I've finished "The Dagger of Amon Ra" in 5 hours!

Ace reporter makes headlines!

After my previous post, a couple more bodies showed up and suddenly I was catapulted into the end game. I remember when first playing The Dagger of Amon Ra that this is a timed chase sequence where you need to stall your pursuer so you can make your escape. Forget to block one door, and the culprit catches up with you and bashes your head in.

Nothing beats a good back rub!

I didn't make it all the way through this time either. There was a pixel hunt where I had to cut a cable by clicking on the exactly right spot, which took some tries of frantically clicking. I also found Steve Dorian passed out in the furnace room, and he had lost one of his boots somewhere, so he burned his foot as soon as he got up and fell down again. So I restored my game and this time made sure to explore the museum some more before entering that one room that triggers the chase.

Goin' down with Laura...

And good thing I did, because there were some more pieces of evidence lying around that I hadn't picked up yet. After the chase, I had to answer a load of questions during the coroner's inquest pertaining the killer and their motives, and my replies need to be supported by the items I collected. I had to give that another try too, and frankly even after getting the good ending I still don't understand the reasoning behind all the murders, though I did understand at least a lot more when I first played this game and didn't yet have such an extensive grasp of English vocabulary...

How big IS this place?

So I finished my replay in five hours! It's fast this time because I only did the essentials and didn't explore fully. It was amazing how I can't remember what I ate yesterday but most of the details of this game came back to me after probably twenty-five years since playing it last.

My next playthrough will be of a more recent game again, about some murders in some German city...

You can find The Dagger of Amon Ra on GOG!

I'm 3,5 hours into "The Dagger of Amon Ra" and my suspects keep dying!

Peekaboo!

After my first session of my "The Dagger of Amon Ra" replay, I spent an hour talking to all the guests at the museum fund raiser, and eavesdropping on their private conversations. Then I finally got the chance to explore the exhibits. Security guard Wolf Heimlich blocked the way at first, but had conveniently moved location. And that's how I discovered the first murder victim of the night...

Yvette admiring the modern art...

Yes, I do say, first victim, because the bodies keep dropping in this game! It felt like every time I turned a corner, one of my suspects would no longer be a suspect. I'm moving rather fast through this game since it's a replay, and I still remember all the times I died when I first played this game. So I already know where to go, what to do, and most importantly what to pick up.

Always dreamt of an office like this...

Which means I'm not really taking the time to enjoy the scenery, which is a shame. There is so much to look at in this game, so many elaborate descriptions, not just informative but also often funny. I really love the writing in this game, and I'm not just saying that because it's Josh Mandel... The artwork as well is amazing to look at, so detailed. You can spent hours exploring the museum and examining everything.

Ooh la la...

Besides the dead bodies, I've found lots of notes of appointments the different characters have with each other. Each time you make some sort of discovery, the in-game clock moves forward. You can then go to the respective meeting place for that time and eavesdrop on the people. You get lots of information this way, which I remember you need later on.

I feel I'm close to the finale, which I recall gave me a really hard time as a novice adventure gamer. Hopefully I can do a better job this time around...

You can find The Dagger of Amon Ra on GOG!

Classic replay: "The Dagger of Amon Ra"

Replay!

Time for another great classic point 'n click adventure. I'm REplaying The Dagger of Amon Ra. It's the second Laura Bow game after The Colonel's Bequest. It's actually one of the first Sierra games I played, (after Police Quest) and I'm still the proud owner of the big box and the booklets that came with it!

Is this Cruise for a Corpse?

I'm one hour into the game, running the files from an external drive through ScummVM. Immediately I'm thrown back in time, not only to 1926 when the story takes place, but my own teenage years playing this in my bedroom. I can hardly believe that since then I've actually visited New York City myself, and I didn't even get mugged! (I did get run over by a car, which is actually a random death you can encounter in The Dagger of Amon Ra...)

First death scene: getting run over by a car...

This first hour of gameplay is spent mosly visiting all the different New York locations jotted down in your notebook, and talking to all the people. There's your colleague at the newspaper, a desk sergeant in the police station, a stoolpigeon in a local speakeasy, a stevedore at the docks, Lo Fat the laundry guy. The interview system isn't that user friendly, though. Instead of automatic replies when you click the topics in the notebook, you have to close it first and then open it again to ask your next question. I'm glad later games - like Gabriel Knight - improved on that.

