Classic time: "The Colonel's Bequest" playthrough

New game!

I'm 1 hour into Sierra's The Colonel's Bequest, aka Laura Bow 1. I've never played this game before, so it's about time I got around to it, since the game dates back to 1989!

 

Welcome to the mansion!

Laura's friend Lillian invited her over to her uncle Henri's mansion for dinner. The entire family is gathered, and Henri drops a bomb on them: he doesn't have long to live, and he's splitting up his inheritance equally amongst any surviving family members.

 

My first (intentional) death scene...

This game is typical whodunit fare and makes me think in the first place of Agatha Christie, but also Cluedo and Knives Out. After one hour of playing, I explored the entire mansion and a little bit of the outside. I think I met most cast members (11 NPC's so far...) and tried asking them about each other. I found a soup bone in the kitchen's ice box, and I already died twice (once intentionally)!

 

Lots of weapons in this room...

There's an in-game clock which starts at 7 pm. The clock has advanced a couple of times and it's now 7:45. It hasn't advanced in a while now, and I feel like I'm back on the ship in Cruise for a Corpse, searching far and wide for that one clue that will advance time.

 

Sorry, couldn't help myself... They told me she was into it!

I have absolutely no idea what to expect, except certain death around every corner. It's wild playing a text parser game again after so long and not having pre-chewed dialogue options, nor a one-click mouse interface to examine and interact with hotspots.

 

My first (unexpected) death scene!

I also have no idea where to go next, or what to do, so I guess I'll just go around the house again...

You can find The Colonel's Bequest here!

I reached the ending of "The Colonel's Bequest" after 4 hours or so...

 ...but I only got an "Absent-Minded" rating on the Sleuth-o-Meter!

Bummer...

There's a lot of stuff I missed, as was obvious when Laura goes over her notebook at the end of the game. Lots of things I should have uncovered are left incomplete. And I even got the bad ending!

 

Wasn't expecting this!

I restored to see the good ending, but that didn't change much about my score, if not to say nothing!

 

The End? I don't think so...

So I'm diving back into the game for a second playthrough, and this time I'm going to make sure to find out where all NPC's are during every time slot!

 

Aha! I finally know how to spy on people during my second playthrough! No more secrets for me now! Mwahaha!

Let's rock that Sleuth-o-Meter this time!

You can find The Colonel's Bequest here!

Finished my second playthrough of "The Colonel's Bequest"

Analyzing the heck out of this game...

This one took me about 10 hours, meticulously keeping track of all NPC's during all time slots on a second computer, trying to compile a perfect path through the game. This came with a lot of saving and restoring but hey, it's a Sierra game after all, you HAVE to do that with them (though usually only to survive till the end...)

Jeeves keeps telling me to get out of his room, but he doesn't really seem to mind all THAT much...

And it worked! I didn't reach Super-sleuth, but I am a Seasoned P.I.! I'm very much satisfied with that result, even though I still missed some things (didn't examine enough items with the monocle, didn't use all items where I could, stuff like that...)

 

I'd like to try some gumbo, please. No idea what it tastes like actually...

I spied on loads of interesting conversations this time, AND I found my way in some unexpected locations as well! Like the butler's room, Celie's house, the attic, and even an underground cave system leading to a couple of surprises!

 

Okay, this is getting creepy...

Truly a great game! I had loads of fun with this one, can't believe I waited this long to play it!

 

Yay, seasoned P.I.!

 You can find The Colonel's Bequest here!

Two hours into "The Colonel's Bequest"

Uh-oh...

I already found three dead bodies, which immediately disappear so people are hiding them either down the well, or in the cellar, or up the attic, or perhaps they're just throwing them into the swamp to sink, I don't know.

 

Trying to eavesdrop isn't all that succesfull in this game...

I realized there's not really much else to do in this game than walk around and try to find interesting things to see or hear that will progress time. I'm currently in Act V and I've already witnessed lots of strange things; the dead bodies of course but also arguments between people, harrassment, fisticuffs, a drunk woman zigzagging all over the place, ...

