New game: "School Quest" playthrough!

New game!

When I first got into adventure games, back in the early 90s, they were already making them in VGA 256 colors. Over the years I did go back to play some older, text parser ones, like Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest 2, Gold Rush and the King's Quest series. I'm a sucker for more realistic graphics, but you just have the play the classics, right?

Welcome to East Geauga High School in Ohio!

Anthony Anselmo of Pretty Bird Games seems to love those classics as well. He has developed School Quest, very much in the style of those early Sierra titles but with a point 'n click interface that just makes it a tad easier than finding the correct words in a text parser. The simplified graphics strike the nostalgic chord, and the game captures that typical 80s adventure game vibe.

The computer class.

You play as Tony, who has noticed that lots of kids in school have gone missing. He feels something's off with the faculty staff as well. So he goes about trying to find an answer to this mystery. You go round and round the school, through the hallways and into the classrooms, following one lead or other with the hope of ultimately discovering what happened to your missing friend Erik. You mostly do this through fetch quests, doing favors for your fellow students, and talking to them to learn information that will help you figure out what to do and where to go next.

When in doubt...

Beware of typical Sierra-style death scenes, however! The hallways are dangerous, with slippery wet spots and bullies ready to beat you up. If you don't have a hall pass, you'll be thrown into detention. And if the staff catches you doing something that's not right, it's game-over as well. The story-relevant deaths were okay, but I could have gone without the random bullies showing up and having to walk around the hallway obstacles, sometimes miscalculating a pixel breadth and still tripping over them. It seemed to me they were only there to prolong the gaming experience.

Oh no! Sports!

I finished School Quest in a little under 4 hours. I put in a lot of time at the start of the game exploring the school and all the class rooms, talking to all the other students. Turns out I didn't really have to; you wind up visiting every corner of the building anyway, and the game is so linear that the characters that can help you out will only appear when you have reached that point in the story, and all the "fixed" characters are only there for filling, though some do give you some useful pointers. So you end up searching the school over and over again for the next important student each time you're finished with the previous one. It's a bit funny, though, because in the end it can feel like everybody in school already knows what's going on exactly, leading you from one informant to the next, slowly pushing you in the right direction.

Victory!

But I loved the detailed writing, even though sometimes the dialogues go on a bit too long with the back and forth banter - and they could have done with one extra proofread as well. But the way all these characters are brought to life, and how they insult each other, or simply talk about everyday experiences, it felt a bit like I was playing an older cousin of Perfect Tides; the Sierra version, that is...

The developer is already working on his next game, College Quest, which will take Tony from the 80s into the 90s. School Quest is fun, but has some flaws, so I hope College Quest will be more streamlined. I really wonder how the developer's skills will have evolved!


You can find School Quest on Steam and on itch.io! 

"Whirlight: No Time To Trip", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "If you love point-and-click adventures with loads of stunning locations, interesting characters and many hours of engaging gameplay, you’ll find Whirlight: No Time To Trip a joy to play. Its unique graphical style, combining almost photorealistic backgrounds with slanted architecture and more cartoonish characters, depicts many gorgeous settings in various time periods to explore at your heart’s desire. Hector and Margaret’s antics in the past, present and future provide both fun gameplay and a captivating story, reminding me how much fun time-traveling adventures can be. I would have preferred some better signposting at particular times, and it’s a shame that shortcuts were taken with inventory animation. But ultimately these are minor blemishes in a game that will delightfully suck you into its thoroughly entertaining time-hopping vortex."  

New game: "Midnight Saturn" playthrough!

New game!

Prolific game developer Cosmic Void delivered a new title once again! In his signature style, Midnight Saturn looks, sounds and feels very similar to his previous detective puzzler, Neon Hearts City, but I'm happy to see it's very much its own thing. I have to admit, I was a little bit afraid it would be too much of a clone... 

Yeah, I'd hang out here...

This time you play as Simm, a PI put on a murder case by the victim's sister. She wants you to find her niece Lucy, the victim's daughter, certain she has to know something more about her father's murder. And of course, as is often the case in Cosmic Void games, there's a medium named Zora who can communicate with the dead. Just bring her something of their belongings, and she can make them speak and deliver cryptic clues as to what to do next.

