(Discontinued) Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile

In Death on the Nile, a peaceful cruise on the Nile is suddenly disrupted by a terrible crime. Fortunately, the famous detective Hercule Poirot is on board. Meanwhile, a private investigator is hunting a murderer—a search that takes her from London to Mallorca, New York, and finally Egypt.
The two investigations converge at Abu Simbel. The dynamic duo must solve a complex case full of puzzles and twists. But the story doesn't end with the book and contains many secrets and surprises, even for fans of Agatha Christie. Steam

I don't know what to like about this game—actually, nothing. Anyone who plays the demo will quickly notice that the 70s don't really fit, even if it works on the ship.

The additional investigator seems completely out of place. The other investigator in Murder on the Orient Express was introduced more skillfully and investigated the Armstrong case, which suited Poirot. In addition, the characters were wonderfully eccentric, which was not the case in Death on the Nile. On top of that, there was a PoC passenger on the ship, which also didn't fit.

The investigator Royce also didn't fit into the Agatha Christie world. I have no problem with playing a lesbian, black detective who fits very well into her world. But she doesn't fit with Christie. As a standalone adventure, sure

The gameplay also annoyed me: right at the beginning, you are tasked with collecting golden mustaches and records, and only when you have collected them all do you get additional content. The jukebox in Chapter 1 is a nightmare, consisting of 4-5 mini-games/logic puzzles that you can't skip if you want to progress. In Chapter 2, you crack locks in the same way over and over again. The new “eavesdropping function” makes sense, especially if you remember the movie with Ustinov, but it's also annoying.

At the end of each chapter, your failures are presented to you: you didn't find xx records and xx mustaches and made xx mistakes (a whopping 17 in the second chapter) – very motivating.

Then there was a bug where subtitles were displayed even though they were turned off. (German version)

Maybe I'll give the game another try in the summer; the whole atmosphere isn't right for fall/winter.

Conclusion

A failure.

If there’s one thing to be said about The Legend of Kyrandia 3, it’s that the musical composition by Frank Klepacki is superb. With this forum full of point & click adventure fans, chances are most of you have played it, and at the very least thought the music was okay.

Both the GOG re-release and the original 1994 version feature heavily compressed mono audio at 22.05 kHz.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if it had proper stereo sound at 44.1 kHz?

The good news is that the official website of Frank Klepacki has four songs from the game in high fidelity. Even better news, you can listen to them online for free!

Here is a link for convenience:

https://www.frankklepacki.com/ost/vg/kyrandia-3

Subtle sounds that were previously bitcrushed to oblivion can now be heard at long last, including the tambourine at the beginning of Coral Hipness.

Another fascinating thing I’ve observed with this online rendition is how the Jungle Ruins song doesn’t loop around like it normally does in the game, instead just over halfway through it plays almost an extra 3 minutes of audio never heard before.

Obligatory audiophile recommendation: Use headphones for the best experience.

Mutants Ate My Carrots: 6.5/10. Difficulty level: 5/10.

~3h game about a rabbit with anger issues who beats other animals who stole his magical black carrots.

The plot is as crazy as something a 10-year-old would come up with.
There was a forest guarded by black pelt rabbits, but one day, humans arrived. And they didn't come to cut the trees or plough the land, either..No, the military literally started attacking the woodland creatures with guns and knives, and were winning pretty badly until the lions came to the rescue and kicked the army out of the forest.

While nothing exceptional, it's a pretty fun game. It has QoL features for smooth gameplay, such as fast travel and showing hotspots. The art style is clean and cartoony (with some cartoony gore), the music is OK and there is no voice-over.

The puzzles are OK, with their own little gimmick: you not only have items to use, but also "skills". You will use these skills in fights (which are also puzzles) and in exploration. For example, the skill to break wood can be used to clear obstacles and fight plant enemies. Fights are mostly won by learning about enemy weaknesses, acquiring and using items, and choosing the right skill in battle.
Another thing to note is that this is one of those games where you need to know beforehand why you need certain items before you can pick them up. Fortunately, there is a map with fast travel, so backtracking is not a problem.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/26546...y_Carrots/

When I tried to delete my own thread, nothing happened. Does deleting require approval from staff?

Also, when reporting a post, a window appears in which the text you write is in white font on a white background.

Share your adventure game fan art with the community! Pictures, music, dioramas, burning effigies... It's all good! Human-made only please (maybe there should be a separate thread for AI stuff?)

