I go last because I’m ugliest. That’s just the way it works at RPS. So after Jim, Alec, and Kieron, it’s my turn to try to pick a collection of games that have defined me as a gamer, and indeed defined me as a person. It’s a daunting task.
Ingrid’s Back!
In truth, I couldn’t tell you a single thing that happens in this Level 9 text adventure. I know it stars a gnome, and her name is Ingrid, and it’s the sequel to Gnome Ranger about which I know even less. I played it on the Spectrum 48K when I was 10 years old, but crucially, and here’s why it’s the first game in a list of my most significant games, I played it before it was released.
If you were to have visited my house when I was ten, in 1988, you’d have had a good chance at accurately predicting my future career. Sat next to my dad (who is a dentist in work hours), playtesting pre-release text adventures. There’s a good chance I might have even written something about it for the Adventure Probe zine (to steal Kieron’s gag: the other AP), to which my father regularly contributed, and certainly the first place I had any games writing published. I think we were playtesting it for bugs as a favour for someone my dad knew at Level 9, but I might be making that part up. As you can tell, the game itself isn’t the important part here. It happens to be a rather good one, scoring some pretty decent reviews at the time. But for me, it’s more a snapshot of my past that seemed to be programming me for the future.
The strange thing is, if you’d visited my house three or four years later you’d never have been able to draw the same conclusions. My teenage years were spent playing endless games on many machines, still adoring the pursuit. But my career was to be in microbiological sciences. Of course, if I’d spent more time doing homework and less time playing games, perhaps that might have happened. It wasn’t to be, and a passion for writing and a love of games brought me here. But I don’t think for a second I’d be a hardcore story gamer, and certainly not a games critic, were it not for those times sat next to my dad, playing through games we’d received before publication. And whenever I think about that time, it’s Ingrid’s Back that comes straight to mind. You know, apart from what happened in it.
Dungeon Master
I’m going to return to my dad again here. Clearly he has been an enormous influence on my gaming habits, having bought a ZX81 in the early 80s, and then kept up with non-console machines ever since. We went off on different paths once the 3D dungeon crawlers spawned FPSs, and adventure games became point-and-click, him staying with RPGs. But long before this, in 1987, came Dungeon Master.
I’m tempted to tell stories of playing Buggy Boy with my sister, or Bubble Bobble in co-op with my friend Alistair (that story told in part here), but the Atari ST story that defines me most has to be watching my father beat the level 13 boss in Dungeon Master. So this would be around 1987, I’d have been 9 or 10. At this time my dad’s ST was set up on the breakfast bar in the kitchen, where he would spend his evenings hunched over the machine in the corner of the room, the kitchen door banging into him when opened too quickly. I would love to pull up a stool next to him and watch him playing games, inevitably eventually asking him if I could have a go, ruining whatever progress he was making in whatever he was playing.
You can read about all the many firsts Dungeon Master achieved in its Wikipedia entry. But it’s safe to say it was a landmark game, played in real time, in an approximation of 3D, using mouse and keyboard controls. It was a new experience for anyone who played it, the safety of turn-based combat taken away from you, enemies able to attack when they chose, even if you weren’t done getting your potion ready. I remember playing my own saves of the game (never getting beyond the fourth or fifth floor, I suspect), and the thrill of mixing spells in flasks, successfully creating fireballs from their component parts, preparing for a battle ahead. It was a game that forced you into seeking sanctuary, no longer able to rely on the world patiently pausing while you sorted yourself out. A room with a closable door, ideally with a couple of empty chests for storing your excess inventory, was a haven, a safeground to which you could retreat, hide, recover, and prepare. This sense of safety only emphasised the sense of danger outside. The threat of an enemy, chasing you down corridors (admittedly in leaps across tiles), hurting your party of four when it got near, often became terrifying. I remember fumbling at the controls, throwing bottles of water at skeletons instead of poison, fluffing things up so badly that members of my team would have their portraits hideously replaced with messes of bones and a skull. Characters with names and skills and possessions and armour. People I’d chosen from that peculiar gallery at the start of the game, clicking on paintings of their faces to have them join my gang. Dungeon Master was a game of fear and recovery, danger and relief. It frightened me greatly. But not my dad. My big, strong dad.
