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.

4 hours into "Willy Beamish" and I ran out of save files...

Yeah, I get it, it's the west side of town...

I'm 4 hours into The Adventures of Willy Beamish and I still can't grasp what happened. The game changed from a cozy, "play as a ten year old"-simulator into a "death around every corner" trial-and-error debacle, up to the point where it's just not fun anymore. I can totally remember now why I never finished this game more than once back in the day... After procuring myself a registration form for the frog jump, I got stuck on the other side of the river because I couldn't get back on the ferry. I explored some without really finding anything, until suddenly a gang showed up and, well, ganged up on me for some reason. Took me a while to figure out how to escape from them...

Jump, Horny, jump!

Then back home it was immediately on to day four and the big event! The frog jump took me several tries as well before Horny was victorious. But it's what happens next that really made me run through all my save slots. Looking for Horny after the competition, I get caught by a security guard. I lost count of the number of times I had to restore, but this sequence is a timed event and you only have precious seconds to perform just the right actions so you can escape.

Turns out the solution to this is found in the game's manual...

Next, I learned that the big villain of the story, Leona Humpford, has taken all the frogs to their mansion for dinner. Well, not to serve them dinner, they ARE dinner. So of course I need to rescue them. I think this mansion alone took me an hour of gaming, with a talking parrot first giving away my presence, then Leona herself and her henchman Louis, and of course the knife-throwing chef in the kitchen catching me time and time again. Once again, there's a set series of actions you have to perform to get past this sequence. Do one thing wrong, and it's game-over. I kept saving (over older save files by now) every step I took. And when I finally succeeded, I didn't believe it and I restored again thinking I still did something wrong, because the final cutscene starts in exactly the same way many of the game-over scenes do, with Willy getting caught by Leona and Louis and thrown into an aquarium as a new treasure ornament.

Still don't know what's so appealing about frog legs...

So finally I escaped the mansion with all the frogs - or, well, they escaped with me, I should say... Now I'm back on the west side of town where I'm supposed to save my dad, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about that, and if the gameplay is anything like the last two hours, I'm sure to be busy for at least another two!

You can find Willy Beamish here!

2 hours into "Willy Beamish" and I caused an explosion and fought off a demon bat!

Hard to "just walk away" when you can't touch ground...

Two hours into Willy Beamish and I took the ferry to grab myself a registration form for the frog jumping contest! The big plan is to win this contest, then use THAT prize money to register for the Nintari championships. But seriously, who in their right mind would enter a competition that demands a $2,500 participation fee? You just HAVE to be a ten year old cartoon character from a video game, right?

Well that was unexpected...

I spent day two hanging out with my buddies Dana and Perry. We went and had an explosive meal at the local pizza joint, then practiced in the park for the frog jumping contest. Horny is a bit like his name when Dana's pet frog is around, jumping much farther. We'll just have to figure out how the make the opponent jump LESS far... Back home, my parents had a surprise in the form of a babysitter from hell. I had a lot of trouble with this sequence when I was young, and now I died several times as well before I vanquished her.

To infinity...

Besides the main storyline, there are also optional things to do that might influence your "trouble meter". This thermometer-type gauge pops up whenever you do a good thing (like picking up your little sister after she fell out of her bed) or a bad thing (crashing your dad's miniature trains). If you do too many bad things, your parents will send you to military school and then it's game over. Doing an extremely bad thing (like launching your little sister from her swing set) will lead to an immediate deportment.

Ooh, area unlocked!

Day three finds me on the other side of the river to get myself an entry form. I met a sweet Japanese family on the ferry, which was pretty random. But I remember from my youth I'll see them again somewhere...

You can find Willy Beamish here!

Classic time: "The Adventures of Willy Beamish" playthrough!

New game!

I've started replaying The Adventures of Willy Beamish and I'm 1 hour into it!

The game is like a cartoon version of an early '90s John Hughes/Chris Columbus movie. I played this for the first time as a teenager, aged somewhere between Willy himself and his older sister Tiffany. I only ever finished this game once, but I started replaying it several times, always up to the point where I got hopelessly stuck. I enjoyed the fun and cozy atmosphere of the game, the "real world" setting (I will always prefer that over fantasy or sci-fi settings), and Willy's voice actor, Michael Zibelman.

Not your average breakfast club...

It's the last day of school before summer vacation, and Willy finds himself in detention. First job is to get home early and intercept a bad report card. Your cursor changes into a big red arrow when there's something to do. You can pick up items, use them somewhere else, combine them... Typical inventory puzzle style. It took me a while to realize, but clicking the other mouse button changes the cursor into a magnifying glass, and when it becomes transparant a narrator will give a description of whatever you're looking it. But that doesn't mean that object is a hotspot that can be manipulated. Actual hotspots are limited, but each screen is loaded with background items you can examine.

I was so jealous of Willy's house...

Willy's house might not look like much compared to today's standards, but when I was young, I really wanted to live there myself! I loved the fact that you can move from room to room in a circle and wind up back where you started. There's not only the house to explore, but also part of the city. The main story of the game is that Willy wants to enter the Nintari Championship, but he needs a whole lot of money for the participation fee. When his dad comes home that evening and says he's been fired from his job, Willy have to look for different means to finance his big dream.

Frighteningly similar to what my own son's room looks like...

During this first hour, I played through the first day and up till the next morning, when Willy meets up with his two friends Dana and Perry in a nearby treehouse. At the breakfast table, dad got himself an interview at the local Tootsweet company, but an ominous cutscene showing the Tootsweet management in a hot tub doesn't promise anything good. There seems to be some kind of conspiracy afoot that will disrupt life in the city of Frumpton...

I never had a treehouse when I was young :(

You can find Willy Beamish here!