The Roaring Twenties...

Having played this game countless times in the past, I was suddenly stuck trying to get ready for the fund raiser at the museum. I found a dress, but no idea how or where I was supposed to change into it. So that cost me some time before I realized which location offered that possibility. So now I'm ready to talk to everyone at the party, as Act 2: Suspects on Parade, kicks off!

Like flies on a turd...

You can find The Dagger of Amon Ra on GOG!

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.

I finished my replay of "Police Quest III: The Kindred"!

I wasn't even tailing him so close...

Police Quest III: The Kindred was a replay for me, so I remembered most of the game, which is the only reason I could finish it in three hours time. And even then I had to restore several times, because I got killed or because I forgot to take along essential items.

What an ominous shadow...

After that first day on the job, things picked up pretty fast, resulting in a couple of very short days. I thought it very peculiar that Sonny leaves for work when it's already 1 pm, reaches the office in 6 minutes, then quits again around 4 or 5 pm only to get back home at 10! I really wonder what the guy is doing in those missing hours...

There goes my evidence...

As far as the case is concerned, turns out there are some pentagram-loving serial killers on the loose. I was able to locate a witness of the mall attempt, found my suspect in a bar but then the following chase went awry. Then suddenly a ghost from the past popped up, leading to a final showdown with lots of driving back and forth, followed by some treachery as well though luckily I came prepared for that (though I did get shot down for not paying enough attention first).

Incoming!

I finished the game with 447 out of 460 points. It's so easy to miss stuff in this game! It's not always obvious where to go and what to do, the clues are very subtle, and it's all very procedural. Before playing you really should read through the entire manual and study the police procedures described there, and then when you encounter something hopefully you realize how you have to act. I don't recall how long this game took me when I played it for the first time in my teens, but I can imagine it was quite a while before I figured out every little aspect.

You can find the Police Quest Collection on Steam!
It's also available on GOG!

Classic replay: "Police Quest III: The Kindred"

New game!

It's been ages since I played Police Quest III: Kindred. I used to love this series, and I kinda still do, even though growing older I've learned about all the discrimination, prejudices, stereotypes and racism that hangs above it like the sword of Damocles. You just don't see those things as a kid... I know it's not the most popular series Sierra ever released, but I've always preferred games in more realistic settings and characters above fantasy and sci-fi games.

The struggles of leadership diplomacy...

In this third title in the series, Sonny Bonds has been promoted to Sergeant and thus has to take on a leadership role. The game starts with you giving that day's briefing, then interviewing one of the officers about a complaint against her. Said officer also needs help later on when a chauffeur she pulled over refuses to sign her citation, and procedure calls for a superior on the scene.

Never heard of this field sobriety test before...

This first day in Lytton you need to take care of an almost naked man upsetting some people in the park, and then patrol the highway. You need to pull over a couple of speeders, one guy driving too slow and holding up traffic, and another swerving from one lane to the other and back. Nothing truly exciting happens until at the end of the day you get called to the scene of an assault on the mall's parking lot. 

Uh-oh...

After one hour of playing, I reached day two. It's a replay for me, but I was a bit rusty and I had to restore my game a couple of times. First I forgot to pick up my nightstick in the changing room. Then I forgot to retrieve my gun after leaving it in the locker outside the prison. Finally I got run over on the highway.

A cop's salary seems to do you okay...

At the start of day two, I'm assigned back to homicide to investigate the previous night's murder attempt. So bye bye uniform, we're ready to hit to street plainsclothed! I found some evidence on the crime scene, so let's see if we can figure this case out again!

I finished "Conquests of the Longbow" in 6 hours!

But what if you're lefthanded?

I finished Conquests of the Longbow in six hours! Well, at least I think I did. I reloaded so often, the timestamps of the save slots weren't really good to keep track of my progress anymore. It could be closer to seven hours in total. Because I restored a lot...

I also feel like a dolt. Last time I was stuck on the riddle part of the game. My wife even offered her assistance with the riddles, but she didn't understand it either. We were convinced some of our answers HAD to be correct, but they still weren't accepted. Finally she looked one of them up, and indeed, it WAS the right answer! So, was this a bug? No, finally we figured it out... After spelling out the correct answer on the hand palm, I clicked in the wrong place on the screen to submit it, making the game think I submitted blank. So after we realized that, we quickly answered three riddles, clicking the sweet spot and submitting them correctly, and finally the game continued! Sigh...