Yep. Map. Thanks.

You travel all across town to a handful of locations, with very helpful people in each one. Simm seems to know them all already, and addresses them by their first name. And I hadn't been playing for fifteen minutes or three different women had already hit on him, as well.  You also visit the nearby forest and lake. The lake is home to crocodiles, but interesting items may be found in the bellies of these creatures, so it's your job to find a way for them to, well, spill their guts, I guess...

These crocs will wish they never met me...

Midnight Saturn if fully voiced, and done so excellently. The performances make the detective noir writing shine, which is getting better and better in these Cosmic Void games. Rowdy York once more takes on the lead, though, which makes it difficult to distinguish this detective from the one in Neon Hearts City. Perhaps it would have been better to have completely gone with the same character, and create a franchise?

Meet Zo and Ra. They go by Zora.

I finished the game in two hours and fifteen minutes, which gives Midnight Saturn a similar length as Neon Hearts City. There were a couple of "break the code" puzzles, but they were far easier to figure out than similar puzzles in previous Cosmic Void games, so they were fun diversions. Only one inventory puzzle I had to solve by using everything on everything. The problem was that when I picked up the item to use in question, it looked far too big to fit in the place where I was supposed to put it, so that sent me astray for a while.

A "pick the right color" code...

I had fun playing this game. It was easy yet interesting, perfect if you have just a couple of hours to spare, or to take a breather between more bulky games. Cosmic Void writes cool sci-fi stories. This one wasn't all too sci-fi-ish, with not that many (an)droids or technological gadgets. There are aliens, of course, and the typical paranormal stuff with the psychic. I do keep hoping for a longer experience, but these short games are very much his signature style, so I'm very curious to see what else he has up his sleeve.

You can find Midnight Saturn on Steam and on itch.io!

Curtain drops on "As Dusk Falls"...

Quite the aftermath...

My wife and I finished the last two chapters of As Dusk Falls, after having a great time with the first four. This game is entirely about story, so it's hard to talk about it without spoiling the whole thing. I had a feeling all character storylines wrapped up too quickly, too easy. Most characters didn't even return in the final chapter, except in reference (non-playable). Perhaps they would have if we had made different decisions, but I doubt it. The story just focuses on the same two characters...

Hey look, a mini-game!

We mostly played it to keep everyone as safe as possible. Usually we agreed on the decisions. Sometimes I overruled my wife, when I felt a very strong dislike towards one of the other characters, and I didn't want my lead to take any crap from them. My wife was very upset when I angrily turned away someone handing me a religious flyer, for instance, saying you should at least thank them politely... Sometimes I went with my wife's decisions, even when I would have done the exact opposite had I been playing on my own. I wanted to take another character with me, but she insisted I leave them behind, thinking they would die otherwise... It's give and take when you're together!

Wow, payphones, how 90s...

When it comes to the community results, our decision-making style was pretty much all over the place. Mostly we either joined a 2/3 majority, but I liked it better when we were with the 1/3 minority. I didn't like it when it turned out almost everyone made the same decision as us, but I marveled at the decisions only 10% of the people made. I always like it when it turns out I played a game differently than most. 

In any case, we had a blast playing this! It's something different than watching a movie or TV show together, and my wife really likes being able to steer the story a bit. Though she often expects different results from the chosen dialogue options, because sometimes it's not only what you say, but how you say it, and that wasn't really incorporated into the game, so sometimes things "came out wrong", you might say, and some what she thought were positive decisions, backfired.

I'll be playing on my own again next. A new, short, sci-fi, detective story by a very prolific developer. But if anyone has any suggestions on other games like As Dusk Falls I could play with my wife again, we'll be very much obliged! 

You can find As Dusk Falls on Steam and on GOG! There are also Playstation and X-Box editions.

New game: "As Dusk Falls" playthrough!

New game!

The last time I played a game together with my wife, we put in over 100 hours spending 65 in-game days in Blue Prince. Then we gave up, because the conditions we needed to meet to make further progress were just too out of this world. When she said she wanted to play a new game the other day, I was ecstatic and tried to find something to her taste. In the past, we had fun with Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, so I figured perhaps As Dusk Falls, a game that has been sitting in my library for several years now, might be a good fit.