Until level 13. Forgive me if I’m getting these numbers wrong, but from memory the titular dungeon was fourteen storeys deep. On the very bottom floor the eponymous Dungeon Master lived, the final scene of the game. But on the floor above him was a giant red dragon, an enormous enemy that required one hell of a fight. I was there the day my dad first encountered the dragon, sat next to him at the kitchen counter, watching him expertly play. Watching his hand shaking on the mouse.
Shaking. His whole hand trembling with genuine fear at the fight. My dad’s big, strong hand.
Day Of The Tentacle
In these exciting times of LucasArts appearing to rise from the ashes of Star Wars tedium, with remakes of Monkey Island, and selections from their back catalogue appearing on Steam, there’s one cry coming out from my soul: WHAT ABOUT DAY OF THE TENTACLE?!
I’m often very surprised by how many other games are mentioned before it when people list their favourite adventures. Monkey Island 1 or 2, Fate Of Atlantis, Sam & Max, and most of all, Grim Fandango. But for me it’s Day Of The Tentacle first and foremost, on a tall mountain, waving a giant flag. Alec has previously eulogised the Sam & Max opening sequence (as wonderful as they are), but I don’t think it comes close to DOTT’s ludicrously well written, animated and performed intro. Indulge me a moment:
DOTT understood what being a cartoon was all about. It was an adventure game first, but it was a cartoon a very close second. As such, it was able to embrace cartoon logic into its already astonishingly clever time-travel story. David Grossman and Tim Schafer writing and directing characters created by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick (DOTT was of course a sequel to Maniac Mansion) – it was the dream team.
And for me, it was the game that just bellowed everything I could ever ask for (but for pathos, arguably, but of course that would have been wildly out of place here). I want it to be fantastically well written, I want the puzzles to be both obscure and rewarding, and most of all, I want it to be funny. I’ve spent my career lamenting gaming’s failure to achieve these three things.
I especially remember buying it. There was a shop in Guildford, upstairs in the White Lion Walk shopping centre, called Ultima. It was run – and I promise this is true – by a short, fat, moustachioed Italian man called Mario, who ran the business with his brother. Endless amusement. Also working there was a tall, astonishingly morose guy called Adam – someone I used to drive mad by visiting every Saturday and talking at about games, his laconic, cynical responses unable to puncture my enthusiasm. (Oddly I ended up working with him at an EB years later, and he hadn’t changed at all.) So, one Saturday I went in the yellow shop and saw the Day Of The Tentacle boxes. Of course I’d read that a new LucasArts adventure was on the way, but what I didn’t know was that it would be packed in a huge, triangular box. (Thanks to Petërkopf for finding the pic of it.) What a moment.
I think DOTT was the first time I found myself wanting to quote a game. I’d been loving wonderful Sierra and LucasArts games for years previously, but nothing quite sang to me like this. I would do impressions of the characters (I still do as I play it now). I knew the solutions to all the puzzles, but the scenes were so great it was worth playing through them again. It made me believe in gaming as a medium for hilarity.
I think what DOTT has done for me more than anything else is give me a sense of expectations that I deserve. Comedy games may be 99% terrible, but because of Day Of The Tentacle, I remember that there’s no excuse for it, there’s no room for accepting rubbish out of desperation for something. A bar was set in 1993, and I refuse to let it get me down that the only person who’s met it since has been the guy who put it there in the first place, Schafer. It keeps me honest. It makes sure I remember what others should be doing, and acts as a place to point toward when they’re not. Of all the story-led games in the world, I think it’s the only one I could play again and again and again.
Lemmings
Perhaps this is a bit of an obvious choice. If you draw a graph of puzzle gaming, there’s one bloody great spike at Lemmings that makes it rather stand out. But if you can tolerate my getting so ambiguously anecdotal again, it was the moment as much as the majesty of the game.
Here’s the ambiguous part. (I’d phone my parents to get some clarity on these stories were they not out the country this week.) My dad was visiting a friend of his, who was another 40-something gamer. I had gone along, and circumstances were such that when the two of them went off to have a meeting about something or other, I was left entertained in front of a PC running a copy of Lemmings. I vaguely remember that the room with the PC was in a separate building from this (obviously pretty well-off) guy’s main house. I also strongly remember that playing in the background was an album by Chris Rea. I’m fairly convinced it was Road To Hell, although it could well have been Auberge, since that came out the year before, in 1991. I’d have been thirteen by this point.
