking to someone who might know more. Nothing to break your brain over.

Valencia looked more like Westworld's Delos HQ when I was there...

Finally I reached the advertised part of the game I've been looking forward to: possessing people! Because that was such a blast in The Will of Arthur Flabbington by Guga Games. And indeed, it finally adds an extra layer to the puzzles. Though it also feels quite uncomfortable doing so...

A nice little family to use to my advantage...

I've also learned something very important, which has given me an inkling of what exactly happened to Pilar/Carolina. But I'm still very curious to see the motivation behind it all. 

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

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!