Adventure Games through the Ages

Here is a thing about me: I love adventure games. I love adventure games like Debbie loves cats. Recently I got lost in a Wikipedia hole, as you do, and realized how many adventure games there are that I have never played, some because they came out before I was old enough to play them, others because there was a period of time in the 90s when a LOT of adventure games came out, and I was like 10 years old and had no money. There are also a lot that I played and forgot about.

So I'm going to play through some of these and post my take on them. For extra fun, let's do them in chronological order and see how the genre developed over time. I have a very long list of games I'd like to play/blab about, but it's going to depend on the availability of the games, and my attention span.



Title: Mystery House (aka High-Res Adventure #1)
Year: 1980
Developer: On-Line Systems (precursor to Sierra On-Line)
Current availability: Freeware since 1987. Free download with emulators, iPad/iPod/iPhone port ($5.99).

Developed by Ken & Roberta Williams of King's Quest fame, this is the first game that can be somewhat generously called a graphical adventure. Really it's the first text adventure with pictures. The images look like they were drawn with a mouse by someone who kind of sucked at drawing to start with, which makes for a funny juxtaposition with the grim murder-mystery plot of the game. You discover dead bodies, and they are stick figures with big goose-egg bumps on their heads. It is unintentionally hilarious.

( POST PICTURE i don't understand POST IMAGE with what? POST IMAGE WITH HTML i don't understand )

Adventure Games through the Ages

Here is a thing about me: I love adventure games. I love adventure games like Debbie loves cats. Recently I got lost in a Wikipedia hole, as you do, and realized how many adventure games there are that I have never played, some because they came out before I was old enough to play them, others because there was a period of time in the 90s when a LOT of adventure games came out, and I was like 10 years old and had no money. There are also a lot that I played and forgot about.

So I'm going to play through some of these and post my take on them. For extra fun, let's do them in chronological order and see how the genre developed over time. I have a very long list of games I'd like to play/blab about, but it's going to depend on the availability of the games, and my attention span.



Title: Mystery House (aka High-Res Adventure #1)
Year: 1980
Developer: On-Line Systems (precursor to Sierra On-Line)
Current availability: Freeware since 1987. Free download with emulators, iPad/iPod/iPhone port ($5.99).

Developed by Ken & Roberta Williams of King's Quest fame, this is the first game that can be somewhat generously called a graphical adventure. Really it's the first text adventure with pictures. The images look like they were drawn with a mouse by someone who kind of sucked at drawing to start with, which makes for a funny juxtaposition with the grim murder-mystery plot of the game. You discover dead bodies, and they are stick figures with big goose-egg bumps on their heads. It is unintentionally hilarious.

( POST PICTURE i don't understand POST IMAGE with what? POST IMAGE WITH HTML i don't understand )