review

Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator Case 1 – In Search of the Skunk-Ape thoughts

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Developer: Grundislav Games
Publisher: Grundislav Games
Year: 2004 (Deluxe version: 2006)
Genre: Adventure

a park ranger talking a guy in a building

I just installed ScummVM on my new MacBook this weekend and have started loading as many games as I could on it. After seeing how many early AGS games I put on there, I thought it would be a fun excuse to revisit some of the games from that era since I have some nostalgia for that time. This includes the first game in the Ben Jordan Paranormal Investigator series. The first game just turned 20 last year, which is also a bit weird to see. I played the Deluxe version, which came out in 2006. I thiiiink it’s the first game by Grundislav Games? You play as a dude named Ben Jordan on your first case as a paranormal investigator and check out a series of murders of park rangers by a creature known as the Skunk-Ape. It’s a horror comedy series, which I don’t think you see too often in video games either.

It still holds up! The puzzles aren’t too difficult but don’t feel like a waste of time either, and it’s only about 60-90 minutes so you can easily do it in one sitting. Some of the puzzles make him seem like more of a sociopath than I remember, but I guess that’s kind of the whole deal with this style of adventure game. Plus it’s a comedy so it works in the game anyway. Obviously the developer would go on to do bigger and better things but I think some of the fun with revisiting these early AGS games is seeing how they got started. Even if they didn’t go on to make commercial games, early AGS games are fun to check out because you get to watch a whole community figure out how to make these after Lucasarts and Sierra collapsed, and the lack of polish in the art and voice acting is really charming to me. That doesn’t mean that I think it’s bad, it’s still lovely stuff and I think it’s worth playing outside of its context, but it’s a different kind of nostalgia than what you would get from revisiting a Lucasarts or Sierra game.

Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator Case 1 – In Search of the Skunk-Ape is available for free/pay-what-you-want on Itch.io

Say No! More thoughts

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Developer: Studio Fizbin
Publisher: Thunderful Publishing
Year: 2021
Genre: Arcade

Say No! More is an arcade game where you are a new intern at a company where everyone says “yes” and must use your ability to say “no!” to change the world. I just played through this one with my oldest and had a good time. It’s a pretty straightforward game. You walk on a linear path, push a button to say “no!” whenever someone interrupts your path to ask you to do a mundane task, and continue moving. Sometimes you must charge your “no!” to clear your path but that’s mostly it in terms of “gameplay.” But I think where the game really shines is everything outside of that. The game features a gorgeous aesthetic influenced by PS1 graphics. I’m also always happy to see anti-capitalist and pro-union messages in games.

a woman outside saying NO and it pushing a man into the air

I’m also kinda doing the game a disservice by saying “you just push no and then keep walking.” In a very reductive way that’s true, but there’s so many custom options, including what language you say no in. It’s also just a lot of fun to watch the lengthy cutscenes as well. The game only took me about 100 minutes to play through but I think it would be exhausting if it was longer than that. I had a good time with it and it’s fun finding weird, short stuff like this in my backlog that I can play with my daughter

Say No! More is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, and iOS.

Vaporwave Pinball Thoughts

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Developer: Mixtape Games
Publisher: Mixtape Games
Year: 2025
Genre: Arcade

image of a pinball table sitting next to a pool

Vaporwave Pinball is a new game from Mixtape Games. It really is what it says On The Tin. It’s a collection of pinball tables wrapped in a vaporwave aesthetic. I don’t know if there’s a whole lot more to say about it than that. It’s only $5 and that gets you 5 tables that are both fairly straightforward but also have layers to them. It’s good!

Ok, fine. Maybe I do have some more interesting thoughts on the game other than that. This is probably my ideal version of what a pinball video game should be like if it’s not attempting to be as accurate of a recreation of a real pinball table as possible. I enjoy the recreations of real pinball tables in Pinball FX but really bounce off their original tables, partially because they’re mostly grounded but then have a few fantastical elements. If you’re going to make up a table for a video game, go wild! This game has elements like the ball being teleported and the table morphing as you play.

The most recent episode of Quest Quest actually has a lot more interesting thoughts on this (cohost Ben approves of the game!) that I can’t really build on because I’ve never played Pinball Construction Set, but it apparently has a lot of similarities to that. Ben also pointed the line on the Steam page that says “Less for pinball simulation fans and more for chill, flow state pinball fans.” Which I think is a very accurate and fair description of the game. I wouldn’t recommend it for hardcore pinball fans but if you just want to chill out while playing pinball, I think it’s a solid recommendation.

Vaporwave Pinball is available on Steam and Itch.io. The post is based on a key sent from the developer.

Thoughts on Detective Boiled-Hard / Case File – Death of the Space Dino Hunter

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Developer: Because Because Games
Publisher: Because Because Games
Year: 2020
Genre: Adventure Game

Detective Boiled-Hard is a traditional point-and-click adventure that came out in 2020 that I was also curious about but didn’t get around to playing until now.

a picture of two men in front of a fake dinosaur and a head on a stool behind a camera

You played as Detective Boiled-Hard and must investigate the death of someone to see what happened. It’s a very breezy adventure game. The puzzles are easy and it took me just under an hour to complete, but I had fun playing it. I had been motivated to play it after playing a lot of Reality-On-the-Norm games lately and this always reminded me of the early 00’s AGS freeware era. That could maybe sound like an insult to some people but I really mean it in the nicest way. I love that everything, including the voices for all the characters, was done by one person.

Since the game itself isn’t difficult, most of the fun comes from all the jokes packed into the game. There’s plenty of dialog choices that are just there for additional jokes and plenty to interact with in the game. It’s just a very light and silly adventure game that I think is worth a look if you want an easier and more relaxing adventure to playing in an evening or have a fondness for that AGS era I mentioned. I also just found out there’s a free mini-case of all new material if you want a demo or played the original game and want more, so I’ll need to check that out next.

Detective Boiled-Hard / Case File – Death of the Space Dino Hunter is available on Steam and Itch.io

Doom 2 Thoughts

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Developer: Id Software
Publisher: Id Software
Year: 1994
Genre: First Person Shooter

Finished my replay of Doom 2 last night and yeah, it certainly is more Doom so I enjoyed it. This time it was done with the recentish Doom 1 +2 rerelease that Bethesda did, which I got for free since I already owned it on Steam. Like my Doom 1 review, every single opinion on Doom 2 has already been posted before but this is my blog so I’m doing a random collection of thoughts anyway dang it.

Before my replay I thought Doom was the better game but as I played through the game again I went through the arc of thinking Doom 2 was actually better, and then back to thinking Doom 1 is superior. Doom 2 isn’t without its improvements though. It’s been said a billion times before but the double barrel shotgun is great. I like the new enemies too. While the archvile can be frustrating, I think it’s mechanically interesting.

I think what makes Doom 1 the better game is the level design. Doom 2 starts off very strong with the level design but becomes a little bit of a slog in the second half when the levels attempt to be more realistic city designs. It was much more impressive at the time and makes sense in the context of the game, but don’t hold up as well as the more surreal levels found in other parts of the game. I also noticed that just like in Quake, I think Sandy’s maps are a very mixed bag. I just don’t enjoy his style of map design. They’re usually filled with poorly made puzzles where you stumble around until you figure out the right wall to push on, and occasionally decide that you must open a door by shooting it instead of pressing the open door. It just ruins the pacing of the level and the game has a heavy amount of these in the second half, which is probably why it feels like a slog to me.

I think the bosses in Doom 1 are also better. They come up in here as well but I think that while the Icon of Sin is a fun gimmick, I ended up finding it mostly just an annoying fight.

My (possibly hot) take is that ID Software actually started to decline after Tom Hall had left the company, not Romero. I still love Doom 2 and Quake, I may even like Quake more after my recent playthroughs of both, but the company starts to play it a bit safer and less playful. I think this theory still holds up! While I don’t care for Rise of the Triad as much as Quake and Doom 2, it’s goofy as hell and throwing in lots of new things and seeing what sticks. Doom 2 really only does this with the secret Wolfenstein 3D levels and those end on a sour, mean spirited note by having you shoot at Commander Keen. As a side note, there’s some weird censorship in the Doom 2 rereleases during the Wolfenstein 3D secret levels and I don’t know why.

Anyway, yeah, Doom 2. It’s still good but I like the first game more.

Doom 2 is available on Steam, GOG, and basically everywhere else.

Discolored

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Developer: Jason Godbey
Publisher: Jason Godbey
Year: 2019
Genre: Adventure Game

black and white shot of a diner in the desert at night

Discolored is a 2019 first person adventure game created by Jason Godbey that I recently picked up because I saw the recently released sequel pop up on a few sites and was in the mood for a Myst-like game. There isn’t much of a plot, you are told that a diner in the middle of the desert has lost all color and you are sent to investigate. This is essentially all the plot you come across in the game and just exists to get you to the puzzles as soon as possible. Fortunately the puzzling in this is very good. The game starts off with having no colors in the world, but through various poking and prodding, you add some to the world and they allow you to interact with more objects in the game. It’s a nice way to keep you from feeling overwhelmed when you are first introduced to the world but it also keeps the small environment interesting to look at as you keep seeing it in new ways as additional colors are added. The game also features some clever puzzles using perspective.

