The 2025 what are we playing thread

Adventure/Lucasfilm Games
42

I’ve recently started playing RPG MAKER adventure games (the ones without any RPG elements like To The Moon).

They’re really good actually, finished The Crooked Man and Mogeko Castle a couple of days ago and they definitely worth a try.

But the main difference between these adventures and PnC adventures is like the difference between a light novel and regular novel. PnC adventures usually have richer literary tone and more detailed dialogues and specially monologues.

In terms of puzzles, well they are both inventory based but RPG MAKER adventures automatically use the correct item with the specific puzzle, but in PnC you have to go trial and error with items on puzzles. (for example, if you have three keys and interact with a locked door, the game itself uses the correct one with the door. but in PnC you have to try all three keys to see which is the correct one).

6 Likes
43

Finished Phoenix Springs.

It’s quite the challenging game, in that it is very open to interpretation and lacking a definitive explanation of what is going on. Even after reading some theories, I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Perhaps it’s meant to be replayed, to see everything from a new perspective.

As an adventure game, it’s mildly challenging. I didn’t have to resort to a walkthrough, but I did get stuck here and there for a bit. Mechanics are pretty simple though: three verbs “talk”, “look” and “use”, plus an inventory of thoughts to combine with the environment or bring up in conversations. But this already makes for quite a number of possible combinations.

So if you like playing something artsy and intellectual with actual puzzles, and the huge meta-puzzle on top, that’s the game! I personally would have preferred the story to be a bit more accessible, with a big reveal at the end to nicely wrap everything up. Not a fan of being left in the dark …

3 Likes
44

Said by a Thimbleweed Park fan … :wink:

3 Likes
45

Maybe not so much a fan of the ending. Even then, while maybe the details of the TWP ending are debatable, at least I was able to comprehend it to a large extend and form an opinion on what I just witnessed.

With Phoenix Springs, it felt more like the game is not giving enough information to arrive at a conclusion with any level of certainty. Maybe a bit like Kentucky Route Zero. I guess the difference is that Kentucky Route Zero gets pretty weird, pretty fast, so an incomprehensible ending didn’t feel surprising. But Phoenix Springs appears normal enough, for the largest part. There are certainly some odd things, but I had filed those as game design choices. So I guess there are some answers, just no good explanations.

2 Likes
46

Yeah! That’s incredible and it’s surely how it would have been if the game were made in the 90’s!

4 Likes
47

Played Elroy and the Aliens.

Nice graphics and voice acting. Decent music and plot. Easy puzzles. Gets better the longer you play, but the end is pretty abrupt. Like Near Mage, I find it difficult not to appreciate the effort and ambition behind it, but the result somehow falls short of its full potential, at least for me.

Again, it comes down to the design, largely in form of the puzzles.

That got me to think about what makes and doesn’t make a good puzzle. Difficulty, moon logic and all that aside, I think that broadly speaking, there are two categories to fall into:

  1. puzzles that impede the plot
  2. puzzles that drive the plot forward

Former are bad, latter are good. Elroy and the Aliens is full of the former.

The way I think about it, any puzzle that gets the player closer to a known goal falls into category 2, as does any puzzle whose outcome is unexpected and propels the plot into a new direction. The Monkey Island games are good examples for that: MI1 has the three trials, assembling a crew, finding Monkey Island. MI2 has assembling the voodoo doll, finding the map pieces, etc. . All those require a lot of steps, but usually, each successful puzzle ticks off one item from the todo list and brings the player closer to the goal. You will not perform any action and suddenly the game adds five new things to that todo list.

Puzzles that do not tick off items or show up out of thin air OTOH are an impediment. Take the first task in Elroy as an example: assemble a rocket, fuel it up and launch it. So you pick up the parts, put them together, pick up the fuel canister … and the nozzle falls off. Impediment!
You fix the canister, fill up the tank, and now a bird hops onto the rocket, preventing the launch. Impediment!
To me, these feel like one step forward, two steps back. It’s not rewarding or encouraging, it’s frustrating. Frustration is not fun and thus the game is not fun.

