Act Casual

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Recently a conflation of many disparate events--specifically, watching that Five Nights At Freddy's LP and subsequently a bunch of others, waking up my long-dormant Steam account to play with Universe Sandbox, and my brother and me trying to explain video game logic to Mom using examples from Day of the Tentacle puzzles--has made me come to a realization: I miss point-and-click games. Suddenly I've been fondly looking back on the good times I had as a tiny little game nerd floundering my way through Myst with the help of the weirdly novelish player's guide, since I lacked the cognitive development necessary to really figure out what the hell I was doing.

So I've been tooling around Steam and my Kindle's app store trying to satisfy my dopamine needs,* sampling various games based on important factors like user reviews and, importantly, what's on sale. And it's working--I'm having a fine old time playing casual and more in-depth adventure games. So far I've enjoyed The Book of Unwritten Tales (fun puzzles, humor like Bad Discworld), its prequel the Critter Chronicles (where, to their credit, the humor got less annoying), and a stack of Artifex Mundi and similar casual games (which offer about a million layers of sociological analysis fodder, what with way they seem to market to females and are less "hardcore" but more story-driven with tragic romance and so forth, but fuck you they're PRETTY and the stories aren't bad). I have a few others queued up (Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People has been on my list for a while) but am always looking for more. If you give me a good space-themed casual adventure puzzle game, I will ... well, probably I'll just be very happy, but if we turn "make Amelia happy" into an achievement, your brain will think it's a real reward, and that'll be great!

Probably I'm overdoing it at the moment because I'm excited about this, and it could easily become a money pit if I'm not careful,** but it's really nice to return to some absurd problem-solving adventure.

By the way, I'm Polmelia on Steam, if anyone's interested, too!


*I wonder why something like managing to make a cup of tea comes with such a feeling of triumph in video games when in reality locating a kettle, tea bags, teapot, mug, and tea leaves filling the kettle with water, turning on the stove, boiling the water, pouring the tea leaves and the boiling water into the teapot, letting it steep for fourish minutes, and pouring the tea through the strainer into the mug is just a thing you do to get tea. It's almost as if game design has tapped into a collection of terrifyingly effective psychological hacks. I hope they use this awesome power responsibly.

**I have a complicated thing going right now where I OWN Portal 2 but can't actually PLAY it because [pointless boring computer fuckery]. I could easily re-buy it on Steam, but dammit I already own it so I'll just save it for when I fix my computer fuckery. Money, dangit!

Comments

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I am waiting, mostly patiently, for Night In The Woods. I love pointclick games; they're also a style I can play easily, unlike many action games (nerve damage to the hands kills one's ability to manage a game controller), so I am pleased to discover good new ones.

Making tea or coffee is a process with an aspect of ritual to me, so I always get a little glow of satisfaction from it, even though I've done it thousands of times. Is that gamification of my own life? Maybe. I don't know.

[hrhleia.livejournal.com]

Do you like/mind searching for hidden objects in your casual adventure games? I really like those and have several I could recommend. Also, are you familiar with jayisgames.com? They have in depth reviews of all kinds of games, and you can search by tags for the kinds you like. There are also usually links to demos so you can try before you buy! That's where I find almost all the games I play. I have a steam account but rarely use it, now that I have finished Portal and Portal 2, but I will try to remember to add you as a friend next time I connect.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I recall you mentioning that the DS stylus was a great thing for you because of the nerve damage. I'm glad you have gaming options!

I do get a bit of a ritual feeling out of making tea, but it still doesn't have the same "YEAH!" moment that a game does. Maybe if there was a happy chime and the completed cup of tea glowed briefly to signal the solving of the puzzle?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The Artifex Mundi games have Hidden Objects and I'm surprised that I rather like them--though why I should be surprised I don't know, since I'm a fan of the I Spy books (which, come to think of it, probably have games, too ...). I've enjoyed Grim Legends and the Nightmares of the Deep ones especially. So sure, recommend away!

