Several Cryo Interactive Entertainment adventure games have been republished over the years on both Steam and GOG. One of the outliers is the 1994 game Commander Blood, which is exclusive to the ZOOM Platform:

https://www.zoom-platform.com/product/commander-blood

I’ve never played it, but I do like the unique art style they went for. The French have always expertly produced eye-catching graphics. Has anyone on here got opinions about the gameplay itself? Also do you think most people even know ZOOM Platform exists?

I would love to get your various viewpoints on when you consider the penultimate time period for playing adventure games was. Defining an adventure game in that other thread by Jackal was easy enough, something Specs from the Soda Poppers could probably manage in his sleep. But even Specs would balk at something this daunting, so I’ll get the ball rolling on this one.

Focusing solely on commercial adventure games, I would posit that it began in 1990 and ended in 1998. The catalyst was The Secret of Monkey Island. The 1993 release of Day of Tentacle firmly cemented this as a golden age, technology was no longer a barrier to offering a multi-faceted experience encompassing animation and voice acting, which in turn further enhanced the most crucial element at the heart of all adventure games: story.

Humongous Entertainment would ramp up the production value already observed in Day of the Tentacle to an even higher echelon. In 1994 they released Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds. An edutainment point & click adventure game featuring television-quality animation, nine different voice actors, an extensive soundtrack nearly to CD-quality standards by George Sanger despite the compression. All of which was spooled directly off the disc drive onto the computer screen. The forward momentum had been achieved for Humongous and they continued this for many years.

Side note - there were numerous companies doing wonderful things during this golden age for adventure fans, to name a few of those: Adventure Soft creating the first couple of Simon the Sorcerer games. Westwood Studios with the Legend of Kyrandia trilogy. Presto Studios crafting The Journeyman Project series. Great direction by all of those talented visionaries.

However, it was definitely Revolution Software, Humongous Entertainment and LucasArts that invested in the ideal style of 2D hand-drawn animation to still stay relevant, even well and truly into the 21st century. Visual distinctiveness balanced with immersive storytelling and harnessed by innovate technology. They clearly had the competitive edge in the adventure game market during the 90’s.

The selection of creative releases from Sierra and LucasArts was fading out by the turn of the new millennium. With those prominent developers gone, it begs the question what caused that to happen? My opinion is that awkward 3D technology contributed to the downward trend of the adventure game industry. Working within a new 3D engine framework would have caused workflow issues for the game designers. Plus the consumers weren’t used to the changeover from pixels to polygons.

It’s also worth mentioning that full motion video from this time period still looks quite nice. Dark Side of the Moon by SouthPeak Interactive is a decent example. Not to mention, the final two Tex Murphy games developed in the 90’s by Access Software.

1999 to 2005 represents the dormant years of adventure games being commercially viable. Even Humongous Entertainment was fizzling out by this point under the guidance of Infogrames/Atari. They would still release a few more superb adventures, but nothing was left of value by the time 2002 rolled around.

Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Broken Sword 3. Please don’t make me list anymore disappointing examples from this desolate hellscape era. There is a saying that 2D artwork ages like a fine wine, whereas 3D graphics age like milk. That aforementioned Simon game lends immense credence to this. 3D was a huge boon to console gamers, but not so much for PC gamers seeking narrative-driven gameplay rather than button mashing.

Every cloud has a silver lining, even in the middle of those bleak times. Her Interactive was able to capitalize on the lack of rival game developers focusing on adventure games. Conveniently they already had a solid game engine developed from when they released The Vampire Diaries back in 1996. Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill was placed onto store shelves in 1998, a clunky mishmash of 2D characters transposed onto 3D backgrounds. Not a brilliant start, but an okay beginning nonetheless. Their next game Stay Tuned for Danger was more refined graphics-wise.

They finally hit their stride with Message in a Haunted Mansion (2000). The golden age of consistently high-quality Nancy Drew games started with their 7th game release in 2002: Nancy Drew – Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, and ended with their 13th mystery in 2005: Nancy Drew – Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon. Though it may sound paradoxical, a miniature golden age (at least for Nancy Drew fans) did exist within the darkest timeline of 1999 to 2005.

Speaking of timelines, the freeware point & click adventure community may have well been part of a different dimension altogether, because it was absolutely booming during the early 2000’s unlike the commercial scene. Games made with Adventure Game Studio and the Sludge engine were readily available online and heaps of fun to play. Tim Furnish of Hungry Software released Out Of Order in 2003 and it was a particular favourite of mine. Re-releases of Lure of the Temptress and Beneath A Steel Sky also solidified 2003 as an excellent year for freeware. The AGS community continued to expand over time culminating in some great games. A Tale of Two Kingdoms by Crystal Shard feels like a proper spiritual successor to the King’s Quest series. Alongside LucasArts homages such as Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth demo by Screen 7.

Youth? Sounds like the perfect segue into the last section of my post. What truly rejuvenated the retail market for adventures was irrefutably Telltale Games. Bone: Out from Boneville was the perfect way to test the waters in 2005. A 3D engine with cartoon-esque colouring showcasing familiar comic book characters created by Jeff Smith.

