FMV Friday for July 21, 2023

July 21, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Here are some of the FMV games I played this week and other various FMV things that may be of interest.

After Hours

After Hours is a short student game released in 2019 by Bahiyya Khan. It is a vignette game about a young woman who was molested as a child and suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder as a result. I thought the game handled the subject very well and the performance by the designer was good too. I’m hoping that it gets a more public release someday but I believe you can still get the game by subscribing to Humble Choice and downloading the game through the indie game collection that subscribers get.

Virtua Bird Trainer: The Game

Virtua Bird Trainer: The Game is a short adaptation of a Youtube video which replicates the aesthetics of Sega Saturn games. It’s a short, fun game by the creator of Indiepocalypse, which you should also check out.

Murderous Muses

Earlier this week the Youtube channel Conversations with Curtis, which is hosted by the lead of the 90s FMV game Phantasmagoria 2, had an interview and Let’s Play with Tim Cowles from D’Avekki Studios for the studio’s newest game Murderous Muses. It’s a good interview and the game looks interesting too. Turns out it just went on sale on Steam yesterday so I guess I’ll pick it up now.

Narrat

Last night I saw that the interactive fiction/rpg game engine Narrat now supports video. From looking at other things made with the engine, the dialog and text usually seems to follow a format more like you’d see in a game like Disco Elysium so it seems like some really interesting stuff could be made in it.

My New Game

I also released a FMV game earlier this week. The game isn’t anything amazing (outside of the lead actress) but I had a good time working with the engine and want to use it more. I used the Charles Engine, a package for Unity that lets you easily create choice based FMV games. The engine was created by Charles Games, who previously made some other games I liked. I bought the plugin when it first came out and then just….sorta forgot. But I really enjoyed using it and the game got many more downloads than I expected so I’m hoping to make more FMV games in the near future.

FMV Friday

July 14, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

For research for something I’m working on, and also just because I genuinely like them, I’ve started playing a lot more games with FMV in them and I guess I should write about them so people have more games to check out. No idea how often I’ll do this but maybe you’ll discover some neat stuff.

Internet Court

A pleasant surprise this week was Internet Court. I had seen previous games by the studio show up on Steam before but never really heard much about their games but a positive review on Adventure Gamers was enough to get me to check it out during the Steam sale and I’m glad I did. If you watch the trailer, you can tell that it’s extremely low budget and maybe doesn’t feature the most professional actors but even with its lack of polish (or because of it?) it is extremely charming. It’s just very silly fun but never leans into doing an intentionally bad thing on purpose. The game’s Steam page jokes about the game only having one actual actor but everyone involved, including the moms of the developers, gives it their all to delivery genuinely funny performances and I’m looking forward to checking out other games by the studio.

Markus Ritter – The Lost Family

This is a weird one. Markus Ritter is a short FMV game inspired by 90s adventure games like the Gabriel Knight, and especially the second Gabriel Knight game, down to having the player character having the last name Ritter and at least one other Gabriel Knight reference thrown in there. I have no idea what to rate it. It plays fine. The game takes itself so seriously but the acting is pretty goofy, and not all of it intentionally, that it ends up being amusing and charming in its own way I guess? Even the rough edges are unintentionally charming, like the many shots where the lead actor walks back to the camera to turn it off and it shakes a little when they do that and they just don’t clip that part out of the final product. I guess it has a sequel in August and I’m curious about it so it did something right. I’m being rough on it but it’s free so check it out if you’re really into 90s point-and-click adventure games with FMV like I am. It has some nice quality of life stuff in there too, like a built-in hint system and being able to highlight all the spots you can click on.

Aran’s Bike Trip

I wasn’t sure if I should put this in here since I don’t think there’s really any FMV in here, just 360 panorama photos you can interact with, but it’s neat so I’m putting it in here anyway. Aran’s Bike Trip is a game by Sokpop Collective, a small group that has been making a variety of short games for years, where you follow someone along on a biking trip one of the developer’s took. All you do is look at panoramic photos of the Dutch countryside while looking at notes from the designer and listen to calming music but it’s very nice. Sometimes a game can just be an excuse to look at photos of beautiful places in the world.

