Adventure game recommendations

[Drascin]

Okay, so, while I never quite disliked them, I was never a huge fan of the point-and-click adventure game genre. There's plenty of good ones, but I preferred to play other things...

But, recently, I let my mom play Time Hollow in her DS, since I know she likes reading and stories, and a game like that, which is a cross between graphic novel and point'n'click adventure, I thought she could like. Well, I was more right than I expected. She loved it, and wanted more. So I lent her my Phoenix Wright games, rented Secret Files, borrowed every game like these my friends had, etcetera. She burned through all of them in less than a month.

We're now playing the whole of Monkey Island together as a family pasttime, but we're reaching the end, and I just don't know what else I could give her when we finish, because, as said, I'm not an enthusiast of the genre.

Anyone have any recommendations to help me? The only conditions the games must follow for her to like them are:

-no arbitrary unwinnable (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unwinnable) situations.
- Not creepy. She's a lot more of a scaredy-cat than even I am, and I'm really easy to scare.

Cartoony aesthetic is always a plus with her, too.

[Dhavaer]

Day of the Tentacle is very good, as is Sam & Max Hit The Road. I believe DotT was the sequel to Maniac Mansion, which I haven't played but I've heard good things about.

[Mando Knight]

Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People (SBCG4AP). 5 episodes of silliness by the Brothers Chapman. Includes sbemails.

[Fri]

seconding day of tentacles if you can get it.

Indiana jones and the fate of atlantis if you can get it.

Grim fandango? Never actually played it, but it's one of the best game of all time. Dunno if she'd find it creepy though, with it's set in the afterlife and the main character is a skeleton, humorous at it is.

Syberia? Steampunk 3d point and click adventure game.

Dreamfall and its prequel, the longest journey. Though it's not exactly point and click and it got some minor action scene.

it got some annoyng stealth part though, so dunno if she'd like it.

I'll think some more.

[Winthur]

The Longest Journey
Day of the Tentacle ("Oooh, a secret passage! This is all too easy...")
Beneath a Steel Sky
Death Gate (if you don't mind the funny laughing wizard guy and the "OH HAPLO" squeaks from some "cheerful" characters...)
Riddle of Master Lu
3 Skulls of Toltecs (not creepy at all; it's a comedy western adventure game from where Fenimore Fillmore origined. Too bad it's really old and hard to get.)
Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love on Sail (if she doesn't mind the sexual nature of the jokes. However, it's the last funny Larry adventure game, so...)
Grim Fandango.

[Drascin]

Day of the Tentacle is very good, as is Sam & Max Hit The Road. I believe DotT was the sequel to Maniac Mansion, which I haven't played but I've heard good things about.

Can't believe I forgot about DoT. Yeah, gonna try that one.


Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People (SBCG4AP). 5 episodes of silliness by the Brothers Chapman. Includes sbemails.

Problem is, I don't think that game's become known enough to translate it to Spanish and Mom doesn't speak a word of English, I'm afraid. Thanks for the reply anyway.


seconding day of tentacles if you can get it.

Indiana jones and the fate of atlantis if you can get it.

Grim fandango? Never actually played it, but it's one of the best game of all time. Dunno if she'd find it creepy though, with it's set in the afterlife and the main character is a skeleton, humorous at it is.

Syberia? Steampunk 3d point and click adventure game.

Dreamfall and its prequel, the longest journey. Though it's not exactly point and click and it got some minor action scene.

it got some annoyng stealth part though, so dunno if she'd like it.

I'll think some more.

She told me she found the DS version of Syberia rather uninteresting, though. Is the PC one much different?

I might get her Dreamfall (she's not too good at action sequences, but she isn't diametrally opposed to action, actually. She did beat A Link to the Past with me when I was eight, after all :smalltongue:. I can just help her beat the stealth scenes), Indiana Jones, and maybe Grim Fandango (though I'll probably play a bit of that last one before, just in case).