 

No, they're not doing the tango...

I've also died a couple of times. Someone pulled me inside a closet, and I was so proud when I found an oilcan that I sliced myself in half fixing the rusty armor in the main hall.

 

Bam!

Really wondering where this will all lead to. Is there one murderer, are there several, will I have to point them out in the end? I've found a handkerchief, a poker, and I'm seeing boa feathers all over the place, so that's not much for gathering evidence...

 

The cheek!

Time will tell!

You can find The Colonel's Bequest here!

The Road to AdventureX 2026 - Part Two

And here it is: after the announcement of speakers and panels, the official selection of the games exhibited at AdventureX 2026 in London on November 7 and 8 has been released as well! There are thirty-two games in total. I'm not going to go over them all, but I will highlight six games I have a personal interest in, in simple, alphabetical order.

Crime or Punishment by Scale Issue has a very old school look, which reminds me of The Colonel's Bequest and Cruise for a Corpse, combined with the idea behind Overboard! This time, you are the cleanup crew and you need to cover up the murderers' crimes. There's still an investigative aspect to it as if you were the detective, but instead of collecting evidence, you need to tamper with it. This game seems like a fine example of how much fun it can be playing the bad guy.

Deduction games galore these days, and Death at Fleming Manor by Superthumb puts another spin on the detective genre by having you fill out the death certificates. Who are these corpses, and how did they die? In stylish comic book art, you investigate scenes, question suspects, and fill in the details in Golden Idol fashion. Not sure if this is the game to play in a bustling exhibition hall, but I'll definitely give it a try!

I simply can't omit Less Miserables by College Fun Games in this overview. I played the demo a while back and while that version was still a little rough around the edges, it certainly has the potential to win over adventure gamers' hearts. It's fun to play, has great artwork, and features an adorable sidekick. This satirical take on the novel/musical/film probably won't revolutionize the genre, but should get everything right when it comes to being a traditional point 'n click adventure game.

I love myself a library game! The Restricted Index by Ursa Minus therefore looks right up my aisle. Not only do you have to give people the books they want, there's also a deeper mystery involving the disappearance of the previous librarian, leading to codes to crack and secrets to find, all under a strict government regime you can help topple over. The first part sounds fun, the second part sounds hard, and I'm a bit wary of the violent themes of terrorism and capital punishment, but since I'm married to a librarian, I just have to check out this game.

Stop the Press! by Nebuchadnezzar Games has a Papers, Please vibe, but in a 1930s South-American setting. People walk up to you with stories, you decide what to print and which headline to use. You can earn money trying to sell papers, you can choose a political faction and only write good stuff about them, or become a free press and release dirt on all of them. There’s a business aspect as well: how many copies to print, how many deliveries to make, how many journalists to hire… There’s a lot going on here, many stories, many characters. There’s a lot of strategy involved, but I don’t think it’s necessary to be very good at that aspect to still enjoy the narrative to unfold depending on your choices.

Two Realms - Whispers from the Rift by MOD42 Studio was already on my wishlist. Point 'n click, pixel art, a horror drama in a medieval world; this is a no nonsense, traditional style adventure game with an easy user interface. I'm definitely playing the full game when it comes out, so I didn't bother with the demo before, but AdventureX is the place to finally sit down and check it out!


Other games I might try out if time allows are As Long As You're Here, Dance Dance Detective and From Ruins. 

Check out the complete selection on the AdventureX website. Tickets go on sale on August 12th!

New game: "The Crimson Diamond" playthrough

New game!

I've started playing The Crimson Diamond and I'm 1 hour into it!

I'm Nancy Maple, a mineralogist student sent to the town of Crimson to investigate the discovery of a large diamond in the belly of a fish. When I arrive by train, my luggage has been stolen and it turns out the inn I was supposed to stay at isn't an inn anymore. Its owner, one Evan Richards, is so kind to allow me to stay the night, but he will send me back on the first train in the morning.