Date Me

I also wanted to check out some of the FMV games on Itch so I downloaded Date Me, a very short and gay dating sim created (I think) by university students. It’s funny and free so you might as well try it if that sounds like something you’re interested in but my biggest takeaway from it was mostly that I’m very jealous of college students doing goofy games like this instead of the boring, massive projects that people in my computer club were trying to push when I was in school. Where were the people like this?! This is far more exciting and was actually completed. Oh well.

Review: Inca

June 3, 2023November 26, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

Developer: Coktel Vision
Publisher: Sierra On-Line
Year: 1992
Genre: Action, Adventure

Played Inca, an adventure game/rail shooter by Coktel Vision and released in 1992 about Incas and conquistadors fighting in space. If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is! You journey through time and space to grab some important looking orbs to become El Dorado and bring the rebirth the Inca empire, all while fighting conquistadors flying boats in space. The game has you alternating through these shooting segments (there’s also some on foot) with traditional point-and-click adventure game parts. Since this is a French DOS game, none of it is really that well designed but it’s all fascinating and certainly a lot more playable than other DOS games that hop around between different genres, even with the difficulty spikes. I’ll definitely play Inca 2 at some point because the weird combination of it all and the FMV is very interesting to me.

I’ve been playing Goblins 3 this month for Adventure Game Club, which is by the same developer, so it’s fun looking at the credits and seeing that the people involved with that goofy game also worked on this right before that game. I don’t know if I could recommend it because it certainly is a clunky game and it becomes too difficult towards the end, but it’s easy to get running in DOS Box if you want to try it and it has passwords and stuff you can do to make the action segments a little bit easier. I would definitely recommend watching the intro which starts off normal enough and then suddenly shifts into “what the hell am I watching?”

I love French DOS games.

Inca is not available for sale but is updated to work on modern OS on the abandonware site The Collection Chamber along with Inca 2.

An Intro Guide to Gobliiins

June 2, 2023November 18, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

This is a spoiler-free guide for people who wish to check out the series Gobliiins, a point-and-click adventure game series created by Pierre Gilhodes and Muriel Tramis. This is not a walkthrough and is just meant as an intro to help people get into the series and a little background on the games. There are five games in the series. The first three were released in 1991, 1992, and 1993. Many years later, after Coktel Vision had shut down, Pierre Gilhodes created a Gobliiins 4 in 2009 and recently released Gobliiins 5 in 2023, after getting funding for it on Kickstarter. The number of i’s in a Goblins game changes based on the number you play as. So Gobliins 2 has two playable goblins and Goblins 3 (also known as Goblins Quest 3 in the US) has one playable goblin at the start, but you have other playable characters as well.

goblin standing on a flying boat in the sky

Why Should I Play It?

The Gobliiins series is an entertaining series of point-and-click adventure games that have great art, animation, and music, with really charming sound effects and talking noises for the characters as well. If your interest in adventure games is more focused on the puzzles than plot, which isn’t a big focus for this series, then I would recommend these games. The puzzles can be challenging but even failure can be fun to watch in these games and for the most part (with the exception of the first game) you cannot die or lose in a Gobliiins game so you are encouraged to try everything to see what funny results occur even when it’s not the correct solution.

How Do I Get Started?

Fortunately it’s very easy to get most of the games in the series. Goblins 1-3 are available in a pack on GOG, which includes both the floppy disk and cd-rom versions of the games, which all run in ScummVM. While I’m fine with the cd-rom versions of the games since that’s what I grew up with, many people prefer the floppy disk versions due to them having a different soundtrack. Some people even prefer the Amiga version of Gobliins 2 over the PC versions since that has a different soundtrack. So when playing these games, I would maybe just go on youtube and listen to brief snippets of the soundtracks to see what you prefer but if you don’t feel like doing that, it’s probably safer to go with the floppy disk versions. Unfortunately Gobliiins 4 is now abandonware and you’ll have to find it on your abandonware site of choice. Gobliiins 5 is available on Itch and coming to Steam very soon.