The Longest Journey
Day of the Tentacle ("Oooh, a secret passage! This is all too easy...")
Beneath a Steel Sky
Death Gate (if you don't mind the funny laughing wizard guy and the "OH HAPLO" squeaks from some "cheerful" characters...)
Riddle of Master Lu
3 Skulls of Toltecs (not creepy at all; it's a comedy western adventure game from where Fenimore Fillmore origined. Too bad it's really old and hard to get.)
Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love on Sail (if she doesn't mind the sexual nature of the jokes. However, it's the last funny Larry adventure game, so...)
Grim Fandango.

A lot of these names I haven't even heard about, actually :smallredface:. I'll google a bit to see how they are. Though I think I'll pass on giving her Leisure suit Larry :smalltongue:.

[Smight]

Discworld (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/discworld/index.html) 1 and 2.

[Fri]

Never played the ds version of syberia, but after some quick check, the original version got game of the year award, and the ds version only scored 3.5 in gamespot.

Discworld is hillarious, but it got some poorly thought puzzles in my opinion. Fairly minor though.

Day of Tentacle is my favourite one. It's funny, and one of my first pc game and it's the game that I used to learn english.

Dreamfall and the longest journey got a really epic story, my favourite type of story. You know, about a bored joe somebody from our mundane world that crossed the 'slipstream' and got involved with epic struggle.

[Cespenar]

Cannot second The Longest Journey-Dreamfall duo enough. Grim Fandango is great too.

Broken Sword 3&4, Full Throttle, are also good stuff. I'm yet to play Day of the Tentacle, but I hear about it everywhere.

Syberia has a very good setting and atmosphere, but there's something wrong in that game that I can't put my finger on, something that prevents it from being as good as, say, The Longest Journey.

If you hadn't said "not creepy", I would have suggested the Trilby series from Yahtzee, but never mind.

[Drascin]

Never played the ds version of syberia, but after some quick check, the original version got game of the year award, and the ds version only scored 3.5 in gamespot.

Will mention it in any case. Thanks.


Discworld is hillarious, but it got some poorly thought puzzles in my opinion. Fairly minor though.

Well, at least she's acquainted with Discworld. I gave her the whole Witches series and the Watch series sans Thud (no translation yet) and she rather liked them. I think she still doesn't even know who Rincewind is, though.


Dreamfall and the longest journey got a really epic story, my favourite type of story. You know, about a bored joe somebody from our mundane world that crossed the 'slipstream' and got involved with epic struggle.

Continuty question: a google search shows me both an older game named just The Longest Journey, and a new game called Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. Which one should she play first?


Cannot second The Longest Journey-Dreamfall duo enough. Grim Fandango is great too.

Broken Sword 3&4, Full Throttle, are also good stuff.

Ah, yes. She played Broken Sword Director's cut in the DS and said she thought it was pretty good, so more Broken Sword is probably a good bet.

[Fri]

Dreamfall is a direct sequel of The Longest Journey, so of course she should play longest journey first.

[pendell]

Some other possiblities:

-- Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic. Puzzles are a little complex, but it's humorous and a visual treat.

-- The Myst series.

-- Sierra's Quest for Glory series.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Drascin]

Pendell, you'll excuse me, but I'm rather wary of anything with the Sierra logo when it comes to adventure games. They have this... reputation of theirs, and I did say "no risk of unwinnable situations" was one of the most important prerequisites.

How's Myst? I've heard pretty good things about it.

By the way, finding a copy of The Longest Journey is proving to be surprisingly hard (Dreamfall, on the other hand, is still sold everywhere). But I'll get you in the end, Gadget!

[Player_Zero]

Three and four? What? I found everything after Broken Sword 2 a bit of a disappointment.

Errr... Simon the Sorcerer?

The newest Monkey Island I have been told is pretty good.

And there are a ton of decent text-based adventure games if you're into that.