Sensory overload in this place...

Anyways, on with the mission! A lot happened, and it happened fast, so I had to reload a couple of times, both when being overpowered by the sheriff's men, and when I noticed some decisions made my score drop again. But I won the archery tournament, with the famous arrow-splitting scene of course! The fair overwhelmed me a bit, I have to be honest. I think I missed loads of hidden things there, and I got captured twice for talking to the wrong scholar. But it worked out in the end.

Thank you very much, easy arcade settings!

I also rescued Lady Marian after she was accused of being a witch, and bamboozled the sheriff with some fake jewelry, literally stripping him of all his possessions. Then it was finally time for the big robbery. Just as with Lady Marian's rescue mission, I had to choose between all the plans my merry men proposed. With Marian it was obvious what to do, but for the robbery I just guessed at what would be most succesful.

Such gruesome slaughter...

So I collected the ransom money for King Richard, then almost got tricked by a fake knight of the Queen. I had to go back to the monastery to free the real knight, and I finally found a use for one of the rings I acquired. I wish there had been a use for the second ring as well, but perhaps I missed that bit somewhere.

This tower kept me busy for a while...

After all, I finished the game with only  6815 points out of a total 7325, but I did get the good ending - freeing King Richard, him absolving me and my men, and he gave me his blessing to marry Lady Marian. So everything I missed should only be some little extras here and there. What I like about this game is that, whenever you do something wrong, you hear a bad jingle and your points are lowered. So a quick restore and a change of tactics remedies that. I was also surprised the number of outlaws always remained constant, but I think that's just due to being very lucky and choosing the right strategies in the battle sequences. It's a very narrative game and not as punishing as other Sierra titles. I was always surprised how quickly a day ended. Usually there were very clear goals, and most puzzles made sense. Whenever I was stuck, it turned out I had to check the manual for something. I'm glad I've played this game now, but I'm also a bit sad I didn't get around to it earlier. It's a great balance of tension and humor, lots of dangerous places and game-over screens but very manageable and with funny writing.

The Kingdom is saved! Huzzah!

You can find Conquests of the Longbow here!

3 hours into "Conquests of the Longbow" and breaking my head over some riddles...

Aww, soulmates...

I'm 3 hours into Conquests of the Longbow and breaking my head over some riddles...

Lots has happened since my first playing session. First I finally found a disguise to venture inside Nottingham. The local cobbler gave me a silver comb, which I had to show to Marian to pledge my allegiance to the cause of gathering King Richard's ransom. Apparently there's a treasure passing through Watling Street, so I'll have to prepare to take possession of it. But the cobbler is going on a reconnaissance mission first, and will inform me about it later.

Really hope this isn't the river Styx...

Then Marian sent me undercover into an evil monastery to retrieve a stolen scroll. This was actually a pretty fun part, and the map of the building reminded me a lot of the map of Camelot in Conquests of Camelot, only more graphically advanced. This felt as a first real mission in the game. But the Sheriff had also arrested three peasant brothers, and I had to get them out of jail before they were hanged. I had to choose what I would do first, so luckily I still had time the next day to go rescue the brothers.

I really wanted to snoop through all bedrooms for some reason...

I was able to procure myself a monk's habit, so I could enter the castle and see the brothers, but the guards were keeping a close eye on me so I couldn't really do anything. I also met the evil abbot, who sent me on an ale-fetching quest to the local pub. Then he invited me to drink with him, after which I had a game-over screen since they recognized who I was when I had passed out drunk. So after a reload, I refused his invitation, but this angered him and he threw me out. So had to reload several times and finally I found the correct order of doing things, which all had to do with winning a game of Nine Men's Morris first - which took me several attempts before I learned a good strategy.

Quite a fun game once you get the hang of it...

At the moment I'm stuck answering a couple of riddles by the Great Green Oak Man, Guardian of Sherwood Forest. I kinda liked the riddles in Conquests of Camelot, I didn't get all of them but at least there was more chance of getting some right. But here I have absolutely no idea what the answer to any of them might be. I'll have to stew on them for a while...

