You Can Point-And-Click Me Anytime, Babe.

I have a laptop I use this laptop for various things. I got it for school. I edit things on this laptop and type papers. I do not want this laptop to have too many things on it. The first thing I did when I connected my laptop to the internet is download Audiosurf. That's a lie. The first thing I did when I connected my laptop to the internet was do a Google search, then I downloaded Audiosurf. (The Google search was for “boobs”. This was to insure everything was right on the internet). I vowed Audiosurf would be the only game I got for it. Alas, it was a vow that was to be broken. There was another gaming mistress waiting for me there on the internet... not your World of Warcraft or your new fangled, dime a dozen (free-a-dozen) flash games, but something older, somthing much more special.

Her name is SCUMM, and I loved her before I knew her name.
What does a 5 year old know of engines/programming languages? All I knew was that there was a something beautiful placed upon a platter in front of me, and boy, did it glisten. Let's go back to that sentence. When I say “platter”, I really mean “computer running Windows 3.1”, and when I say “glisten”, I mean “blow my goddamn mind”. I downloaded ScummVM soon after I made my vow so that I could once again play my beloved adventure games. Lucas Arts Adventure Games were really the first games I ever got into. My cousin was more of a Sierra person. She played King's Quest and I respected that (no I didn't), but who wants to worry about dying when there are puzzles to be solved*? This was long before my household had the internet so we were very much on our own when it came to playing these games. If we got stuck, you better as hell believe we would move our character through every possible place using every item with everything until we found a way. I believe I was keener then, before reality TV would dull my mind and game guides would hand me forbidden secrets. I was very young, but I understood the wonderful feeling of achievement when Indiana Jones finally told me that he can use these things together (Kerosene and a wall carving).

So now I can play these games again; I can re-dig, The Dig, time travel in Day of the Tentacle and punch Nazi's in the face and steal their belongings...in real life. I'm content to play them on my laptop, but I long for something more. I have seen the future, and it is good. I'm of course talking about those tech savvy modders who are able to port these games onto the DS or Wii. I want that too. Why can't I have that? Is it because I can't figure out how to do it? Well, yeah that's precisely why, but I still want it. Luckily, Tell Tale Games games has decided to release Season 1 of their Sam & Max series on the Wii. I can literally point and click. Literally. It bothers me that it has taken even this long to utilize so obvious a function as POINT and CLICK. Are there not enough people longing to play Adventure games anymore?

There is nothing I want more than for new life to be breathed into the genre, and I remain extremely optimistic in light of a few games. The popular Homestar Runner web series, paired with Tell Tale released their venture into Episodic Adventures onto the computer and Wii Ware, and I trust it will do well. Tell Tale is really carrying the torch here, keeping it safe and dry away from the rising tide of apathy and the falling rain of indolence (Someone should kill me now). I give them snaps for supporting the genre, although I would love to see a whole game produced at once rather then this episode business. I end up just waiting until all of them are released at once. It takes about an hour for the gears to really start turning when I play an adventure game, and I would hate for the present adventure to be over before I really get to use them. I can't really complain though, they are making really top notch games. I must say though, I am very excited about Daedalic Entertainment's upcoming “The Whispered World”, which looks like its going to be gorgeous in the very least. They recently announced that they are looking to port the game on the Wii and DS, also promising a few more adventure games are in the works . This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, like simultaneously hugging a puppy and a kitten while being fed a cupcake by a Cappucin monkey wearing a frilly dress.

It is my fondest wish that more and more people will want to play adventure games. There is something so charming about them, something that no other genre can replicate. Not only do they reward you with feelings of accomplishment, but they also offer you amazing stories that you more or less get to play out on your own. I used to wonder how much work went into writing all the possibilities on their dialog trees and responses. It's a whole lot. Those Lucas Arts adventure games were packed with so many witticisms it was mind boggling. We are all very fortunate that you can still find them floating around the internet and can still play them with help of ScummVM. Of course I've long since memorized what to do in every game, so I need some new challenges. I have yet to complete Beneath a Steel Sky, which is free on the ScummVM site (with voice acting! I turned it off because the robot Joey's condescending tone was getting to me). My adult mind fails to see the simple solutions a younger me would have been all over. The game is wonderful though, I would pay to play it if I had to. Other than that, I've been playing the (also free) games that famous game cynic Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw has created. They're worth a look for the price (free).


I'm going to close by telling you to go play a point-and-click adventure game. Go do it right now. I need people to be excited with. If its not your “thing” for whatever reason, at least play Professor Layton, or Braid. These will also make you feel like an intellectual giant, in different ways of course.

It's important to not give up when playing these games. Even if you really want to, don't. There is a solution. You're brain may begin to leak out of your ears as your stare at the screen, confused This is normal. Put it back in and try something else, ass.




*This is not to say playing King's Quest reminded you of your mortality, but rather that you could die in the game, which made it a lot less fun (for me at least). The ability to die wasn't included in majority of the Lucas Arts games, and if it was it didn't make you want to kill everybody. Okay, maybe it did a little.