The 2022 what are we playing thread

Never say never. Stories Untold was an okay one. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I loved it, especially the first chapter!

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As was Counterfeit Monkey

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Started playing Crowns and Pawns. Like it so far. The painted backgrounds look fabulous, and the 3D characters are okay. They act a bit stiff and not everything they do is properly animated, but at least they blend well into the scenes. Also, plenty of customization options for your character.

Also, that guy must be a fan of Stan, it seems :slight_smile:.

Edit: and here’s the obligatory reference

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Yesterday I purchased and started playing a game that was at the top of my wishlist for months: the second installment of “The Darkside Detective” series.

As it happened with the first game, I laughed loud again at the jokes, more than I have with any other game.

I just love that deadpan humor! (which is deadpan because the huge pixels suggest expressionless faces)

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That game has a “Broken Sword” vibe, to me. Does it involve traveling around the world to uncover ancient secrets?

It does, after a fashion. Though the number of locations in each country is rather small and not exactly postcard material.

It feels more like a city trip than a full blown vacation :slight_smile:.

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Play some German if you speak German. /grins

The Darkside detective games are the funniest adventure games I’ve played in ages.

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Thanks, it seems something that I might enjoy, I’ve added it to my wishlist. :slight_smile:

Why? :thinking: Is the German version funnier?

Probably not, but I playtested it to see if the translations made sense to me. You might even see a string that was changed at my suggestion.

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It’s always nice to get mentions like the following one. :slight_smile:

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I guess you’d get some enjoyment from it, although I wasn’t entirely happy with the puzzle design. Puzzles often felt more like an obstacle and less like they’d add something to the story or move it forward. From a purely intellectual perspective they were mostly okay, though. Except the one I had to look up, and even then did not figure out why that was the right solution.

No complaints about the rest. Looks good, sounds good, and it must be one of the fastest games to load in recent history! I did not time it, but it can’t have taken more than 5 seconds from clicking the icon to pointing & clicking.

Now with that one done, I started Rise of the Third Power, from the same people that made Ara Fell. Like that, it looks like something cobbled together in RPG maker 2000, but it’s oozing charm and they really nailed the characters again.

I actually find it hard to describe what makes the rest of the game so great, but it’s like they trimmed RPG down to the essentials, cutting away everything that’s boring and annoying, so what’s left doesn’t look like much, but it’s pure fun.

Played The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. Not exactly a fan of horror, but it has a Linux version, so I wanted to show my support. And I must say, it has a great atmosphere and really kept me wanting to unravel its central mystery. Which I did, in maybe 5 or 6 hours.

The puzzles were fairly simple and straight-forward. I guess the emphasis lies more on the story, which I think would have worked just as well in a movie, if not better. The coarse pixel art, nicely done as it is, just isn’t up to the task of conveying the sense of dread and horror that’s clearly meant to be present in the characters and locations. Certainly some lost potential here, though truth be told, I’m glad it wasn’t actually scary.

What stood out for me was the third chapter, which, taking place in the titular Barrow, reminded me a bit of the Atlantis section of Indy 4. It’s probably also the most puzzle-y part of the game. At that point though, it was kind of clear that events had taken a turn for the worse (though as the game is basically set up as a flashback, it’s fairly obvious from the beginning that things would not go according to plan). But given that the game offered some choice in how to behave towards certain NPCs, I still had hope that maybe I’d have some agency over the actual outcome.

But as it were, the only way to win is not to play. Too late for that, though :wink:

I guess it can be recommended for the story and general quality, just don’t expect world class puzzles or any sort of consolation from the ending.

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I can’t make the joke I wanted to make.

I sincerely hope that’s not an allusion to RtMI :slight_smile:. If OTOH, it was merely inappropriate or offensive, please do tell! :smiley:

Bought Dome Keeper today and have been playing it non-stop. Loving it and apparently it’s made in Godot which @Guga mentioned he might use in the future for his adventure games, which I thought was pretty neat since DK is definitely not an adventure game, so when I get bored with this I might tinker with Godot a bit.

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Search for Escoria.

Edit: Escoria framework · GitHub

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For the briefest of moments I thought that was the name of the game you were currently playing. Would probably work well for a P&C adventure. :wink:

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Haha, nope, I’m playing Return.

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