Here's some Space Quest music I'm working on: 
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/82ccp096c...ofx4g&dl=0

1) Which character from a Sierra or LucasArts game most reflects your personality and why? 

2) What is Prince Alexander's favourite food and why? 

3) If you had to spend the rest of your life in a location from the Space Quest series, where would it be and why? (Not including Xenon)

Discovering this forum from listening to the Adventure Game Hotspot podcast (which I also only recently discovered) is like finding a magical Time Twisting Device™, erasing the entire Dark Age of Social Media and all things Zuckerbergian, and just continuing where we left off in 2008 or whenever regular forums started to die..! It makes me happy!

So, my most immediate question: Are there anyone who used to hang out on the good old AdventureGamers forums? Please raise your voice!  

I used to hang out there in the early 2000s, first as Freddie_Melon, then later with some other nickname I don’t even remember anymore. I was in my early 20s then, and a part of an aspiring game developing team only consisting of people from that forum – we were making a Film Noir inspired adventure game based only on characters, that is actual people, from the AG forums! It started out as a fun little thing, then it became overly ambitious, and sadly, it was never finished. I was the composer and a lot of the score was actually half-finished. Today I am a composer for theatre, films and television, and I know that several of the other people from that team went on to work in game development also. 

Any other AG-old-timers here, then I would love to catch up!

anyone ever studied it or contributed to the study of it?

there was a large series of really cool posts by Choice of Games on their blog years and years ago, and it was the thing that almost got me into making video games.  i did some digging and found one i remember reading: "How We Plan a ChoiceScript Game"

the thing that really stuck with me is the post they made about designing choice charts: figure out where the BIG NARRATIVE CHOICES really are, and build your chapter design around getting to each major choice.  from there you can build intermediary choices that can create branches later- just keep track of how your paths part and rejoin and you can create meaningful impact based on historic choices in games.

i ended up applying a lot of this to my D&D games, and naturally it always went really well - the biggest effect it had was on my multi-year Kingmaker Pathfinder 1e game.

I figured this could be an interesting thread to get started. Let’s reminisce together about our initial experiences with the adventure game genre.

So there I am, a young child basking in the otherworldly glow of a green monochrome monitor. An Apple IIe from 1983 specifically. The imagery conjured on the screen is the 1985 release of King’s Quest II: Romancing the Throne.

The freedom this game offered my still-developing mind was twofold: First, the open-ended exploration of the various map screens. Second, playing around with the robust text parser. Only the abruptness of the built-in speaker snapped me back to reality... Thanks a lot Hagatha.

It may come as a surprise to you what year this actually was. While most of my peers would have been playing contemporary games, I was making my first foray into the swashbuckler’s favourite genre in the year 1997!

There’s something special about playing a game which was intended for a previous generation that I could have easily missed out on. It evokes a broader appreciation for game design in general I reckon.

Two years later I still hadn’t won the game yet. Coming back home from a long day at school, I was predictably back in front of the computer screen. The spelling test they gave us during the morning lessons featured various new words, in particular the word TAN stood out to me. I typed in the instruction: ‘graham tan’ – it resulted in the following:

“King Graham is not dressed for tanning.”

Naturally I was elated that they programmed in such a response. I like to imagine in my headcanon that Graham’s complexion improved that day on the beach of Kolyma. It certainly didn’t help with winning the game though.

Fast-forward to the year 2021, I finally completed the game as a team effort with a younger sibling, in conjunction with a walkthrough for the more difficult sections. It was rewarding seeing the ending to King’s Quest II with a family member.

However, it’s worth noting that the journey was just as satisfying, as it taught me during my formative years the importance of tenacity and creativity when playing specific video games that require those skills.

Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your nostalgic memories of the games that sparked your passion for adventuring.

Welcome everyone! This is a head-to-head tournament to crown the greatest Sierra box art of all time.
I’ve set up a 32-cover knockout bracket (see below). Each match-up will run for 3 days of open voting. 

The rules are simple:

1. Vote based only on the box art, not the game itself.
   
2. Pick your favorite in each match-up.
   

At the end, we’ll crown the ultimate Sierra cover champion. 

---

A note on the selection
Putting this bracket together was not easy. Many Sierra covers are iconic, and narrowing them down to 32 meant some had to be left out. (Police Quest 4 was actually the easiest to cut, lol). But leaving out things like Castle of Dr. Brain or Leisure Suit Larry 6 was tough, I tried my best to balance the most worthy and striking artworks.

So, without further ado… here’s the full tournament draw: