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The dark age of adventure games — and the gems it produced

Author: Rachel Kaser / Source: The Next Web

The dark age of adventure games — and the gems it produced

In the early 2000s, the supply of adventure games had all but dried up after major studios like LucasArts and Sierra folded. But despite the shift in fans’ interest towards other genres, a few tenacious developers stood their ground and churned out some memorable point-and-click titles that are worth revisiting more than a decade later.

Here are some of the seminal works from that dark age that you should check out.

History Lesson

The golden age of point-and-click adventure games was undoubtedly the 80s and 90s, the days when LucasArts and Sierra ruled the market. Adventure games from that time have a certain kind of look. They’re traditionally 2D, mouse-driven, with a heavy emphasis on puzzles and exploration — here’s an example from LucasArts’ Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis:

Just before this dark age hit, adventure games began shifting in favor of more three-dimensional environments. Grim Fandango was one of the first, as was The Longest Journey, which came out in 1998 and 1999, respectively. These games would inform the kinds of graphic adventures that managed to survive in the late 00s.

In 2001, LucasArts released its final adventure game, Escape from Monkey Island. Sierra was no longer developing games by that point. In 2000, Erik Wolpaw wrote a piece on Old Man Murray titled “Who Killed Adventure Games?” The idea that “adventure games are dead” became an accepted notion among gamers, until they “rose again” roughly around 2007, when Telltale Games released their first Sam & Max titles.

I recently came across a cache of old jewel cases while cleaning out a cabinet. I recognized the games as ones I’d played as a pre-teen, right in the middle of this so-called dark age, but the type of which I hadn’t exactly seen in the meantime. Most of these names were memorable only as flashes in the pan, blips on the cultural radar of the time period — Culpa Innata, Dark Fall, the Agatha Christie series.

It’s not just that I hadn’t thought of them in the years since I’d played them. It’s that, outside a few niche websites, I’d never heard anyone talk about them. How could so many games have come out in this allegedly dead genre and yet have so few acknowledge them?

So I played a few of them, to see what I could remember about them. And I found several that are still absolutely worth playing today.

Microids

It’d be hard to talk about the adventure games of the post-LucasArts era and not mention Syberia. Often held up by genre fans as an example of the best parts of the point-and-click format, it’s the sort of game I expect most modern gamers to know from its much-delayed second sequel, Syberia 3. Full disclosure, I’ve never played that game, but I devoured Syberias 1 & 2, which I recommend playing back-to-back, as they tell a more complete story.

Syberia stars Kate Walker, a lawyer on the hunt for the mysterious owner of a toy factory. Having discovered the man left on an adventure to discover the world’s last living mammoths on the titular island, Kate must pursue him on a clockwork train, stopping every now and then to tangle with colorful locals (think Metro Exodus if the hero were Nancy Drew).

The game’s developer, Microids, also made the incomparable Still Life, a must-play if you’re at all a fan of this format and want to try your hand at an atmospheric crime drama. For those who find it compelling, both games feature interesting female protagonists. Elliot Grassiano, the founder and vice president of Microids, told TNW the market for adventure games at the time was largely composed of adult women.

Grassiano also said, of the games’ reception: “The strengths highlighted were of course the depth of the universes, the endearing characters (Kate Walker, Oscar). For the weak points, the uninitiated persons of adventure games can be frustrated by the slow rhythm of this kind of game. That’s why dialogs are so important.”

The year Syberia was…

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