This question may seem a bit strange to you, but I was curious to see if you REGULARLY play adventure games or if playing Thimbleweed Park was for you just a rare exception.
Across the online communities I have read more than one person saying something along the line “I don’t play adventure games anymore but when I saw Ron Gilbert making a new game I had to try it”.
I play just a few adventure games every year but I’m sure that other people enjoy this genre of games more often than I do.
So, what’s your story? Are you an active adventurer?
Also, if you weren’t a regular player, did perhaps TWP awake your interest in the genre?
Same here. Most on/at holidays. Sometimes I have to play video games for and at work (yes, that’s right: I’m getting sometimes money for playing new video games :)). But I’m not an active player. When I’m playing games in my spare time, then mostly adventures.
I don’t play games regularly at all. But if then I prefer adventure games (again).
For a long time I didn’t play them at all, actually it’s the fault of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter which awoke my love for adventure games again.
Oh, well…no. I’m no more an active adventurer. A gamer at all, to be honest.
The last adventure in terms of shipping date I played (except TWP obviously) was Machinarium. But It didn’t succeed in awaking my interest to the genre. I played a demo of Samorost and it was nice, but I never returned to the title, I was captured by TWP.
From the late '90 (Curse, Broken Sword, Grim Fandango) to 2017 there are only a few titles: the above ones, and some other older games that I played many years after their shipping like Maniac Mansion Deluxe, Zak McCracken, La Abadìa del Crimen, Dig, and Full Throttle.
Thimbleweed Park awoke my interest in a particular current of the genre, linked to most of the people involved in the project and former Lucas alumni.
TWP was the first adventure game I played after a long hiatus. Before that, I played the Tales of Monkey Island series. I kinda avoided most contemporary adventures, but I don’t know why. Probably because their premises didn’t attract me. Also, the few I played didn’t feel as “good” as the games from the 90s.
…Just realized, that it’s probably the use of 3D graphics, or the kind of art style that came with it. Not sure about this, but I don’t feel like 3D and adventure games go really well together, at least for me.
I’m one of those. I don’t spend much time playing games any more, and it’s been a while (perhaps a few of years) since I’ve played an adventure game. I’m not much of a gamer, but I do enjoy classic adventure games from the LucasFilm and Sierra halcyon days, although I will admit I haven’t played that many of them. I’m more of a casual adventurer.
When I have played in the recent past, it has been my “go to” games from when I was younger or to try some old classic that I hadn’t played before.
Thimbleweed Park attracted me because of Mr. Gilbert’s credentials (about whom I shamefully admit I didn’t know much before) – the more I read about his design philosophy (and the more I tried his earlier games), the more excited I got about Thimbleweed Park. After pledging, it was his blog that got me the most excited: his openness to discuss his methods and style, the design process, etc. I found that very illuminating and enchanting. I couldn’t wait to play!
Now that I finished Thimbleweed Park, I can say honestly that it will go in my “go to” list of games to re-play once in a while. I can definitely see myself playing it again in the near future.
As to TWP “awaking” my interest in the genre, well, only to the extent that I already had an interest in it. It did open my eyes to the rest of Mr. Gilbert’s oeuvre, so I’m happy for that. However, I don’t think it’ll make me go start downloading random adventure games to play.
Same here. Exceptions are games like Firewatch. I haven’t seen a 3D graphic that could work for an adventure (except this one: 3D recreation of the TWP Radio Station by Patrik Spacek). Maybe the 3D graphics are too “sterile”.
The first Runaway game had great graphics (when viewing through rose-tinted nostalgia lenses as I do currently ).
I haven’t checked what’s offered on the market currently, but I’d love to have more diverse art styles, both 2D and 3D. The Lion’s Song for example is totally done in shades of sepia, and it’s working great in my opinion.
Yes, I do play adventure games regularly. My challenge nowadays is that it’s hard to find a chunk of time more than 1 to 2 hours long in one sitting, so I end up taking weeks in some cases getting through a game, and longer if the game isn’t really engaging, because then I start up another adventure in parallel.
I’m probably in a minority in this, but a significant number of the adventure games I play are text adventures.
I had been playing adventure games starting with the Infocom text adventures and through the LucasArts point-and-click graphic adventures which ended with Grim Fandango when the genre somewhat petered out. (I also loved puzzle adventure games like 7th Guest and Myst, and that genre too seemingly vanished). When I am aware of a good puzzle/point-and-click adventure game, I definitely want to check it out. I am so glad we are getting a resurgence of those genres- due to indie/small dev teams having the resources (open source/cheap tools, crowdfunding) to make the games happen! Some adventure games still held on to puzzle elements of point-and-click games (Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, for example, had you finding items and figuring out where/how to use them), but it never truly replaced the charm of the point-and-click games. The first game I stumbled across that reconnected me with the point-and-click genre was Hector: Badge of Carnage (a somewhat adult-oriented game developed by Irish developer Straandlooper). There was the Monkey Island remaster/s, Machinarium, the somewhat awkward/disappointing Tales of Monkey Island, and various (also disappointingly different) Telltale games. I somehow missed games like Broken Sword, Beneath a Steel Sky, and Kentucky Route Zero among all this. When I found out Broken Age was happening, the Kickstarter had long ended. But, I was certainly onboard. I only wish there were more point-and-click games out (other than the remasters and the few new ones we may get every year or two). I’m also glad to see games like Obduction (from Myst creators, Cyan) and Thaumistry (the new text adventure from Infocom’s Bob Bates). I also play your “standard” video games like Uncharted and Overwatch.
One I enjoyed the most recently was Hunger Daemon by Sean M. Shore. I also really enjoyed Brain Guzzlers from Beyond! by Steph Cherrywell. These are newer, fairly short, but very well done text adventures. You should check out the XYZZY Awards and the Interactive Fiction Competition if you like text adventures.
My problem is lack of time. I have a job and a family, and when I have spare time for myself, playing games is not my first choice - I sit in front of a computer for work, sometimes I just want to get away from the screen if I can.
As I often say, I’m just waiting until my daughter learns to read. Then we’ll play together. She loved TWP and we’re now playing Tales of Monkey Island together. It’s just quite difficult to translate everything to Italian on the fly for her.
Yep, normally play an adventure game every night between shower and bed. There are just a chronic lack of good ones.
I completed everything Wadjeteye put out, I did stuff like The Last Door, Dropsy, and more recently The Inner World. Daedalic put out a lot, but I’ve found they lack something, and I can almost never make it through them. Feels like I’m just mindlessly clicking on everything in the scene, then having to look at a guide. Almost like they’re mass produced.
I’ve still yet to do the slightly less polished Lucasarts stuff (Zak and the first Indy), so I’ve got those up next.
Before TWP I was sporadically playing adventure games that I missed out on in my youth. I’m not sure why they passed me by - growing up I loved Sierra’s Space Quest (blasphemy!), but mostly played puzzle games (Pipemania, Lemmings) and PC platformers (Dizzy, Prince of Persia, Crystal Caves).
I play some current games too, like Portal, The Witness. And arcade games during downtime (an ongoing project is hitting the Tetris high score - I’m up to 186,866 - getting there!)
).