You can find Conquests of the Longbow here!

Classic time: "Conquests of the Longbow" playthrough!

New game!

I've started playing Christie Marx's Conquests of the Longbow and I'm 1 hour into it! I've never played this classic before, so it's a maiden voyage for me. During my life, I've seen four different iterations of the Robin Hood story, and now this is the first one I'll experience in game form. I doubt the character needs much introduction from me.

Robin has pretty basic living arrangements...

From the start the look and feel of the game are very familiar. The graphic design, the music, the interface, it's all classic 90s Sierra adventure. But there are some extra elements that immediately come to the fore. At the top of the playing field, you'll see statistics for the current "Ransom" money you have gathered. You can keep track of the number of  your"Outlaws" that are still alive. Other than that, there are many arcade sequences and decisions you will have to make. If you fail those, you either die (it's a Sierra game, after all) or you'll get a bad ending; so save often, I'd say!

What a merry bunch... If two people can be called a bunch...

The game starts with an (optional) prologue where you see King Richard of England taken prisoner by Leopold of Austria when the former travels back from the crusades in Jerusalem. It's your job as Robin Hood to rob the rich and give to the poor, or in this case gather the necessary ransom of one hundred thousands mark.

Already killed a guy within the first hour...

After I did some target practice, I wandered Sherwood Forest a bit, unsure what I was supposed to be doing. Then I remembered Friar Tuck at the campsite telling me to go see Little John at the overlook point. But I had no idea where that was, so I had to search for it. Once there, I witnessed a peasant woman being chased by one of the Sheriff's men. So I quickly dispatched him and set the woman free.

Already killed two guys within the first hour...

That ended the day, apparently! A short scene at the campsite later, Robin fell asleep and dreamt about Marian dancing in the willow grove. The next morning, I got the message I needed to visit the cobbler in town, but Robin doesn't dare go there without a disguise of some sort. And also, he needs a woman's slipper to prove to the cobbler he's Robin Hood. Without much else to do, I explored the forest until I came upon Marian attacked by a monk. So I quickly dispatched him, and lo and behold! Marian rewarded me with a slipper!

Exploring Sherwood Forest is pretty slow going...

That ended another day, apparently! The next morning I figured I had to go look around for that disguise, so I'm currently exploring the forest again, hoping to come upon something useful, since none of the locations on my map seem to hold anything interesting. 

You can find Conquests of the Longbow here!

Finished "Willy Beamish" in 5 aggravating hours...

I should have received a real cup, finishing this game...

I finished The Adventures of Willy Beamish in five aggravating hours. Don't get me wrong, I like the little guy. But what a game! If this was made today, it might still contain death scenes but I'm sure you would automatically respawn to try again. The final sequence of the game has some timed sequences where it's a matter of clicking fast and correctly. I do appreciate that sense of urgency and danger, but manually saving and restoring every step of the way isn't of our time anymore.

Why exactly did I need to go into this Buttcrack Bar?

So, after escaping from the Humpford mansion, I learn that my dad has been kidnapped and I need to hurry and save him. So I need to find a way into the Sludgeworks. Only, the strikers are blocking the entrance. It took me quite a while to figure out where to go and what to do. Thankfully there were limited possibilities this time, but I still had to look for some outside assistance for this puzzle. And even now I have no idea how you were supposed to figure it out without some inside knowledge.

Looks like my cooking pot when I try to make chocolate mousse...

So I finally found my way inside the factory, only to be confronted with a series of timed action sequences. I had to save in every room I entered, and had to reload every one of them at least five times. Perhaps it's because my previous playthrough had been a while that I couldn't figure out what to do with all the control panels I encountered. Turned out I had all the answers in my inventory...

Not exactly LeChuck's fortress, but still quite impressive...

All in all, I'm glad I played through this game again, but I wouldn't exactly call it fun. The first half is definitely okay. It's easy going, quite cozy even, with obvious things to do. The second half is a lot of work, with trial and error, saving and restoring, quite non-intuitive puzzles even. But it's a decent enough story, quite the adventure that really fits in with all those animated movies I used to watch as a kid (and sometimes still do...) If it had been a bit more forgiving, I'd recommend it more, but as it is I'd only play it if you're really looking for a challenge.

You can find Willy Beamish here!