Apparently they're a girl's best friend or something?

It's a text parser game, which means you have to type in what you want Nancy to do instead of clicking on hotspots. It's heavily influenced by the first Laura Bow game, The Colonel's Bequest. You also find yourself in a huge mansion with lots of people whom you can eavesdrop on. But next to being text parser, it also uses the old EGA graphics style with a limited, 16-color palette. You can move Nancy with the directional keys but it's also possible to click with the mouse where you want her to walk.

Lots of snooping in the game; love it!

There are several people staying at the lodge. There's the owner, Evan Richards, and his best friend Nathan Cardinal. Evan's sister Nessa Crabbe showed up with her lawyer Corvus Shaw; they're looking to contest the inheritance from Evan's and Nessa's father. There's Jack, the, well, jack of all trades in the household. Albert Respa is another expert who has come to investigate the diamond. And he's from Antwerp, yay! (Thank you, Julia Minamata, for adding a Belgian character to this game, even if he's a bit of a douche!) And lastly there's Kimi Kishiro, whom Nancy met on the train and apparently came to Crimson to observe the cormorants.

Ooh, a missing will, excellent!

In my first hour of playing, I talked to everyone, and even eavesdropped on a couple of them. Only Albert refused to talk to me. Thinking himself the big man, being from Antwerp and all. Big git is what he is. Anyways, dinner is served now, so I'm sure the plot will thicken soon!

You can find The Crimson Diamond here!

New game: "The Séance of Blake Manor"

New game!

Developer Spooky Doorway already made an incredible entry in the adventure game business with their two pixel art style Darkside Detective games. Under publishment of Raw Fury, they have now released a totally different game: The Séance of Blake Manor. It's a first person point 'n click game which combines a mouse interface with directional keys to move around the 3D environment; or you could play it with a controller, of course.

How huge is this place?

We find ourselves in Ireland. It's the year 1897. Detective Declan Ward has been summoned by an anynomous party to Blake Manor. A woman, Evelyn Deane, has disappeared. This is linked to a séance that's planned for the weekend. Ward is tasked with figuring out where Evelyn went.

Cozy...

But that's not all... There are seventeen guests staying at the manor, hoping to participate in that séance. One of them is indeed responsible for the fate of Ms Deane. Yet everyone else has their own mysteries for Ward to solve. Doing so will make them change their plans regarding the séance. And once that happens, the dial on a mysterious, green glowing device drops down.

Looks like something out of Steampunk Ghostbusters...

I've played The Séance of Blake Manor for 100 minutes and already two guests have said bye bye to their séance plans. So I think I'm doing a good job. However, Ward only has a good 45 hours to make sure nobody attends the séance. And contrary to regular point 'n click adventure games, almost everything you do here takes time. Each hotspot you examine takes away one minute of your time. You are assigned different tasks over the course of your stay, and they all have a strict deadline. Miss the deadline, or get caught doing something you shouldn't, and it's GAME OVER! Thankfully there's both a manual save system and an autosave function...

I'd barely done anything!

I think I already have ten save files. The Séance of Blake Manor is making me extremely nervous. It looks and feels a bit like a combination of Return of the Obra Dinn with a bit of The Case of the Golden Idol and some Sherlock Holmes thrown in, and also a bit of Cruise for a Corpse and The Colonel's Bequest, in that you need to go to specific places at specific times to get a whiff of all the secrets. There are maps and timetables and connections on a type of deduction board, and frankly I'm very much overwhelmed by it all. I think I'll be seeing that FAIL screen a lot, but for now let's just hope for the best.

Three hours into "The Crimson Diamond" and I reached chapter three!

Geologist Respa in the dining room with the fork...