Hmm... What was that short one where you built that dungeon in order to try to stop the hero from escaping?

[Fri]

Simply put, back then, Myst was the 'killer aps' for windows pc.

It was before my time, but it was bundled with... I forgot, windows or something back then. And even without that, it was a best selling game for maybe a decade.

I haven't played it myself though. But basically, it's a first person adventure game. You can't remember anything, and you're stuck in a mysterious, empty, island. You got the actual storyline from what piece of information you can scrounge from notes, and things like that.

It sounds good, but I don't really like adventure games where we're practically silent and alone in the game. I like interesting main and support characters

[Thane of Fife]

I will second Starship Titanic. It's a cool game.

A Tale of Two Kingdoms (http://www.crystalshard.net/atotk.php) is a free game I've been having some fun with, though I'm not entirely sure that it has no unwinnable conditions.

[Corlindale]

I quite enjoyed the free adventure game "Ben There, Dan That" from British developers Zombie-Cow: http://www.zombie-cow.com/

It's relatively short and probably not that difficult for experienced adventure gamers, but I think the humour is fantastic - very Monkey Island-ish, and heavily based around parodying the point-n-click adventure genre in various more or less obvious ways. Graphics are very old-fashioned and simple, but somehow charming in their way.

I'm currently playing the more polished sequel, "Time Gentlemen, Please", which is 3 GBP to download from their site.
A possible downside to the games might be that the comedy at times is a little bit on the rough side, so it might not be for the timid.

I heartily second recommendations of The Longest Journey. This topic almost makes me want to dig it up again, as I - shame on me - never managed to fully complete it.

[potatocubed]

Sam and Max Hit the Road.

I can't believe I'm only the second person to mention it. =/

[Eldan]

I love the Myst games more than anything, really. My favourite games ever, especially Riven.
However, they seem very much different from what you are looking for:

They pretty much drop you in the middle of a new and fantastic world, without any clue where you are, who you are (actually, you are playing yourself on a fantastic journey), how you got there or what the hell you are supposed to do.

You are left alone to wander a world which is, for the most parts, entirely devoid of other people, but filled with artefacts and notes of previous explorers. All the games have graphics that, for the time when they were made, were absolutely fantastic and, together with world design and music, create an athmosphere that I don't think has been replicated anywhere else.

Case in point: the first game contains you and three other people, all of which are imprisoned in other worlds you can't access. There will be one single scene where you meet anyone else.
The other three games (never played number five, since I haven't been able to finish number four) are a little better, but still only have a handful of "populated" scenes each, which usually feature pretty much no interaction at all.
It's all about the puzzles, really, which are mostly machine-based, and soaking in the athmosphere. Best when played in a dark room at midnight when everything outside is completely silent and you can forget where you are for a few hours.

[Totally Guy]

I remember playing through some good Sierra games. Kings Quest 7 is very good, and the first one in the serier to do away with unwinnable situations, it also stars the females of the cast, the Queen and Princess.. forgotten their names... (no I haven't Valenice and Rosella).

Torin's Passage was a sillier story by the same team.

There was a fantastic PS2 game called Shadow of Memories (Shadow of Destiny in US) which was a game where the protagonist dies but is given a time travel device to go back to prevent his own death occurring. It's very plot driven with very little gameplay besides being in the right place at the right time with the right item. It had 5 distinct endings depending on which plot directions got persued. Good graphics too.

[Fri]

Oh yeah. Shadow of Destiny. A good looking game with interesting plot and yeah, rather minor gameplay. There are 5 ending, and you can only see the whole pictures if you got all of the endings.

[Cespenar]

Three and four? What? I found everything after Broken Sword 2 a bit of a disappointment.

It's arguable. Three had a lot of box carrying IIRC, but to me, both did good - in terms of delivering a story and good characters, more than being an adventure game. And in any game I first look for those.

[Rutskarn]

See if there's a translation of the new Sam and Max series by Telltale.