Developer: Revival
Publisher: Revival
Year: 2007
Platform: Windows
Rating: 4/10
A film-noir interactive movie with point and click adventure elements, Fate By Numbers is a free, short indie game that while entertaining, feels incomplete and unfortunately didn’t launch the company forward.
Continue reading Fate By Numbers
Developer: Preloaded
Publisher: BBC
Year: 2006
Platform: Windows; Mac
Rating: 6/10
A full-motion video flash game released as a companion to the BBC show “Rome,” CDX is an episodic thriller that follows a prop man working on the show getting embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy. There are multiple paths and hundreds of videos, not to mention an historical education waiting the player.
Developer: thatgamecompany, LLC
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Year: 2019
Platform: Windows (this version); also: PS3, PS4, iPad, iPhone
Rating: 7/10
Knowing that this game only took a few hours to complete and it won many accolades, I went into knowing virtually nothing. I’m confident just about anyone could do the same.
Developer: Sierra
Publisher: Sierra
Year: 1991
Platform: DOS, Mac, Amiga
Part of the wave of Sierra early 90’s remakes of the first games in all their popular series, Space Quest fared little better than the rest. Though receiving an “upgrade” in interface, sound, and graphics, I found this to be much less charming and enjoyable than the game it was supposed to be improving.
Continue reading Space Quest 1: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter
Developer: Kevin Bales
Publisher: Kevin Bales
Year: 1984
Platform: DOS
One of the first graphical adventures I played, Castle Adventure was literally written by a 14 year-old in his mother’s basement using nothing but BASIC for the game and ASCII characters for the graphics. Given the tools used and the year it was made, it was quite an impressive achievement.
Developer: Infamous Adventures
Publisher: Infamous Adventures
Year: 2006
Platform: Windows
AGDInteractive wasn’t the only group working on a remake of King’s Quest III. Four years earlier, Infamous Adventures took a stab at it. While it doesn’t have the production values of the former (or would that be the latter?), it’s a faithful adaptation of the original game and sure to please those who liked the original just fine.
Publisher: Big Finish
Developer: Big Finish
Year: 2010
Platform: Windows
Score: 4
The follow-up to 3 Cards to Midnight, Dead Time improves things a bit by making the game simpler for non-native English speakers. Rather than creating compound words to find hidden objects on each screen, the goal is to now just find everything related to a category. For example, on one screen you need to locate all objects that can cause a phobia. While this can certainly be subjective (I mean, that bicycle looks pretty scary), at least the game is more accessible.
Continue reading 3 Cards to DeadtimePublisher: Big Finish
Devloper: Big Finish
Year: 2009
Platform: Windows
Score: 5
Chris Jones, the creator of the Tex Murphy series, dipped his toe into the casual hidden-object genre. And while for the most part I’m underwhelmed by this type of game, he did a nice job of injecting it with some style and challenge. Rather than simply find a list of objects on the screen, the conceit entails finding a list of words that relate to another word. To wit, if the keyword is “Card” you will want to look for objects such as a shark (for “card shark”) or a key (for “key card”). Think of it as an extra step in your hidden object dalliances.
Continue reading 3 Cards To Midnight
Publisher: GASPOP Software
Developer: GASPOP Software
Year: 2001
Platform: DOS; Windows
If you’re a Sierra fan who ever wondered what it would be like to combine elements from Police Quest and Manhunter, then you’re decidedly an odd duck. But you’re also in luck, as Pleurghburg (pronunciation: fuck if I know): Dark Ages does just that, providing a tense, gory, exciting adventure.
Publisher: AGDInteractive
Developer: AGDInteractive
Year: 2011
Platform: Windows; Mac
Presumably the final remake from AGDInteractive, their retelling of King’s Quest III does a great job updating and enhancing the original game by Sierra while still honoring the primary plot and structure. They changed just enough to keep the game fresh and if you liked the original there’s little doubt you’ll enjoy this as well.
Death By Troggles 
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