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OMG Lode Runner 2. I have an unusual need to play that game. I used to play hotseat Lode Runner with my friend when we were young. Then I randomly got a shareware version of the sequel, and could never find a retail release. It was before I had a credit card, so I never ended up playing past the first few levels. Yeah it's tacky, but it's good.

Hmm, I think you've convinced me. But then I realized I still have a pile of games I should be completing before buying anything else.

The surprise was they screwed up this weeks Wednesday deployment and halted everything for the sake of TF2 on Mac.

hmmm. But I really like the COPS, and the locations seem interesting. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Season 1 and 10 being Devil's Playhouse, how would you rate Season 2?

I went back and played some of Season 1, and it's really frustrating. I was thinking of picking up Season 2, but I don't know if I should. I loved Tales of Monkey Island, and Devil's Playhouse so far seems to be great, but for some reason Season 1 makes me want to break my DVD. It's hard to figure out what exactly bugs me about it, but the whole thing seems forced. Like there are way too many things to interact with that have no purpose beyond initiating some corny dialogue sequence. Should I grab Season 2? Also, I think I've come to the realization that I don't really like Sam. Maybe it's the dragnet impersonation, or the fact he's a giant monster. I wonder if he'd be more relateable if he were more proportional to a dog rather than a theme park employee. My memory may be failing me, but I remember him as the size of a short stocky dude in the old games.

I just started watching Doctor Who. I never took anybodies advice before about watching it, because it always looked so low budget and people never really explained why it was worth watching. But it's got this great Douglas Adams feel to it, and the time/space travel provides the greatest excuse for the Star Trek style monster of the week. I didn't want to have to watch all the back episodes to make sense of it all, but this current season was enough of a reset that it didn't matter. Also, the special effects are a lot better. If you like Hitchhikers guide, I highly recommend you give it a shot.

This thread is like the No Mutants Allowed of adventure games.

i haven't played my wii since the first Mario Galaxy. Going to dust it off and buy new batteries just for this.

*bump* New video:

precision flying robots

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_100408_01/adventure_game First episode will be in a couple weeks. I hope it's not the typical terrible licensed game. Of all intellectual properties, I can't think of another more suitable for a point and click adventure.

Another Steam Mac launch special. The Lucas Arts adventure package is 50% off. Since it's already got a 50% off deal for the package, it's more like 75%. $5 instead of 20 for The Dig, Loom, Fate of Atlantis and the Last Crusade. http://store.steampowered.com/sub/2102/

Thanks for the deviant art link, I've seen this post from 3 different sources since the login lockout. I guess they're getting hammered. It's beautiful, but whenever I see Crysis mods, I wonder what's the difference between this "game" and some scene in a top of the line 3d modeling tool. Realistically is it ever going to be played, or is it just an artwork?

You're publishing on the indie market place and not XBLA right? If so, I don't imagine peer review will but the kibosh on it.

I hear you. I have the money, but have no desire to give that much to Sony. It's hard to get behind any of these consoles when they're so poorly supported. But at least with the RROD they've done a better job at extending the warranty.

It looks like they made the wrong kind of adventure game. Curse that infinitely ambiguous term.

If you've lost your faith in Microsoft, buy a PS3. I've lost my faith in Sony with my recently bricked system. I could send you all of my PS3 games, and you could send me all of your 360 games. Green grass all around.

This video made me go from interested to fearful of this game. They seem to be obsessed with minutia that's been common in game development for 15 years. They didn't show anything unique about the game or their processes, maybe the team that edited together the bit was just completely clueless. Yeah it's really interesting, you've got a model and a texture, and you're going to animate it... Oh wait a second, you've got objects in the world the characters are going to interact with? USP God I hope it's not terrible.

Since this was getting bumped, Explicit gamer has started a new feature about XBL Indie games: Also, I've been toying around with a simple puzzle game in XNA. I don't have 360, so I wasn't planning on putting it on the indie store but if anybody with a developers license was interested let me know. I'm thinking of porting it to SilverLight and comparing the Xbox marketplace to the new Google web store.

lol, yeah I guess it may come down to that.

I was playing through Tales of Monkey Island, and I was thinking about in-game hint systems. In the days before the internet (or your knowledge of it), adventure games had this frustratingly beautiful puzzle aspect to them. When you were stuck, you were forced to figure it out on your own. I remember getting stuck for weeks on Grim Fandango (stupid wheelbarrow). This was a blessing and a curse, because though sometimes the puzzles were unfair or poorly designed, when you solved them on your own it felt amazing. Internet walkthroughs can absolutely destroy a game. I don't look back with complete fondness to the time before GameFAQs, as I would never want to be stuck for that long ever again, but I do think that developers should do everything in their power to prevent the user from thinking they need a guide. Even if you're stuck for hours, and feel completely deadlocked, you can easily spoil the game by accidentally reading too much from a poorly written guide. Even page titles and table of contents sections can inadvertently ruin a game. So what are the best in-game solutions you've ever seen in an adventure game, and what would you suggest could add to in-game hints? I like the incidental dialogue that Monkey Island has weaved in to help the player, but it seems that whenever you need help the most the hint tells you something you already know. Most of my problems stem from lack of inventory, and could help me out greatly if I had a command to check my pockets and tell me if I have everything I need to move forward. In a more hand holding extreme, I think it would help to have a Geiger-counter like system to notify me if the item(s) i need are in my area. Burying these types of features in a UI with possible action cooldowns could prevent a user from spamming them relentlessly. Machinarium's instructions mini-game looked interesting (didn't actually play it), but it looked like it gave away the entire solution when the player just needed a hint. Another possible solution I think would be interesting would be crowd sourcing the hints. Maybe create a simple GUI to integrate with a moderated adventure gaming IRC or forum community. Have a user submit a hint request ticket, volunteers or moderators choose to answer in a way that helps the user without giving away everything. If the game save files were structured in a simple way, users could even load up the stuck person's game and give them a response with appropriate hints or screenshots. In fact based on the persons save file state, you could determine if another person has already submitted a hint request and compound the response. Considering that most people get stuck in similar places, it would most likely lead to higher quality answers in the hardest puzzles. This would provide value to the developer as well, because they'd have discrete details about how their users are challenged by puzzles and know exactly where they messed up. You could create some sort of meta karma points system to encourage people to participate, or just rely on the kindness of strangers.

7 is Love for Sail right? I liked that one.

half way through when he started using "special moves" I started to sympathize with it. That's funny stuff.

The quick-look on Giant Bomb cured me of any impulse to buy this game. The jump looks frustratingly low. I know it's going to be one of those games with an early frustrating part you only get by 1/10 times, and are forced to run another 30 seconds of terror, thinking that you'll screw up on something easy.

This thread is starting to make me sad about how bad the recent LSL games have been.