I write in German, hence the German puns and onomatopoeia in the names. (Although these were the real names.)
Those who read it found at least the first part funny. But these are all readers who are familiar with wild boars, at least from hearsay, or have encountered them before. At least the AI has already figured out who the murderer is, but fortunately the readers haven't.
It will be a long time before the story is finished. I am so dissatisfied with the second part that I have to start the rough draft all over again.

And then I have to revise it. I can't do “show don't tell” at all, and the course on it isn't until May. I doubt I'll have much time in the summer. If my joints are back to normal by then, I'll be spending my days at the lake.

Where can I get boards? Whenever I chop up branches or larger pieces of wood lying on the ground, I only get twigs. I'm slowly getting desperate.

I don't like any games at the moment. “Death on the Nile,” “Face Noir,” “Gabriel Knight 2”—too difficult.
Gerda: A Flame in Winter – too depressing and too easy.
Winter Burrow – I don't even understand cozy games anymore.

I don't even want to start a game anymore because I know I'll hate it after thirty minutes (at least I lasted two hours with Gerda).
How do you get out of a slump like this?

You have five days to save your husband, who has just been arrested by the Gestapo. Investigate, explore, and build relationships in this adventure game with role-playing elements. Who can you trust? Steam

It's a shame that such an exciting topic has been turned into such a boring game. In a game, I want to play, which means actively doing things. And by actively doing things, I don't mean just clicking on predetermined points and then having the character comment on them. A door is locked? Just click on one of the 3-4 points in the room and you've got it. A brain-dead monkey could play this game.

Given the beautiful graphics and serious theme, it's a shame how the game was botched. Add to that the implausible characterizations: someone gets beaten up with your help = the next day, you're working together again, no big deal. Your superiors don't even question where your bruised face came from. It's all just stupidly done.

---

Feels like Thimbleweed Park has a very similar vibe to Stranger Things, and it’s not just the 80s nostalgia. Both have that mix of small-town weirdness, government-style conspiracies hidden in plain sight, and characters who seem over the top at first but end up being surprisingly memorable....

I've looked into this a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't see an option to suspend/delete an account from the user side.

I suppose you can always just remove your profile picture and stop logging in, but I was wondering if there was a "clean" solution hidden somewhere in the user options.

I'm thinking of doing a video sometime in the future that combines my two favorite things: adventure games and vinyl records.

I know there's a sizeable market for "video game vinyls," but adventure games are a bit underrepresented in that regard.

If you have any cool ones, let me know which ones you have and which one's your favorite!

Here's a few from my collection you might recognize.

Welcome to the playthrough of Blackwell Unbound! New York City, 1973. Ghosts are not making it to the other side. Someone needs to help these poor souls find their way.

Our hero is Lauren, the  strong but weary aunt of the akward wallflower we came to embrace in the first game. We get the same sidekick, mentor and inexorable family curse: Joey the ghost.

Tonally, this part of the series leans most heavy to the side of neo-noir.
Even with the game's economic design, there are items to examine and details to explore with no direct bearing on gameplay or progress. This is optional, but I encourage you to look at things from the two different perspectives available in this game.

I'm not sure how many people will be participating, feel free to jump in at any time. I want to thank MenhirMike for the insightful observations and capturing what it was like playing the first game. I hope I can achieve the same for this one.

As a prelude, let's play until we meet our first ghost. If you get there early, meet the other one as well. From there, we'll pick a ghost to focus on first.

Since we are currently discussing the usage of AI generated assets in Adventure games, I would like to know which games you know that feature art/graphics created with traditional, analogue media.

Hybrids are fine, as long as the analogue medium is recognizable.

I start this thread in "Other Games", since I am convinced there might be games that are not really "adventures" but should be mentioned here because they are awesome.

So please share the games you know about!

I stumbled upon this interactive pencil illustration 5 minutes ago and needed to share it, to make a start:

https://alexanderperrin.com.au/paper/shorttrip/

You can try it in the browser and support the artist on steam if you like to. It took the artist 5 years to create this, and it was released in 2024. The playtime is about 5 minutes, according to the creator.

What do I personally love about Steel Sky? Warning: my answers will contain some spoilers. I could resolve this issue by using spoiler tags, but I don't want to get accused of censorship by those "saboteurs" from the Hobart Corporation, so here it is unadulterated. 

There are several small but nevertheless meaningful elements of branching actions peppered throughout the first third of the game that I admire. The example that stands out greatest to me is Robert Foster assuming a false job title in order to feign having legitimate clearance to locations. If the player does the expected action of just simply talking to Anita, he will have the choice of either being a safety inspector or a security guard.

How about a slightly hidden, unique and all-round fancier job title? It seems we're in luck, because if Foster races straight past Anita with the brisk pace and determination of Gilbert Lamb hearing it's lunch break, then a new dialogue sequence gets unlocked. You can fake being a safety inspector yet again   but immediately after putting your foot in your mouth, you now have the new option to ask her on a date for the correct terminology of your phoney profession. Behold, we are now an auditor!

Sometimes I even just love stuff that is obviously an oversight in the development process (I'll get to this in a bit), take for instance Robert stealing those sweet dark shades of a recently deceased security professional. Reich might have been on the wrong side of history, but the man clearly took protecting his ocular vision earnestly.

 

Robert, whom despite being an Australian and living in the desert has gleefully abandoned any notion of sun exposure safety, and takes umbrage at the mere suggestion that a full-sized leather outfit is inappropriate for this kind of weather, suddenly has decided that a pair of bloodstained sunglasses is just too hard to resist. Good to see the Aussie mantra of "Slip-Slop-Slap" is being kept alive in this dystopian future.

Normally foreman Potts would confiscate the sunglasses after you've finished exploring the storage room of the pipe factory. But did you know that there is a secret way to keep those glorious sunglasses FOREVER? I discovered this decades ago, and I just genuinely like this mistake for some peculiar reason. All that is required is for you to complete the puzzles necessary to get the lift working again on the upper walkway section, then do a tiny bit of backtracking to pick up the ID card and (more importantly) the sunglasses off Reich's body as the final step before continuing the rest of the game in style.

Worth also mentioning is the phenomenal soundtrack by Dave Cummins, which strives through regardless of your sound card setup. Selecting my favourites, I'm going to put a spotlight on the chillaxing composition of the 2nd jukebox song in the St. James Club, the pleasingly bombastic sounds of the upper walkway near the security headquarters, and of course the entrancing music of LINC-Space.

 I've been kindly informed by LINC that my terminal credits are expiring, so I will just finish up by saying that it was an exhilarating experience from the very beginning with the crashed helicopter on the walkway and then getting chased as a fugitive, what an absolutely cinematic-esque opening to a game from 1994. I played the 2003 freeware edition and enjoyed the adventure immensely.