Now where could that hidden safe be...

First a small disclaimer: we played the game in Dutch, which you will see in the screenshots I posted. Sorry about that. It wasn't really a concious choice; the game just automatically started up that way, and since we live in Belgium and are used to translated subtitles, we kept it that way.

Do I stop the woman, or quiet the dog?

Anyway, the choice of game was a good one. With a similar gameplay style as those Quantic Dream titles I mentioned, As Dusk Falls is an interactive thriller/drama about a burglary gone wrong and two families colliding. It's mostly about making choices, giving dialogue replies but also bigger decisions on which path to take when there's a fork in the road. Then there are also some QTE's, but they're very easy and you have plenty of time to respond. I think I only ever failed one simply because I really wasn't expecting it... Well, easy for me to say, of course...

Should I do my chores, or step outside for a bit?

The most astonishing thing about the game is its graphics style. The main characters are played by real actors, but they are presented as static photos moving around in a kind of slideshow manner. Sometimes they are slightly animated, for instance when their hair is blowing in the wind. The game is fully voiced as well, though there's no lip syncing since the lips of the characters aren't animated. It looks a bit weird perhaps, but it works. Any motion in the background, however, is fluently animated, like doors opening and closing, cars driving by, rain falling, and the scenery changing in the window when you're inside a moving vehicle. It gives the game a very special animated graphic novel feel.

An overview of the community's choices

As Dusk Falls consists of six chapters, and after each chapter you get an overview of your choices, and how many of the players made the same choice. You could compare this to the Life Is Strange games, except here it's shown in a neat timeline where you can also see the forking paths, which makes it easier if you want to go back and do things differently. After five hours, my wife and I have two chapters left to go. I don't know when, since this is different from my regular gaming schedule, but I'll try to write a final post about the game when we've finished.

You can find As Dusk Falls on Steam and on GOG! There are also Playstation and X-Box editions.

The last train arrived in "Perfect Tides: Station to Station"!

Reminds me of doing my wife's hair...

After 11,5 hours, I reached the ending of Perfect Tides: Station to Station! And what a ride it was. I'm very curious myself where I will rank this game in my top ten of 2026... There are hardly any puzzles, you just experience the story, make some choices in dialogue replies, and there's this "academic management" gameplay to it as well, in whether or not to read or write, and what exactly. If anything, this game actually makes me want to write stories again myself! Which has been years for me... There's this passion in Mara that's quite contagious.

Took me forever to find the second page...

Mara is a difficult character to figure out, though, because she's in constant turmoil. This makes the game very different from other adventure games, where the main character usually is some caricature, or very superficial, with only a bare personality, serving more as an avatar for the player. Not so with Mara, who is very much her own person, and so you never really play as yourself, you play as Mara. If you can actually call it playing, since you're more following her story than actually doing anything.

Ah, family...

Am I happy with how the story went? Often I wished I could make different choices, but some things just seemed bound to happen no matter what. Often I felt like I could only choose the lesser of two evils. But it's a good story, a very layered story, but you need to be open to it. It's very much a young adult game, with themes that occupy those young people's minds who are in college or university and struggling with their identity and relationships.

Just chillin'...

The only thing that truly bothered me, was the constant smoking. Actually refusing to smoke was a choice I sorely missed in this game... Otherwise, I quite enjoyed this story, since I often also still enjoy reading the occasional young adult novel, and I'm certainly happy I played this game.

You can find Perfect Tides: Station to Station on Steam and on itch.

Next up, my wife FINALLY asked to play a game together again - we haven't done that since we gave up on Blue Prince (after 100 hours and 65 in-game days) - so we're going for a choices-based interactive thriller/drama with some QTE's thrown in about a burglary gone wrong...

"Radiolight", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "If you can’t get enough of weird 1980s supernatural fiction, Radiolight has it all: dark woods to explore, a mystery to uncover, and strange radio signals messing with the physical world. Graphically stunning for the most part, with realistic sound effects, a great voice cast and a highly atmospheric soundtrack, it’s good for five or so hours of exploration spent being stunned by so many strange encounters. It’s a bit too linear here and there, but that didn’t stop me from forgetting the actual world around me and getting completely lost in this fictional one. It might have its generic elements, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself as I sat on the edge of my seat the entire way. Not everything was resolved when my quest came to a close, but the ending is a Twilight Zone/Outer Limits type where your own imagination is triggered and challenged to come up with theories for what happens next. If you enjoy supernatural mysteries and are a fan of first-person exploration games with intriguing narratives, you definitely don’t want to miss out on this thrilling hiking trip. Just don’t forget your radio!"