This next part is where things might be a little controversial. If you’re looking for a game to start with in the series, a lot of people would recommend Goblins 3 and I would agree with this. It has the most solid game design of the three original games and some of the best art in the series too. Plus the series is so light on plot that you won’t be confused by anything if you skip ahead and will just miss some references. Gobliiins 1 is very hard to recommend to beginners due to its health meter. So much of the humor in the series is connected to failing or seeing your characters get hit in a cartoonish way and the first game will remove health anytime this happens, almost defeating the point of the game. Your health bar also carries over between levels and there are only one or two places in the game where you can refill it, meaning you either have to replay levels after you figure them out and not lose health, or the game almost becomes unplayable towards the end. I would also hesitate to recommend Gobliins 2 to beginners even as a fan, due to some of the frustrating puzzle design. The game has two characters that have the same abilities but sometimes requires you to arbitrarily use one to solve a puzzle. It also has puzzles requiring chains of actions that must be executed perfectly or else you have to redo the whole puzzle.

That all said, if you play through Goblins 3 and enjoy it, I would recommend playing the others if you want more. If you want to check the game out, consider playing it with us in the Adventure Game Club, where it is our game for June.

An Intro Guide to Loom

May 24, 2023November 18, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

This is a spoiler-free guide for people who wish to check out the game Loom, a point-and-click adventure game designed by Brian Moriarty and developed and published by Lucasfilm Games in 1990. This is not a walkthrough and is just meant as an intro to inform people what the best version of the game is and help get started playing.

a character in a tent with a cauldron and potion

Why Should I Play It?

Loom is a must play for fans of point-and-click adventure games. Unlike other games from the era, including other adventure games by Lucasfilm Games, there is no inventory and all the puzzles revolve around spells you cast using musical notes created by your staff. It’s a fascinating system for an adventure game and was a joy to play as someone that was a fan of other Lucasarts games. The game also features wonderful art in the EGA version and the version of Swan Lake that plays throughout the game is very well done. All the puzzles felt very logical to me and it’s shorter than other games by Lucasfilm Games, making it easy to recommend to people new to the genre as well. I only played the game for the first time a few years ago and felt that it held up very well. There are no deaths or (as far as I know) any dead ends you can hit in this game, which makes it another reason why it’s a great game for adventure game beginners.

How Do I Get Started?

Unfortunately, the version available on Steam and GOG is not the one people generally prefer, which is the EGA version of the game. While the EGA version has less colors, the art is still superior to the later cd-rom VGA version, which is the one available today. In addition to this, the VGA version made room for the voice acting on the cd by cutting many lines of dialog, closeups of characters talking, multiple puzzle solutions, and censored some cutscenes. My recommendation would be to download the EGA version of the game from your illegal software download site of choice, but buy the VGA version of the game on Steam or GOG so you still own a copy legally. If you are curious about trying the game with 256 colors, I would recommend finding the FM-Towns version. While it does not have the voice acting that the cd-rom version has, it does not cut nearly as much as that version.

Before you start playing the game, I would strongly recommend listening to the audio drama prequel here. This was a cassette that came with the original release of the game. It’s fun to listen to, provides some important background information before you play, and it’s only 30 minutes long.

Once you have the game downloaded and have listened to the prequel, you are ready to play. The game runs well in both ScummVM and DREAMM. If you’re unfamiliar with DREAMM, give it a shot. It was created by Aaron Giles, a former employee at Lucasarts, and is an emulator exclusively for Lucasarts games that aims to be a more accurate emulation of these games, including using the original save and load menus.

Tips for Playing Loom

There’s a couple things to keep in mind while playing the game that will help you full appreciate it

Take Notes
The spells you learn in this game are not saved to any sort of in-game notebook, so make sure you write them down instead of trying to memorize it all. Many of the spells are randomized so you will not be able to just look it up in a walkthrough later.

Hints Are Ok!
If you’re struggling with a part of the game and it’s getting in the way of you enjoying the game, it’s ok to look up hints! I think this guide on UHS Hints is good for giving hints for what to do next, without giving away the entire solution.

