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!

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!

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!

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!

Finished "Perfect Tides" but missed lots of content...

A very Willy Beamish type street...

After playing through summer and fall, and as the ending of Perfect Tides drew near, I had a feeling I had missed out on lots of stuff. At first I was a bit frustrated by that, since I'm more into linear adventure games without optional content and where you can't miss anything that's important.

First time I'm able to enter this room...

But I realized almost immediately, this is exactly the way it's supposed to be. As a teenager - but actually as an adult still - you don't really know what you're doing. You're living your life improvising all the way through. You can make plans, but they won't always work out. You don't always have obvious goals. And there is stuff you will miss out on or fail to do, very often because you weren't even aware of them. That's just what life is like.

Love the winter version of this game!

As soon as I entered the harvest festival, I realized I should have planted the seeds I found at the start of the game. But I never seemed to have a chance to do so; the story just progressed. I failed to get my mom a gift for Hanukkah for the same reason: I never seemed to have the chance to find anything for her. Then I started thinking perhaps it was linked to those photo negatives I developed at school, but I never seemed to have the chance to go back there and actually develop the photos themselves. Other things kept getting in the way, you might say.

I'd have dumped him for his driving style alone...

Knowing all that now, Perfect Tides truly has replay potential. But do I really want to? I experienced Mara's story, basically a full year in Mara's life. Or at least my version of it. You can't have do-overs in real life, and for me the story is quite wrapped up. After 7,5 hours, this is the story I got, based on the efforts (or lack of, apparently) I put into it. And I'm fine with that.

My thoughts exactly...

While I wouldn't immediately describe Perfect Tides as a feel-good game, it does fall into the cozy category for me. There's nothing difficult about it, except perhaps regularly needing to revisit all locations to find that one trigger that will progress the story. But the game has depth too; I really enjoyed the narrator's dialogue, going deep into Mara's feelings. While I didn't always understand Mara's behaviour towards others, I certainly recognized that general feeling of being lost in the world, unseen by others. And this is exactly what makes it stand out between other games. It's the interactive version of a young adult novel, of a coming of age story, and I really appreciate the efforts that went into making this.

Happy Hanukkah!

While I might not play its sequel, Station to Station, immediately, I will definitely check it out some day. For now, it's time for another classic playthrough. I'm going to return to the magical year 1990, and this will be the very first time I'll play a game by Legend Entertainment. It has a totally different user interface and gameplay style than I'm familiar with, so I'm sure it'll be quite the experience!

You can find Perfect Tides on Steam and 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.

I've finished "Martian Memorandum" in 6,5 hours!

Getting some "Total Recall" vibes here...

Wow, that wasn't easy... It was like travelling through time, to an age where you didn't just have to save your game if you wanted to continue playing at a later time. You had to save your game to continue five seconds later! I finally found my way to Mars, after dying several times. On the red planet I could finally follow up on some leads and talk to some people I couldn't before. But I was so anxious by then I kept saving each new room I entered.

This makes the Willy Beamish maze look eazy...

Then suddenly I found myself in a classic adventure game maze! But I didn't get it: I really tried picking up the blueprints I found earlier, but I swear Tex didn't want to pick them up. No problem, I thought, I had encountered many things he didn't want to pick up before. But suddenly I had ventured into the maze way too deep to find my way out again (I know, stupid of me...) so I had to reload and I swear, this time Tex DID pick up the blueprints!

Cowabunga!

Finally I found my way into the office of the local crime boss. I had to pilfer his safe because it contained something with which I could persuade another guy to spill the beans. But not before I had to surf through a gauntlet of laser beams to reach it! This was very tricky and resulted in lot of reloads as well.

The elusive Alexis!

As I continued getting the right answers from the right people, I finally found the kidnapped Alexis! By then I had discovered WHY she had been kidnapped, and that her father, the guy I'm working for, had a lot of secrets... But no sooner had I discovered a means of escape and we were gassed and locked up behind a forcefield by the big bad guy in the story, once a good guy though, but corrupted by the promise of power. As often happens.

Mars is home to some strange people...

Reload after reload and using all inventory items all over the place finally forced me to look up a hint. Turned out I had gamed my way into an unwinnable state, because I had missed a key item way back when. So, reload to a much earlier safe, move one item to find another, then play through to the finale again and yes, finally, mission accomplished! The girl is saved, we're both still alive, and nobody has entirely blown up either Earth or Mars. I'd say, that's a good day in the life of Tex Murphy! A hard and difficult day, extremely at that, but good nonetheless!

You can find Martian Memorandum on Steam.

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.

New game: "Perfect Tides"!

New game!

Since Meredith Gran of Three Bees will release its sequel Station to Station soon, it's the perfect time to play the first Perfect Tides! I've heard some good things about this game, I just never got around to it before. Its graphic style reminds me a bit of Willy Beamish, with its quite detailed pixel art but with a sharper look to it.