The game has two modes for controls, free-roam and point-and-click. Usually the point-and-click mode in first-person adventure games feels like an afterthought but I thought it felt very good to control and actually used it quite a bit since I have been having some wrist pain lately and needed this control scheme to play it.

shot of a bedroom that's mostly black and white except for green walls

It’s a short game. I completed it in two nights but each session was very short and the puzzles made me think but I was never stuck for very long or frustrated. The game even has a built-in hint system if you want help with a puzzle. I said at the beginning of the review that I was in the mood for a Myst-like but it really wasn’t a Myst-like game at all. This isn’t the developer’s fault as they never claimed it’s like Myst, but I will explain what makes a game a Myst-like anyway since this is my website. A Myst-inspired game to me actually has quite a lot of storytelling being done through the environment and this storytelling is tightly integrated with the puzzles in the world, where this game just felt like an excuse to have a bunch of good puzzles related to color and perspective. Nothing wrong with that at all and it’s just not what I expected going in due to my assumptions with first person adventure games.

I really enjoyed my time with this game and I’m looking forward to playing Jason’s other games. I already own The Search from a charity bundle on Itch.io and Discolored 2 looks to be much more ambitious and seems to have more of a story and adds more characters.

Discolored is available on Steam.

Samorost 1

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Developer: Amanita Design
Publisher: Amanita Design
Year: 2003
Genre: Adventure Game

a guy with a hookah on a hill and a little gnome in white clothing in the background going skiing in the background

Recently played through this one with the kids and it still holds up! My kids are fans of Chuchel so I thought it would go back to their earlier stuff since this one is so short and simple. The game originally came out in 2003 but we played the remastered release from 2021, which updates the visuals and music but didn’t go too far with the updates. There’s not a whole lot to say about it. You help a little space gnome save his home by pointing and clicking on stuff and it only takes 15 minutes to play. I suppose there are technically puzzles, but most of the fun comes from clicking on things and seeing what happens. I suppose it’s sorta like the Gobliiins series in that way, but much, much easier. Anyway, my kids liked it and we’ll be playing 2 and 3 soonish.

This game was such a big deal when it came out! This was during the adventure game drought when Sierra and Lucasarts had recently stopped making adventure games so people were starved for high quality adventure games. One of my biggest memories of hanging out on the Adventure Gamers forums was people making a thread about this game every week saying “have you all seen this game Samorost? It’s great!” and not realizing that there had already been many threads on the game. It happened to the point of it becoming a meme on the forums. But I think it shows that even when the genre was “dead” there were still folks making memorable point-and-click adventure games.

The game was such a success that it led to the studio becoming a full time gig for the folks there. First by making tiny free browser games like this for companies (man, remember flash games being a profitable gig for devs?) and then making their own games. In fact, I think it took a while for me to get to playing Samorost 2 because it came out in 2005 and was a digital purchase, before indie games were being sold on Steam. I don’t think I even had any way of buying the game and I don’t think I even considered asking my parents because I knew they wouldn’t buy a game online. I think it had even received some criticism for being too short for a paid game.

The studio stuck with this format for a long time. It wasn’t until the last few years that they started to explore horror and branching out from their linear style of adventure game design more. The format works for me though and I can play a lot of their games with my kids, which is always a plus, since that’s when I usually have time to play video games. They’ve been taking their biggest swing with their current game in development, which is supposed to arrive next year. It will have been a five year gap between games, which is wild to think about. But as long as they keep making solid adventure games, I’ll keep picking them up.

Samorost is available for free on Steam, Itch.io, and many other places.

The Repossessor

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Developer: Dave Gilbert
Publisher: Dave Gilbert
Year: 2001
Genre: Adventure Game

the grim reaper standing in a bar with a bartender and chicken holding a gun.

Yeah that’s right, I’m still playing games in the Reality-on-the-Norm series, a collaborative universe created by the Adventure Game Studio community in 2001. The ninth game in the series is The Repossessor. You play the role of Death, who has come to Reality to reclaim the soul of Michael Gower, the zombie that your character reanimated in the first game and is now running for mayor of the town. The version I played was downloaded from the RON site and I didn’t realize until I had completed it that it was actually a remastered or remade version of the game, explaining why there was a huge graphical leap from the previous game and could now run in ScummVM, making it the easiest game to get running so far.

The most interesting thing about this entry is that it’s by Dave Gilbert, founder of Wadjet Eye Games. I had made a post about the game and he confirmed that it was his first game and built in a weekend. I have to say, it’s an incredibly impressive first game. I know some of that is coming from the game being a remastered version that looks nicer, but even from a design perspective I think it’s the best game so far. The remade version even some nice little touches like an instrumental version of Don’t Fear the Reaper playing in a room or two. Like previous RON games, it’s a little tricky to recommend specific games because they all build on previous ones, but I think you could manage to jump into this one since all you need to know is that there’s a zombie running for mayor in a town. Playing through this series has been a delight and continues to improve with each game as the community figures out how to make adventure games and use AGS.