An Intro Guide to Realms of the Haunting

May 19, 2023November 18, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

This is a spoiler-free guide for people who wish to check out the game Realms of the Haunting, a first person shooter and adventure game hybrid developed by Gremlin Interactive and published by Interplay in 1996. This is not a walkthrough and is just meant as an intro to the game to help people get started playing it. Gremlin Interactive was a British software developer that had been around since the 80s. In the mid 90s they developed a 3D engine that they used for a first person adventure game called Normality and then used the engine to develop their FPS/adventure hybrid Realms of the Haunting. The game plays a bit like a 90s fps but also features inventory items and puzzles, mazes, and journals to read. The game reviewed very well at release but as far as I can tell, was not a huge commercial hit. You can read a good review of the game and its history here.

first person view of a player shooting a monster in an old house

Why Should I Play It?

If you’re someone who has an interest in both adventure games and first person shooters, I think it’s worth playing. While the game isn’t without its flaws (see review I linked to above), there still hasn’t been anything like it since then. Even with the massive retro FPS revival happening right now, I haven’t seen anyone developing a game that lists this as its inspiration even though I think the FPS/adventure combination is very novel. There’s also a lot of FMV in the game which I find very charming. You can listen to the Adventure Game Club talk about it here

How Do I Get Started?

It’s easy to get the game running on modern computers. The game runs pretty well on DOSBox if you already own it. If you don’t have the game, you can buy it on GOG or Steam. I strongly recommend the UK to US patch. The patch allows the user to change the difficulty and also the key bindings. This is really important because by default the controls for this game are pretty clunky and you may want to switch the keys to what every other FPS uses.

Tips for Playing Realms of the Haunting

There’s a couple things to keep in mind while playing the game that will help you avoid some headaches people can run into with this game, and to fully appreciate the game.

Save Often
You will want to save regularly. Encounters with enemies or traps can go poorly and may require reloading, especially since there are points in the game where the game isn’t generous with health pickups. As far as I know, there are no softlocks in this game that require you to restart the game because of something you missed or action you took.

Don’t Save on Moving Platforms
There are a couple parts in this game where you have to do some platform jumping. Due to the clunky controls, people will be tempted to save each time they make a successful jump. Do not do this! There is a bug in the game that will cause you to fall to your doom as soon as you load a save on a moving platform. Just save before and after each platform jumping segment and use multiple save files.

Conserve Ammo
Even though there’s technically no softlocks, the game can feel like it’s impossible to complete if you’re not careful about your ammo and health. Early on in the game, try to use your melee weapons when possible so you’ll have lots of ammo. Also consider redoing an enemy encounter if you lose a lot of health.

Read the Manual
When I played the game, I didn’t realize you could easily switch weapons using keybindings and I played the entire game switching weapons through the inventory screen. Don’t make the same mistake I did! This great review of the game at The Genesis Temple mentions that there’s also a patch floating around that gives the game WASD + mouse controls.

It’s Ok to Use Hints!
Adventure games can be tough and puzzles that make sense to one person may not be easy for someone else. If you’re feeling frustrated by being stuck on a puzzle too long and it’s becoming less fun, consider looking up a hint. I feel like the guide on UHS Hints is good at helping the player without giving too much away.

An Intro Guide to Zork Nemesis

May 15, 2023November 18, 2024 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

This is a spoiler-free guide for people who wish to check out the game Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands, a first-person point-and-click adventure game developed by Zombie LLC and published by Activision and released in 1996. This is not a walkthrough and is just meant as an intro to the game to help people get started playing it. During the 80s, game developer Infocom created many text adventure games, with Zork being their most famous series of games. Towards the end of the decade, Infocom made some poor business decisions and it also become tougher to make text adventures commercially viable so they were acquired by Activision and eventually closed. However, this didn’t mean the end of the Zork series and there were three commercial Zork games released in the 90s, Return to Zork in 1993, Zork Nemesis in 1996, and Zork: Grand Inquisitor in 1997. At the time Zork Nemesis was a bit of a divisive game, it did well critically and sold well but a few fans were put off by the game’s darker tone, which was a change from the heavily comedic tone of the previous game or two in the series. Some people were also put off by the game being influenced by Myst, a highly popular adventure game at the time. It seems like people have come around since then and appreciate the one-off change in tone, which still has dark humor but isn’t as silly as the games before and after it.

Why Should I Play It?