And that's all you need to know!

Your name is Mara Whitefish. You live on the island of Perfect Tides. As she returns home from getting groceries on the mainland, Mara's friend Lily tells her she had sex with someone. Immediately I thought, how old are these kids?! Because they looked like ten years old to me. But no, they're actually fifteen. Which doesn't make it much better; guess I'm rather old-fashioned that way. I just don't see my own fifteen year old son engaging in that kind of activity; or any kind of activity where he needs to let go of his PS5 controller, for that matter...

Home sweet home...

Anyways, after finding my way home, and doing an errand for mom, I was kind of lost and didn't know what to do next. So I roamed the island a bit. It's a very 90s point 'n click user interface, where you can cycle your mouse cursor between walk, use, talk, and any active inventory item. You can also choose these actions from the menu bar which pops up at the top of your screen. So indeed, very Sierra. Selecting an inventory item to use somewhere is a bit cumbersome, though, but that's a minor nitpick...

Weekend at Simon's?

Eventually I found my way inside the house of an older friend, Simon, who kind of invited me over for dinner tonight. If I can bring my own food, that is. So okay, that's a clear goal. Only I already visited every location on this island (or so I thought) without finding anything food-related, and Mara won't take the groceries back out of the fridge at home...

One hilarious quit-screen!

But traipsing around some more I did find some things and suddenly, after an hour of gameplay, night has fallen. Perfect time for a break and writing this blog post. It is a bit awkward playing a teenage girl as an adult male, but I do remember my own obsession with the opposite sex when I was fifteen... and thirty-five... (I'm happily married now!) So yeah, I'm sure it'll be okay...

You can find Perfect Tides on Steam and on GOG!

I finished "King's Quest V" in 7 hours and with 55 save files!

Wow, didn't expect that score!

Wow, what a journey that was! I had no idea I would like this game so much. I had expected it to be a struggle, with lots of restores at the end, going back to the complete start of the game to pick up on things I missed. And yes, I did have to do that occassionally, but I never had to go back THAT far. I must admit, I had a little outside help. People had warned me about the rat, for instance. And about the pie. So that was great advice, and I was able to handle them appropriately and even at the first try. So, much obliged, dear fellow point 'n clickers! I'm sure the game would have taken a bit longer, otherwise.

Okay, let's mount this Caradhras!

Last time I thought it was time to get rid of the snake. And yes indeed, I succeeded after using a couple of inventory items. In hindsight, it makes sense what you need to use but I never thought of the solution myself; it was just trial and error at that point. I think what helped me through this first section of the game was my notebook: everytime I encountered something, I wrote down what it was and ususally what was needed there. Basically trying to compile my own puzzle dependency chart. Playing the game in this structured way has helped me before, with Quest for Glory 3, for instance.

Release the Kracken!

The second part of the game was easier, in my opinion, and I kinda rushed through the mountains. The next section, however, was terrible. I lost count of how many times that sea monster gobbled me up. This was like the desert; I had no idea where to go, so I tried to go about it systematically again, just trying directions, but this beast seemed to pop up randomly, at least I couldn't detect a pattern behind it which might have shown me the right way to go. I found the island by sheer luck. I don't know how much time I lost here. I did wonder if this section inspired the part in Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard where you have to maneuver the ship through the rocks.

Herman?

After the sea bit, however, I reached Mordack's castle. Now the first part of that, finding my way through the labyrinth, was pretty straightforward. I just followed the walls around, always keeping my hand on the right wall so to speak. Something I learned to do exploring the apartment building in Silent Hill 2. But then in the rooms of the castle itself, I was completely lost. I got locked in the dungeon over and over again, Mordack killed me over and over again, I got THIS close to getting completely frustrated because I knew this was the end game, and I just couldn't figure it out. I knew somewhat what I had to do, because I found a strange machine and it could do something to one of my inventory items, but I was still missing a counterpart and I had no idea how to get it.

Kinda looks like the Death Star...

So yeah, I admit I looked this one up and I was astonished, because there was a complete room I missed! But even had I found that room, I don't think I would've been able to progress without that extra knowledge. Then I still died a couple of times during the final battle, which reminded me of the wizard's duel in that old Disney movie, The Sword in the Stone. I finished the game with a final score of 253 out of 260 points. Which was the old Sierra equivalent of today's achievements and trophies in games.

Graham is buff!

So all in all, quite an enjoyable game. The first part was mostly exploring, finding the right items to progress, and trying to avoid the occasional death scene. The middle part was pretty straightforward, didn't have much trouble with that. The final part is where I restored the most games. In the end, I had about 55 save files; sometimes I would overwrite one when I was sure I had the right thing, but in that final part I think I added at least 20 unique saves because I was so scared something would go wrong; which it usually did.

The next "classic" game I'll play will probably be Willy Beamish, but I'll be playing some other things first, I think.

You can find the King's Quest Collection here!