The Repossessor is available for free on the Reality-On-the-Norm website.

Moving Out

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Developer: SMG Studio
Publisher: Team17
Year: 2020
Genre: Arcade

Finished playing Moving Out with two of my kids a few nights ago, not counting all the bonus levels and objectives, and had a great time. In Moving Out you are a team of movers who must get everything out of a house before the timer expires. A lot of the humor and fun from playing the game comes from the chaos caused by moving everything quickly and the physics knocking everything around the house, since you are not punished for destroyed the home owner’s property. Later levels add to the chaos by throwing you into wackier environments. I imagine it’s got a similar energy as Overcooked, but I never played that one so I can’t say for sure.

top down view of a moving

What I really appreciate about the game are all the difficulty options that made it possible to play this game with my kids. My kids are 7 and 5 years old and there is absolutely no way we could have played this without the options to add more time and making items easier to pick up. The game still remained a challenge but at a much more manageable level.

My kids were also a fan of the character customization options. As you can see in the above screenshot, you have all sorts of wacky looks to choose from and it was also nice to see that your character could be in a wheelchair. It doesn’t have any effect on gameplay and is just nice from a representation perspective.

The character design choices also add to the 80’s Saturday Morning Cartoon look that the game is sorta going for through its art and music. Generally I’m incredibly bored with games and pop culture leaning into 80s aesthetics, which isn’t something this game is really doing, but the light touch of 80s Saturday Morning cartoon influence in this actually works very well.

characters moving through a field in space while a giant robot is looking at them. The field is littered with trash.

If you’re looking for a game to play with your kids, I would highly recommend Moving Out. It has a wide variety of options to make the game playable by folks of any skill level and the humor worked for my kids too. I think I actually got this game through a Humble Bundle, so you may already own it too!

Moving Out is available on Windows, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Blastoff!

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Developer: Edmundo Ruiz Ghanem
Publisher: Edmundo Ruiz Ghanem
Year: 2001
Genre: Adventure Game

a woman standing in a purple convenience store
Reality-On-The-Norm has discovered gradients

My playthrough of Reality-On-The-Norm continues with the 8th game in the series. It was nice to play two entries in a row without having to fuss too much with getting them to work. This one has you playing as Elandra, who has appeared in some of the previous games, and you must help an amateur rocket builder. On average the series has been improving in the quality of the art and gameplay design. This one even features a really nice location select screen.

a screen containing a notepad listing "places to go" like a town square, launch site, and airplane graveyard
The game’s location select screen

I think the writing is the best in the series so far too! It’s genuinely fun going back to these and seeing topical nerd humor like an unironic All Your Base Are Belong to Us reference. Part of the fun of playing this series is that it’s a time capsule of a specific point in the adventure game community.

a woman talking to a man outside of a building and one of the dialog choices is "All your base are belong to us"
Folks, we’ve got an All Your Base reference

Another way this thing is a time capsule of the community is how many Yahtzee references it has. I posted the following screenshot without any context, because I forgot, and someone thought that there was maybe some in-community fighting happening but no, he had helped with the art in this game and someone in the team threw this reference in there as a fun joke. Maybe there was drama at some later point but it certainly wasn’t happening with this game.

view of the outside of a military base and the words Yathzee Sucks! is spray painted on the wall

I mentioned in a previous review that a dev saw my RON posting on Bluesky and this was that game. It was entirely positive, since I did have a good time playing this game, but I still imagine that it’s probably weird to see someone playing a game you made almost 25 years ago. They even mentioned that it was like doing an excavation on their 19 year old brain when I mentioned that reference. So generally I’ve kept any and all criticism off social media, as light as it may be, because who wants someone throwing rocks at something you made that long ago when you were a kid. The only real criticism I even have with this is just that it had some frustrating pixel hunting but that’s kinda it. I may have played an updated version too? It makes references to picking up items later and a walkthrough I found references picking up an item and going to rooms that I never came across.

A fun thing about it being a shared universe is that we’re starting to get more callbacks and it’s almost a sequel to the first game. I thought the epilogue and animated cutscene in an early AGS game was fun to watch. Even though I just complained about this game having some goofy design stuff, so far I think it’s the best one I’ve played and it’s fun watching a community learn how to make adventure games and referencing stuff that happened in this universe 8 games ago. Overall I had a lot of fun with this short game and would recommend it to others. Just be sure to play previous entries like the first game before doing this one.

Blastoff! is available for free on the Reality-On-the-Norm website.