I’ve no idea how long I was left in that room. What I do know is that I was utterly content. I had this remarkable, beautiful, almost-perfect puzzle game to play, featuring the gorgeous animations of the floppy-haired blue/green suicidal creatures, guiding them to safety. This was a game that utterly, utterly worked. There’s a reason why every single World Of Goo review called back to Lemmings – it was the last time a game had felt so engrossing, so joyful, and just so right. It was like I’d been left with something so special I shouldn’t have been trusted with it.
It was like I’d walked into a magical house, the sort of place that had to be specially built to contain something as enjoyable as Lemmings. I think I assumed it wouldn’t be possible to play it again once I left. I don’t think I ever loved it as much as I did that time, as it happens. Although I do specifically remember the almost equally magical joy of getting Holiday Lemmings for free on the front of a magazine the next year, and not being able to understand how something so wonderful was just there, for free, for me to enjoy. I don’t think I will ever play Lemmings again. It simply cannot be as good as I remember, and certainly the twenty year old graphics won’t do it justice. I’d like to keep it how it exists in my mind just now, inside that specially created room, with Chris Rea crooning mournfully in the background.
The Longest Journey
If anyone were taking bets about which games I’d include in this collection, no one would have accepted money for the appearance of The Longest Journey. I’ve written so much about it, and uniquely, written very personally about it on many occasions. Some people have the album they heard that changed their lives. Others credit a book with shaking up their perspective on the world. For me it was a point and click adventure with some of the worst puzzles you’ll ever find.
The timing was interesting. Released in late 1999, this was around the same time I was starting out as a games critic, getting my first work in PC Gamer. I’m sure I must have read previews of it, enough to be interested in it, and certainly enough to know to ignore Steve Brown’s daft review of it in PCG ish 83. (Love you Steve, obviously. But I’ll also never forgive you for that.) I’d been writing occasionally in the mag for about four issues by this point, and I remember my fury as I read the one page of banging on about the game featuring a blue penis and swear words. It became my mission to mention the game in every review I wrote (handily PC Gamer had a bit at the bottom of each review at the time that let you recommend two other games that were similar – no matter how dissimilar, The Longest Journey got a mention, along with a dig at how wrong the original 79% review was).
But more importantly, I was 22. I was freshly an adult, seeking my first proper job, and venturing into real life. And at that moment, here I had a game about 18 year old April Ryan, finishing college, and venturing into real life. Except of course her real life became decidedly unreal. I was malleable, changing, finding my philosophies (Deus Ex would of course come along a year later and work on that too), and The Longest Journey contained one message that transformed me.
To play the game now, you’ve got a peculiar mix of beautiful painted backdrops and fuzzy, pixellated messes for characters. You’ll find some completely atrocious puzzles (none more so than the policeman on toilet/glass eye/medication puzzle that doesn’t work in 124 different ways). You’ll also find a script written by someone who’d been watching an awful lot of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. But here’s the important bit: it was someone who not only was clearly influenced by Whedon’s writing, but was as good at it as Whedon.
I’m obviously horribly underselling the game in some ways. But I’m trying to maintain some level of reality here too. It wasn’t perfect. But it was human. So incredibly human in a way I’m not sure any other game has come close to. You may have been playing a stroppy late-teenage girl who was friends with a talking crow… in the future. But you were playing a real person, interacting with other real people, in real ways, despite the hover-cars, alternative realities, and rubber-duck-themed puzzles. April’s stroppiness was a facet of her complex character – a person also capable of enthusiasm, love, fury, fear, joy, optimism and a wry, sneaky humour. She was someone with whom I engaged very strongly.
Which is crucial to the impact TLJ had on me. (I almost resent writing this warning, but the following will spoil the end of the game.) April Ryan isn’t the hero of The Longest Journey. She isn’t the saviour of the worlds. She doesn’t restore the balance between Stark and Arcadia. She may be the daughter of the white dragon, or she may not. She may have some deep significance to the universe, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion it’s no more significance than anyone else alive. She plays her part, she affects the world/s around her, she makes important differences in people’s lives. She has an important role in the processes that lead toward the restoration of the Balance. But she isn’t the new nudie blue figure who will protect the lives of billions of people. She thinks she’s going to be, she wrestles with the fear of such a part to play, but at that final moment, that’s not her job. She isn’t the hero of the story.