I remember that I had a similar feeling when writing about my experience with Tales. Perhaps here it’s not as pronounced, but again my impression is that a lot of the puzzles are detracting from the plot instead of reinforcing it. And since they are not particular clever or memorable in and of themselves, they drag down the whole experience.

All in all, maybe a good game to play with kids while they are small and not overly critical. It’s family friendly, colorful and not overly taxing. Can’t really recommend it to seasoned P&C adventure players, though.

4 Likes
48

This describes Sierra games, doesn’t it. :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes
49

The one that sprung to mind for me reading that, is the puzzle in Monkey Island 2 where you use the oar on the holes in the big tree, to climb it.
But it immediately breaks and you have to go fix it before trying again.

That type of thing feels like a “rug pull” or “gotcha”, where you thought you could bask in the warm glow of having solved the puzzle, but no, you have to go do this other thing first. It kind of undermines the satisfaction of solving the initial puzzle.
I think if you started with the broken item and knew you had to fix it before using it, it would work better as it’s not sprung on you during your moment of puzzle completion.

I imagine those come about when devs are trying to add more puzzles to their puzzle chart and add one onto the end of a chain to spin it out, rather than near the start of a chain.
Or it might be a thing where they think those “gotcha” moments are fun, like “you thought you had figured it out, but then this happened, heehee, aren’t I a prankster!”

I think overall it worked ok in MI2 because it results in Guybrush’s skeleton dream sequence song, so maybe that was why they sequenced the puzzle like that.

4 Likes
50

I would say that it’s just more logical/consistent. Guybrush is heavy. So it’s “natural” that the oar breaks as soon as he steps on it.

But I know what you mean. IMHO it depends on how the puzzle is constructed. If the game rewards you for doing the same puzzle twice (for example with a joke) then this kind of puzzle works. Unfortunately most of the adventure games don’t do this.

1 Like
51

Yeah. I’d say it falls into the category of “unexpected outcome leading to a plot twist” (and rewards you with a cut-scene). Though to be honest, I always felt like that part did not blend in well with the rest of the game.

Exactly. It seems like a small thing, but psychologically it makes a big difference.

My believe always was that impeding puzzles might be the least frustrating element of any Sierra game :slight_smile:.

2 Likes
52

Rather than the oar puzzle, I immediately think about getting the map piece from Elaine’s bedroom - in which the oar puzzle is just a small part with its own rugpulling. The amount of animals and setbacks in this puzzle chain is staggering. But it’s also one of the memorable and funny moments in MI2. Finally you have the piece in your hand, and then a seagull snatches it away!

3 Likes
53

An Ace Attorney-inspired game, “Paper Perjury,” has been available on Steam for nine months. But I only learned about it today :slight_smile:

3 Likes
54

I had forgotten about those!
I think the comedy of it makes it work, but I also remember the first time playing it being annoyed at the seagull, and sighing.

This might be one of the reasons I prefer MI1, I think it has more forward momentum.

55

I played and finished The Expanse (Telltale).
Twice- to get a different ending after one of the characters died because of a choice I made thinking it would save them.
Honestly the “bad” ending made for a much more impactful and memorable story.
It wasn’t the best but overall enjoyable enough for a playthrough.

Still persevering with D&D Pool of Radiance, having cleared the first two areas of all monsters (except for some trolls and ogres in the first that can still wipe my party out in a blink despite having levelled up to level 3/4).

Oh, and in a turn of events, I started playing Animal Crossing to help out my children with collecting some things. Not sure if I will ever get the point of this game.

4 Likes
56

I played Brassheart. Of the adventures I played this year, this one comes closest to what I would call a classic point & click adventure. It has the right kind of puzzles, though they are a little mundane, given the dieselpunk setting. There’s also a recurring logic puzzle, reminding me of Rubik’s Clock, which starts simple and gets progressively more difficult. Still quite manageable, though.

Background graphics are solid, but I find the heads of the characters are just a bit too large for their bodies. Looks weird, but I got used to it. Voice acting is mostly good, too.

My biggest problem, however, is that I ran into a game breaking bug. And it appears I am not the only one. There are reports as far back as April, but no fix as of yet. If that does not change, my playthrough will end around the 2/3rd mark. The plot isn’t terribly exciting, so I guess I’m not missing much.