Telltale Games quickly moved onto their main juggernaut series in 2006 with the dynamic duo we all know and adore: Sam & Max Freelance Police! Telltale benefited from two core demographics wanting to buy their games: Older players that had already experienced Hit the Road in 1993, and young people discovering Steve Purcell’s iconic characters for the first time. Selling the games in episodic format kept things manageable for the company to develop things smoothly. The consumer benefited from being able to digest the storyline at their own pace.

The renaissance era for commercial adventure games had officially been ushered in thanks to Telltale.

Now it’s your turn, forum friends. What do you personally consider to be a golden age for adventure games? Be as objective or subjective as you like.

Today Adventure Game Hotspot turns three years old!

It was October 14, 2022 that the site did a soft launch, followed the next day by an insane 12-hour marathon livestream to really kick things off, and it's been full speed ahead ever since.

In some ways it feels like only yesterday, in some ways it feels like a lifetime ago, but we sure have come a long way since then.

Thanks to all the Hotspot staff for helping to make it possible, and to our fine community for making it all worthwhile!

Here's to many more.

(A blast from the past. Not from opening day, but same basic design.)

Disk 22-36-114 / SNES ROM HACK 
A voodoo platformer tribute for Monkey Island’s 35th anniversary



Ahoy, pirates and pixel-loving adventurers!
I’m an indie developer on a mission to revive the magic of the '90s by creating completely free games for the legendary Super Nintendo (SNES). And to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Monkey Island, I’m working on something special: Disk 22-36-114, a voodoo-infused platformer inspired by the mythical Disk 22 — the legendary joke that drove fans wild back in the day!

 Remember that mysterious floppy that never actually existed? I’ve decided to make it real. This game is a cheeky, nostalgic tribute packed with:

[*]Environmental puzzles and acrobatic jumps
[*]Voodoo magic and deep-cut references
[*]A nimble Guybrush (scaled to SNES limits: 16x32 pixels!)

[*]And a twist: the sheriff is the main villain!




After catching Guybrush picking forbidden flowers (banned by local law for reasons still unknown), the sheriff chases him through the catacombs to arrest him. 
It’s a surreal pursuit through traps, voodoo, and... municipal regulations.
The game will be 100% free and playable on SNES hardware. 
I’ll be sharing screenshots and gameplay details soon.
Stay tuned, mates. The legend of Disk 22 is finally coming to life.

The word is out in my area and people know that I am a huge collector. I have been getting a lot of people bringing some old treasures into my store. I got all of these in the last month for a total of 180 bucks  [attachment=undefined]

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Hi folks. Lets have a spot where we help each other out by making each other aware of adventure (and adjacent) games that are free or deeply discounted. 
NOTE: There are always sales on adventure games so we will try to avoid those. 

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October 16th will be huge for the bargain adventurer as Epic will be offering Samorost3 and Amnesia the Bunker.

I found this guy on Mastodon who is developing this word puzzle game «Tiled Words».
https://tiledwords.com/

It’s simple, but just immensely fun. After playing the first demo I was instantly addicted!   There is now another demo out, and the full version will be released very soon, October 19th.
If you’re into word puzzles, you should check this out.

Disclaimer: I am friends with the devs, but I also swear that I genuinely enjoy the game myself

Causal Loop is a first person puzzle game. The gimmick is that you can create "Echoes" of yourself to solve puzzles. An echo is basically a clone that's alive for a few seconds, but repeats their actions over and over again. So you can have your clone push a button that opens a door in order to get through it, since the door closes too quick to push the button and run yourself. Later on, you have up to 3 clones for some more intricate puzzles. Some pretty fun SciFi world building as well.

The demo is available on Steam for Windows. Not sure if it will release on other platforms later, but it does play really well with an Xbox/Playstation controller.

4 Minute Explainer Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckFIoUD_i08

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3374460/Causal_Loop/

I think the captcha for registration needs to be changed so that it is more difficult for bots than just an image with letters. I'm not very familiar with this forum software, but perhaps you could set up a blacklist that automatically deletes posts with links to Temu, AliExpress, etc. I would also add a URL shortener to that so that the blacklist cannot be circumvented.

PRIM is a darkly beautiful point-and-click adventure full of black humor. When her mother dies, Prim learns that she is the daughter of the Grim Reaper and must now live with her strict father. But she soon breaks his rules—with fatal consequences! Will you help her outwit death?

Release date:
October 24, 2024
Developer:
Common Colors, Application Systems Heidelberg
+
Publisher:
Application Systems Heidelberg
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1510470/PRIM/

A great game with annoying elements and a first-class soundtrack that rock ‘n’ rollers in particular should buy.
The puzzles are super easy, which makes it a good game for older children who can handle dark sarcasm – and Prim has plenty of that. To make matters worse, there is also a hotspot indicator and a hint system that (mostly rightly) laughs at you.

Two mini-games were annoying: one was a kind of chess that you can make easier for yourself, and the other was a card game in which you have to defeat four opponents over and over again to get stronger cards. The latter is a real test of resilience because a) it takes so long and b) it's exhausting to hear the same comments from the referee over and over again.

The German version has excellent voice acting, and the puns are all spot on.

Conclusion

A nice game to play in between other things, with a length of 9 hours. Knowledge of Greek mythology helps to understand all the references.