Tag Archives: point and click adventure

Brok the InvestiGator: Punch and Click Adventuring

It’s been a good few years since the point-and-click adventure was a “mainstream” part of gaming now. That’s not to say the genre is dead, mind — more that these days it tends to be the exclusive preserve of smaller, independent developers rather than big studios like LucasArts.

And those games from smaller, independent developers aren’t in any way “lesser” than the games from the golden age of adventure games, either — in fact, in the case of games like Brok the InvestiGator, they represent what would have been the natural evolution of the genre if the mainstream hadn’t become so obsessed with gritty photorealism and cinematic open-world experiences.

In short, Brok the InvestiGator, whose Prologue chapter is presently available for free from both Steam and GOG.com at the time of writing, is something very special indeed. And it deserves your attention. So let’s take a closer look!

Continue reading Brok the InvestiGator: Punch and Click Adventuring

Check Out My Prison Princess Review!

Full article coming later today, but this is super-important to acknowledge: the commercial, mainstream outlet Nintendo Life was kind enough to give me the opportunity to write about qureate’s new point-and-click puzzle adventure game for Nintendo Switch, Prison Princess.

This is noteworthy because it marks a substantial shift in the site’s editorial policy: they’re now keen to specifically seek out specialist writers for more niche-interest games such as shoot ’em ups or games with provocative ecchi content, rather than passing them to staff writers less familiar with the cultural context or background of such works. This will hopefully lead to fewer situations where there’s a huge disconnect between a critic and the target audience of a particular game. And hopefully more articles from people like me and their new, frighteningly knowledgeable shmup specialist!

I’d like to heartily thank Damien McFerran from Nintendo Life for the kind opportunity to write about this game — and for the site’s admirable new approach. And I would please encourage you, dear reader, to support this change in outlook: it’s exactly the sort of thing we need to see happening on more mainstream sites. It deserves rewarding.

And a great way to do that is simply to go and check out my review of Prison Princess over on Nintendo Life — you can do that by clicking right here!

Thanks for your support, and I hope you enjoy the review.

Pete

Atari ST A to Z: Uninvited

Horror games really took off with the advent of the “survival horror” subgenre that Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil introduced in the late ’90s.

That’s not to say that there were no horror games prior to that, however. And one of the most creepy, disturbing and unsettling of them all was Uninvited by Icom Simulations.

Uninvited was one of Icom’s “MacVentures” series of point-and-click games, but it was ported to numerous platforms after it proved popular on its original platform. One of those was Atari ST, so here we are…

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.

Atari ST A to Z: Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood

Nostalgia is a funny old thing. Since starting this project, I’ve found myself really appreciating some of the games that, for one reason or another, had an impact on me growing up. Not necessarily the best games, but those which have some sort of meaning to me.

One of my favourite examples to date is today’s game: Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, an early title from Sierra during their partnership with Disney. As well as being a game I loved playing with my family as a child and possibly one of the most charming, kid-friendly adventures of all time, it’s an interesting game from a historical perspective, too, since it’s one of the earliest titles Al Lowe put out.

Al Lowe, if you’re unfamiliar with your Sierra history, is the man who would later give us the Leisure Suit Larry series, a mainstay of Sierra’s portfolio alongside King’s Quest, Space Quest and Police Quest for many years… but a little different in subject matter to what we have here!

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.