All things considered, I cannot really recommend the game either. Despite the name, feels like it’s lacking heart and soul.
 

I also briefly played Knights in Tight Spaces, which turned out to be quite different from what I expected. I imagined it as more of a puzzle-oriented experience, where you’d fight your way through set-piece levels with given abilities. Instead it’s a deck-building, rogue-lite game with plenty of randomness in every aspect. It’s still quite addictive, in the typical “just one more turn” kind of way (and looks oh so stylish!), but I’m not in the mood for unpredictability right now. Though in this case, the game is certainly not at fault.

3 Likes
57

You can’t blame me. :smiley:

Though it does seem I forgot to share my review here?

Posted: 4 Jan @ 1:27pm

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I like that the game doesn’t open with a murder, which immediately positively distinguishes it from its biggest inspiration. It’s a game made by people who clearly liked Ace Attorney for people who liked Ace Attorney, but if you’ve never played any of the games in that series this might actually be a better introduction to the genre.

You play as fledgling police clerk Justina Smith when in swerves manic pixie dream detective Ernest Hunt, asking you to interrogate a suspect, and much merriment ensues. All this in place populated by greater and lesser puns, Azure City.

The game is well executed in all ways that make it come together: the art, the music, and of course the puzzles. In short, characters tell you a little story (they “give testimony”) and you have to find the contradiction between what they’re saying and the evidence you have at your disposal. Sounds simple, right? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t, but the game always gives you a fair fighting chance.

My only complaint would be that somewhere in case 5 I was done investigating, but I didn’t realize it and I kept looking for issues with what people were saying for far too long.

So yeah, definitely recommended.

58

A game I played more recently is [Neko No Sentouki](» gosatsu.com), although I still have to finish the second path. The name’s hard to remember, but it’s an enjoyable enough visual novel.

Besides that I’ve been playing Shadow of Mordor. I’m not entirely sure what I think of that one. It looks pretty cool and the flow isn’t too bad but I suppose I should finish up the storyline before I tire of it.

59

It sounded really familiar reading it, though.

(Scrolls up to first post in this topic… there it is!)

Seems I forgot to mention I played “El Hijo”, a Far West light-puzzle light-stealth game.

1 Like
60

D’oh, that’s embarrassing! :rofl: Both for me and @ZakPhoenixMcKracken I suppose. :smiley:

4 Likes
61

Started playing Arctic Awakening. It is a bit reminiscent of Firewatch, but doesn’t quite have the same quality (the thing about Firewatch is how true-to-life and natural it feels. Hard to beat, IMHO).

Anyway, Arctic Awakening does not manage to build the level of suspense and player engagement that would offset the shortcomings of its gameplay. It’s a walking simulator after all, and therefore quite trivial.

So I breezed through the first chapter, and expect more of the same, until I reach a dead end, in form of a solid sheet of metal blocking the only path forward through a narrow canyon. I turn around and see if I missed a fork in the road somewhere back. Somewhere further back? Much, much further back? But no.

After running around in circles for a while, I give up and consult a walkthrough (how embarrassing!). Turns out, I missed an important location and some important items, one of them a crude map. Okay, I think, maybe the map shows the secret way around the obstacle (which could be sealing a shortcut for the return trip for all I know, to be opened from the other side). But the map is not very accurate, and I cannot find any other way other than the one leading into the canyon, and there’s not much sense going in that direction, right!?.

So back to the walkthrough it is. And guess what!? That metal wall in the canyon is nowhere to be seen in the video, and when I do return to its location, it’s as if it had never ever existed.

At which point the limit of bad game design I can stomach has been exceeded. I mean, if there was a locked gate, or the character says something like “I’d need a tool to get that out of the way”, it’d be both apparent that there is something I’ve overlooked, and that this is indeed the correct way ahead. And then the devs place a key or a crowbar next to the map and voice recorder. How hard could that be?!

As it stands, I don’t feel like playing a game that’s either dead simple or outrageously difficult, if it doesn’t have at least something in the writing department going for it. I guess some mysteries better remain unsolved :slight_smile:.