Dinner was served the last time I played The Crimson Diamond, so I went to grab a bite to eat. People didn't seem all that happy with me asking questions all the time, I think they were just tired and wanted to go to bed. I had heard earlier that Evan and Nathan wanted to discuss something in the study after dinner. But as far as I could tell, they never went there. They remained in the dining room, waiting for Jack to clear the dishes. But he was busy in the kitchen, however, and wanted my help. But first I went around the lodge to see what everybody else was up to, and that's how I listened in on another conversation between Nessa and Corvus.

Love in-game maps! Could use one of the grounds, too...

It's very handy that a message pops up about muffled voiced whenever you near a door with people behind it having something interesting to say. I remember in The Colonel's Bequest you were pretty much left on your own to figure out where to go, and there everything you saw, heard or found could progress time, and then the NPC's would move positions, so you might miss some things during the earlier time. I'm not really sure if The Crimson Diamond uses a similar technique or not. There's no in-game clock, but there definitely is story progression after doing certain tasks, usually indicated by an auto-save message. So I try to make sure to know every NPC's whereabouts before doing something I think leads to such a progression, but I'm sure I'm still missing lots of stuff. Like that study appointment. Eventually I helped Jack doing the dishes and that's when Evan and Nathan effectively left the dining room. No idea where Nathan went, but Evan went for a lie down in the conservatory. No study. I went around the lodge to see what everybody else was up to again. Most were asleep but others were engaged in... other... activities.

Couldn't help myself; I just had to jump off...

The next morning it turned out I wouldn't be able to leave the lodge after all, due to... circumstances. So after looking around what everybody was doing again, I started my task of improvising a new mineral investigation kit and go about the countryside finding samples. This was quickly achieved after some easy puzzles, and I even found a couple of death scenes. No rewind function here like in Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard, though, so remember to save!

What a cozy place this is... for now...

Dinner is served again on day two at Crimson Lodge. Afterwards, I fall asleep in the conservatory only to wake up at the ruckus that leads me into chapter 3. The plot has indeed thickened, and it looks like I'll finally get to do some investigating!

You can find The Crimson Diamond here!

Finished "The Crimson Diamond" in a little over 7 hours!

Watch out, Luca Brecel!

I finished The Crimson Diamond in a little over 7 hours! But I wasn't too happy with the result! There are three "report cards" so to speak. The first two weren't so great, but still okay. But I got zero on the third one! What?! Where did I go wrong?!

I haven't scored this bad since high school...

Also, I redid the final showdown a couple of times to get a better ending. There are several steps you need to be perfect at, otherwise you'll trigger quite a long cutscene followed by the Q&A sessions that result in those report cards. So, I had to reload a couple of times, but then for the last step it turned out I didn't have the necessary inventory item with me.

Indiana Jones did, to get some guards drunk...

So yeah, I went back in, tried to find that item before that final showdown, and tried to find some answers to the questions I missed as well. Or at least the evidence supporting those answers, since the game really expects you to be thorough in your investigations. Knowing that, I still failed to PICK UP some items I found and had to turn in as evidence, so I had to reload an earlier chapter again a couple of times, but at least I found lots more and could answer more questions, with a grand total of 9,5 hours on the clock. There are still some conversations I missed because I didn't realize I should hide somewhere when they were supposed to take place, but those are from very early in the game and would require almost a complete restart, so I'm leaving them for now, especially since they're not essential to the outcome.

Such a beautiful scene! Kudos to the artist!

But just like I had to play The Colonel's Bequest a second time before I got anywhere near a decent result, The Crimson Diamond is a joy to play. In itself it isn't such a difficult game, you just need to be aware of some strategies you can employ in how you can find the necessary clues and evidence. The game is addictive; I had a hard time letting go of it, and I would have preferred to play it in one sitting. It's a great location, an interesting set of characters, a cool Agatha Christie style and gathering clues type of story. I had great fun with it and I hope Julia Minamata will make many more games like this!

You can find The Crimson Diamond here!

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!