If you’re an adventure game or Zork fan, I think it’s worth playing. I think Zork fans will appreciate the change in tone while still feeling like a Zork game but even if you’ve never played a Zork game, fans of the genre should find it enjoyable. There’s a lot of variety in the environments, the plot is interesting, the acting in the FMV scenes is the right level of camp, it has an incredible soundtrack and for the most part the puzzle feel challenging but fair. If you’ve never played a Zork game before, the game does make references to the world established in previous games and you might get a little more from the game if you’ve played other Zork games, but it’s very standalone and doesn’t rely on playing other games to understand the story..

How Do I Get Started?

It’s easy to get the game running on modern computers. If you already own the game, you just need to copy the files to a directory and open it with ScummVM. If you don’t have the game, you can buy it on GOG or Steam and copy the files into ScummVM from there. The versions on those sites use DOSBox and I heard people say they ran into some bugs from there. I also strongly recommend the subtitles patch. The sound mixing in the game is sometimes a little off and it makes it hard to hear dialog while playing the game. The patch also makes the audio puzzles a little easier, which may or may not be a plus for you depending on how you feel about that style of puzzle.

Tips for Playing Zork Nemesis

There’s a couple things to keep in mind while playing the game that will help you avoid some headaches people can run into with this game, and to fully appreciate the game.

Save Often
You will want to save regularly. There’s a few points where the player can die and a reload is required. As far as I know, there are no softlocks in this game that require you to restart the game because of something you missed or action you took.

Take Notes
During the game, you will come across journals and other things that are used in puzzles in other parts of the game. I highly recommend having a notebook or paper to write notes and diagrams in so you have something to reference for these puzzles.

Some Neat Games (May 1-7, 2023)

May 9, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

I just did one of these a week ago but a bunch of cool things have come out since then that I’ve played and I think they’re worth checking out.

Gobliiins 5

a bunch of various goblins and potato people on a snail-like thing

After many years, we finally have a new Gobliiins! Gobliiins is an adventure game series that started in the early 90s, by French game designers Pierre Gilhodes and Muriel Tramis. After three games, they moved onto other things (like the wonderful Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth) and then eventually the studio Coktel Vision closed. Years later Pierre released Gobliiins 4 in 2009 but I bounced off of this due to the ugly 3D graphics and early puzzles. I’ve heard it improves later on so I’ll have to give it another chance. Unfortunately I’ll have to do it from my physical copy since it’s not legally available on any digital stores.

Which brings us to 2023 and a new Gobliiins game after being crowdfunded on a couple sites. I had pretty low expectations but it’s actually a nice little game and everything I wanted as a fan of the original trilogy. It’s rough around the edges due to it being a solo dev game and Pierre’s first game in Adventure Game Studio, but it has everything I wanted like nice art, weird sound effects playing all the time, and goofy little guys. I don’t know if it would be the first game in the series that I would recommend to new players, that might still be Goblins 3, but I do think 5 is a solid entry in the series and worth checking out if you were a fan of previous games.

Undrium

Undrium is a free platformer by BitGlint Games, a small studio (single dev?) who has been remaking ZX Spectrum games and doing homages to that era for a while. To be honest, Rob does a much better explanation of the game and why it’s so good on his blog. So all I’ll really add is that as someone who was too young for that whole era, I just think it’s a really good game even when I have no nostalgia for that time and nothing to compare it too.

Dinocar

Dinocar is a really cute tabletop rpg where you play as dinosaurs driving cars and build a little dinosaur city in the process. I played this with my 3 and 6 year olds and we all had a great time, even if my 3 year old had no interest in following the rules. The art is great and the layout and game structure made sense to my 6 year old and I. The same designer also made the game Sprouts which I keep meaning to play as well.

Indiepocalypse #40

I’ve talked about it a billion times by now but the new issue of Indiepocalypse is out and as usual, very good. I just think Indiepocalypse is doing very good curation work and bringing more attention to a lot of neat indie games while helping some others get made in the process. I’ve discovered so many games through the zine and this issue is no exception. At the moment there’s also a little PWYW bundle ($1 minimum) where you can get a bunch of games that were commissioned for the zine. It’s good! Go check out an issue! You can buy them in cassette form now!