I've run across jayisgames and have yet to delve into it, but yeah, it looks handy!

[hrhleia.livejournal.com]

I regularly check the Hidden Object tag at jayisgames to see what new ones have come out. There are a lot of horror-based ones that I tend to avoid, but the dark/twisted fairytale ones are interesting and usually pretty. Here are the ones that I especially liked, but it's been long enough I don't remember a lot of details, so you probably want to check the descriptions:

9 - The Dark Side and sequel 9 - The Dark Side of Notre Dame (fantasy, most logical with item use I've ever found)
Mystery Case Files series (some entries better than others)
Enlightenus and Enlightenus 2 (really long, not much story)
Otherworld Spring of Shadows (pretty)
Spirits of Mystery: Amber Maiden and Song of the Phoenix
Fabled Legends The Dark Piper
Awakening 1-4 (fantasy, pretty, decent story)
Dark Tales: Edgar Allen Poe (pretty, great if you like Poe, slightly annoying 'helper' character)
Dark Parables series (all nicely twisted, kind of dark fairytales, pretty)
Grim Tales series
Hidden Expedition series (nice for completeness, letting you go back to finish out achievements and stuff)
House of 1000 Doors (interesting, going between dimensions)
Mystery of Mortlake Mansion
Cadenza: Music, Betrayal and Death (great soundtrack, New Orleans locations, interesting story)
New York Mysteries Secrets of the Mafia (very well done, interesting, crisp art)
Dreamscapes the Sandman (interesting plot, really creepy images but you get to make them better)
Danse Macabre series (best if you like music/theatre/ballet whatever the plot hook is)
Amaranthine Voyage 3 Shadow of Torment (fantasy, pretty, I might look up the first two also)
Castle: Never Judge a Book by its Cover (short, mostly logical, really only fun if you like the show)

I've played a bunch more, but these are the ones that were good enough I might want to play them again. I tend to lean towards the fairytales and pretty ones, but several of them also get pretty dark, though not gory or with jump scares. Enjoy!

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

I have a similar addiction that I was feeding at regular intervals with assorted Big Fish Hidden Object games, but I'm not sure what their availability outside of iDevices is. Generally, these games have some assortment of puzzles, hidden objects, and plot. I've been enjoying the Awakening series, where Princess Sophia wakes up in a castle in the middle of the woods and has no clue what the fuck is going on because she has been asleep for forever, but there are faeries and goblins and she gets a pocket dragon and sometimes and owl and they're a silly, silly waste of time that I will keep buying as long as I've got money, as this series seems to be generally good value for the amount spent, or at least they cost about as much as a book does and will keep me distracted for longer.

But many, many hidden object games of this sort are not worth the money, alas...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

You're the second one who's recommended Awakening, so I'll check on Steam. It doesn't appear to be in the Kindle Appstore. Plenty of Big Fish Games ARE, though. And the Artifex Mundi games fall squarely into the Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure category, and are pretty decent in terms of storyline as well.

It's funny how it does feel like these are more of a waste of time than, say, crossword puzzles or books. Or storytelling in general. Yes, they're simple stories, but you get to engage in them, and that adds a different layer to it. Which is pretty great, I think.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

It's a relatively small thing, given that I can manage most of life, but it is surprisingly meaningful to be able to game when I can.

... I'm certainly not getting the chime. Maybe i need to experiment with steeping times.

Semi-relatedly, on occasion my daughter watches me brewing coffee and asks me what I'm doing, even though she knows. My usual response is "I'm making bean juice."

[deathling.livejournal.com]

Did you ever play tge Quest for Glory series? I was OBSESSED with them when I was a nerdling. They have everything you could ask for: humor, fantasy, and really great death messages.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

What about Pastel Games? They're pretty much all point-and-click adventure-type games, usually with little or no character interaction. Submachine and Daymare Town, both by Mateusz Skutnik, are particularly renowned.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I installed a SCUMM emulator just so I could play Loom (still one of my favorites, praise LucasArts)