"The Posthumous Investigation", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

 

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "Time-loop games aren’t usually my thing. Too much repetition, too much trial and error, too much effort needed to change that one detail in order to get the perfect outcome. Not so in The Posthumous Investigation. This mystery lets you hunt for lots of information, and with fourteen murder suspects, every run keeps offering something new. I found it amazing how very unique every single loop still felt, even after more than 40 of them, totaling almost twelve hours of sleuthing. Yes, there is still some repetition, particularly towards the end, and even with some shortcuts after having done things for the first time, there’s still room for improvement in that regard. But with such compelling writing, it’s a joy to read through the dialogues and uncover all the suspects’ connections to the murder victim. Add in the beautiful noir-steeped monochrome setting of Rio de Janeiro in the 1930s and the era-appropriate jazzy soundtrack that perfectly tie together a great investigation game, and I loved it all to death."

High times quickly switching to low times in "Perfect Tides: Station to Station"...

Pivot! Pivot!

While my previous playing session left a bit a bad taste in my mouth - a lot of things went wrong there - I was happy to find the next part of Perfect Tides: Station to Station to be more uplifting! I went along with Mara to an amazing karaoke session - I had to play the song myself and witness a perfectly synced performance! - and I had time again to read a book and write a better part of her story. Though I'm starting to think this stuff doesn't really matter all that much, even though they're the most obvious goals of the game!

Scaramouche, Scaramouche!

What followed were some fun times in bright and beautiful pixel art. A road trip with a panoramic vista, a relaxing trek into nature, everything seemed to be perfectly chill. But this wouldn't be an interactive young adult novel if it weren't for some conflict, and that quickly ensues. Not only between the characters, but also in Mara's own head. Which is such a shame. But you can't fight who you are, I guess.

What an idyllic scene...

There are also some external circumstances that make the job even harder, and suddenly I'm back fighting for time to read and write. It even feels that some writing assignments are impossible to complete; I received a new one the last day before Fall turned into Winter, with no chance to actually work on it anymore. Unless I missed that window somehow...

Breaking down again...

This is an immensely intense and complex story. I'm sorry to say that most of the time I hardly understand these people at all. Which makes me wonder if I really was anything like them at that age. The fact that I keep going and going with this game proves to me that it's really involving. There's a certain flow to it, with those ups and downs, it carries you along like a rollercoaster and the most astonishing thing about that is that nothing really "special" happens in this game. It's no grand adventure, it's simply everyday life and still, the drama and the humor pulls you along. So I'm very curious to see where this final in-game season will lead to...

You can find Perfect Tides: Station to Station on Steam and on itch.

Wasn't expecting "Perfect Tides: Station to Station" to have a "death" scene...

What a lively place!

After three and a half hours of playing Perfect Tides: Station to Station I had to take a break. A lot happened since my first steps as Mara into The City. Things started off going quite well, but Mara's boyfriend problems were a recurring issue I knew I had to deal with quickly.

Ah, alone in a movie theater... 

After succesfully writing two papers, reading some books and going to see a movie by my lonesome, I met a famous writer/blogger who invited me to a reading, followed by some drinks. Those drinks didn't sit well with Mara, though, as her mother witnessed when she went to pick her up from the station.

The Mainland looks like a (White)fish...

The game overwhelms me a bit with its possibilities. There's much to see in any particular location. There are hotspots which turn the cursor red, but you can also right-click on random background elements and get a description as well. There's a lot of detail put into this game, both in world building as well as character building. This game is like a novel, there's so much information to be found. No wonder it won the Excellence In Narrative IGF Award!

What shall we do today?