Aseprite 95

the layout of aseprite redesigned to look like a windows 95 app

This isn’t a game. I just think it’s a nice theme if you use Aseprite and also have an attachment to Windows 95 because of nostalgia.

Doom II RPG

Technically it’s not a new game, it’s a port of a mobile game from over a decade ago. But the mobile version has been unplayable on iOS for a very long time now because Apple absolutely doesn’t care about games preservation so I’m very happy it exists. Back when mobile phones were starting to have more complex games on their platforms, John Carmack created a few turn-based rpgs using the Doom and Wolfenstein properties. Ars Technica goes into the history a bit more and how you can download it here but they’re actually very good games and worth checking out if you’re a fan of Doom or rpgs like Eye of the Beholder.

April 2023 Indie Game Roundup

April 30, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

There were a lot of really cool indie games in April! Here’s some things you might be interested in! I hate writing intros!

The Aching

a person falling into a pool of green stuff

One of the games I was most excited for this month is The Aching. It’s an adventure game inspired by 80s Sierra adventure games but without the things in those games that annoy me like frequent softlocks, poor parser, and hugely problematic writing. I don’t mind deaths in adventure games but this doesn’t have those either and it actually has some fun puzzles that involve great harm happening to your character. I love the art and how it runs on basically everything, including DOS. It started as an entry in the DOS Games Jam I organize and it’s cool seeing how far it has come. It’s the first game publisher by DOS games publisher Hadrosaurus Software and hopefully many more will follow.

Breathe

a bird and text saying "I get that in some regions they are an invasive species, in direct competition for resources with the"

Breathe is a relaxing walking simulator (their words, not mine!) by PRINCESS INTERNET CAFé. I was a huge fan of one of their previous games about a dying MMO, Running Back to You. I was impressed how this was made with a heavily modified version of Bitsy. It’s fun seeing how much people have changed Bitsy and I’m curious what they’ll do with it next.

Barren Planet

top down screenshot of two space armies fighting

Barren Planet is another DOS game that came out this month! I love seeing games come out for platforms that are supposed to be dead but people continue making exciting things for them. Barren Planet is a turn-based strategy game where two corporations battle on another planet. The campaign starts off pretty simple but introduces new mechanics and units with each level. I also got to beta test this one too!

LesbiAnts

LesbiAnts is a rpg for the Game Boy with erotic elements. You play as a colony of ants investigating mysterious seed pods and fighting mutated insects. Not only do I love seeing games for “dead” platforms as stated above, it’s exciting to see queer games that Nintendo would never approve of being made for their platforms. The Itch page also has a playable demo in the browser if you want to try it out.

DOMINO CLUB Dream Gallery Jam

a computer desktop that looks like it's from the 90s

We also got a batch of new DOMINO CLUB games this month! DOMINO CLUB is a collective of game developers who anonymously create experimental games during jams that occur 1-2 times a year. Each jam has games doing really exciting and new things and there’s always a couple games in each jam that I absolutely love. If you’re looking for a place to start, why not try im doing better now or TRAUMAKT~4.SEXE

Making Niche Games Popular

April 11, 2023 ~ mpklamerus ~ Leave a comment

I keep seeing a post on one of the social media sites that instead of trying to make niche genres like Interactive Fiction more mainstream and financially viable, people should just focus on the craft instead. And since people keep sharing this weird take that I strongly disagree with, I guess I have to explain why I don’t like it.

I really don’t think it’s unreasonable to want interactive fiction to be more mainstream and commercially viable nor do I think it’s an unobtainable goal. A lot of people read so why couldn’t reading with some interactivity be commercially successful too? It was a financially viable genre for like, 10-15 years, and could still be considered one if you’re talking about companies like Choice of Games and games like Lifeline being huge hits. Depending on your definition of the genre, visual novels are a part of IF and are massively popular.

Obviously capitalism is bad and there’s more to making games than if they can make a lot of money but why shouldn’t we push for more visibility of games that are only considered “niche” because don’t pander to some bro gamer culture. If we’re talking about games made with Twine and Ink, it’s one of the most approachable ways to make games and one of the genres where I see the most queer stories. I really think that the thing that keeps IF from being bigger, especially with non-parser IF, is that a lot of people who love to read just don’t know about it.