But Mara's computer has a lot to offer too. On the first day I was allowed to surf a bit before writing my paper, so the next time I sat down to work naturally I decided to check online first again. You never know if you could find something that might raise your knowledge of certain topics. However, time ran out before I could start on my next paper because I had to go to a party with my friend Lily. Who also had a book to trade, but I hadn't had time to read the ones I had yet that day, and it was too crowded and noisy at the party to read one there and then. So it kinda felt like a wasted day, academically speaking of course.

Looks like a relaxing evening, right? RIGHT?

To make matters worse, Mara's boyfriend kept checking up on her everywhere she went, so finally "the call" came in which Mara decided to break up with him. Suddenly I had a kind of mental health bar, you could say, and when it ran out, I got something like a Sierra random death message. I had to go through the conversation five or six times before I succeeded in giving the appropriate replies. He just wouldn't take no for an answer... I wasn't too fond of this sequence... But hey, I'm just the player, imagine actually being Mara in that situation...

And indeed we were...

But finally I succeeded, and suddenly the school year is over, it's summer and Mara is working at the library, enjoying a well-deserved break from, well, pretty much everything, I guess. I'm a bit confused though, because I thought I still had some writing assignments due, and one of the books I had just vanished from my inventory... Now I need to write a piece for another reading with that writer/blogger, and Mara also has a story she wants to rewrite. I tried to write the first piece, since that reading is that same night already, but it sounds like the quality of whatever I write is rather meh... So I don't have high hopes for this event...


You can find Perfect Tides: Station to Station on Steam and on itch.

New game: "Perfect Tides: Station to Station" playthrough!

New game!

Earlier this year I played Perfect Tides by Three Bees developer Meredith Gran, because its sequel was about to be released. A bit later than expected, I'm finally able to play through Perfect Tides: Station to Station! It has quite the same appearance as the first game, but there is a lot more gameplay to it this time.

Daniel has a big place...

It's the year 2003, and we meet up again with Mara Whitefish, 18 years old now, as she's attending classes at the State University of Creative Studies (SUCS) in The City. She's staying over with this guy named Daniel so she doesn't always have to make the trip over to her mother's house. There's a girl named Rosetta there too, who's also staying there together with her boyfriend Grey. So, Mara seems to have acquired quite the social circle since last we saw her...

Quite the robust interrogation system...

Mara uses her cellphone to collect people's names and a variety of topics. Some characters can be questioned about these. It's a handy tool, but not the only one in this game. Because after one hour of playing, I've discovered it has its own version of RPG mechanics. Thankfully in this first hour you get a bunch of tutorials explained by the narrator, whom Mara often argues with, funnily enough.

Wait, I have to do homework in this game?

Mara has to write assignment papers, with very strict deadlines I might add, for which she needs to do research. She can do this by looking things up online or by talking to people. She can also find books and other publications related to the topics on her cellphone. These topics can then be used for her papers, by combining two of them to give the papers a particular angle, and you can slowly raise Mara's knowledge about the topics as well so her papers get better. It feels like giving more academic purpose to your explorations, and for now seems to take your attention away from the more social aspects of Mara's life.

Ah, city life...

However, I've learned that Mara has either a very insecure or very possessive boyfriend named Adam; she met him two years ago but he lives a ways off, so he's very high on trying to control her comings and goings from a distance. The narrator does a very thorough job of digging into all the details. Nothing is left to interpretation. Mara is definitely who she is and we are merely onlookers; we don't get to shape her character. And you are constantly told not only the facts but also details of people's personalities. It completely reverses the old adage of show don't tell, leading to often large blocks of text. 

I always love visiting the library...

Mara works at the library (yay!) and I just got her more work on coming up with a new system to catalogue books when she was actually trying to ditch a shelving job since her school paper was due instead. Oops. After her library work I went to one of her classes, where I got yet another writing assignment. As if I don't already do enough writing in real life... Anyways, finally I went to a dorm party, talked to some people and accidentally gained possession of a dubious magazine. But it turns out I can use it to raise my knowledge on the topic of sex, so I'm sure that will come in handy sometime.

I hear you, girl...

The most important message about this game is probably that there's no one right way to play it. It's all about the experience, you won't be able to see and do everything, but neither are there good or wrong answers to it all. Well, I guess I'll just to have play and see what happens next!

You can find Perfect Tides: Station to Station on Steam and on itch.