I’d identified with her in a romantic desire to see myself as that sassy, witty person too. And because who doesn’t want to be the hero of the story? But then it turned out she wasn’t, and neither was I. It was this that widened my eyes: April was heroic. April was significant. April saved. April made a difference. But she wasn’t the hero, she wasn’t the saviour.
Our understanding of the part we’re supposed to play in the world is perhaps something we struggle with our entire lives. April was shown a glimpse of something enormous that would give her life definition and meaning. It wasn’t hers, it didn’t turn out to be about her, and as Dreamfall so stunningly goes on to portray, facing this destroyed her. But I realised this wasn’t a message of destruction or failure. It was about the reality of how important each person is, and the potential everyone has to make a significant difference to the world, but without the world ever noticing them. It’s about matching the desire to see change with the humility to realise no one will know to care that you did.
Balance wouldn’t have been restored without someone playing the part April filled. April’s actions made a difference, even if they didn’t culminate with her as the glowing figure for all to see and admire. Someone else could have done her job instead of her, but it was April who did it. I realised that’s my role too. Anyone’s role. To seek out chances to make a difference, to fill the role that anyone else could, but to be the person who did.
Related Stories:
Our John Walker is one of the better examples of a John Walker.
I have you to thank John, for going and checking out TLJ. Your relentless praise for the game made me spend ages tracking down a copy, and it is everything you said it would be. The puzzles can be incredibly frustrating (I remember one in particular that had the most simple but obscure solution, summoning Crow to fly inland and scout out the next area so you could progress-felt like such a fool for not realising it earlier), but the dialogue and voice acting surpass a considerable amount of games even today.
Also, completion of the game gave you access to voice-over outtakes from the recording sessions (among other things) as a bonus, and rather entertaining they were too. One of the first games I can remember including a “making of” bonus…
I’ve had a thought about what made Dungeon Master so scary at the time.
1. It’s in real time in contrast to say, the Bard’s Tale which you could be forgiven for thinking is a similar game at the time. You might not realise that until the first time a Mummy comes round the corner at you.
2. From the first moment you realise your torch is burning out and the perpetual darkness starts closing in its a race against time to find another one. Forgetting to put your torch out when going to sleep only to wake up and find yourself in pitch darkness with those edible tree things attacking you is a lesson harsh learned.
3. The minimal use of sound. I can’t remember there being any music. Every little bump or moan sound in the distance made me fall off the chair. Plus the sound effects are quite excellent. War cry: Yee-argh!
P.S. I remember Kieron’s review of Dungeon Master 2 which had unfortunately lost the plot.
P.P.S. John Walker, you’re my favourite.
I’m thinking it, and can’t stop until I say it: Do you guys really all wear the exact same drawn-on-with-a-magic-marker beard? It’s just freaking me out.
Ah John,
I’ve never read your material before (or at least don’t really remember doing so, though its likely I have since I read anything I can on PC gaming), but your love for TLJ shone through bright and clear in what you wrote above.
I too had quite an experience playing through as April to that suprising end and remember sitting there numb trying to process it all. Zoe in the sequel was also an interesting character from what I remember, but not in the same way as April. Seeing a harder, darker April was also a shock.
Thanks for a great read!
Wow, I recognized 3 out of 5 games in this list! I must be really old!
Heh, the DotT video includes the fast-CD-drive bug which I discovered when I played through it a second time after replacing my dead 2x speed CD drive with a lightning-fast 4x speed one (the music gets out of sync with the action, leading to Bernard’s speech at the window losing some of its impact).
DotT is probably my second-favourite Lucasarts adventure, losing out to Fate of Atlantis (possibly because I played that first, both coming with my CD drive, and because of my minor Indy fanboyism).
I love LucasArts but I think DOTT is the only time they got close to perfection.
I have fonder memories of Maniac Mansion. Not because it’s a better game, just because my older sister, her boyfriend and I would all gather round the computer choosing a character each, then try to solve the puzzles together. I loved the design. Just one big mansion full of crazy characters. Puzzles with multiple solutions depending on who you chose, etc. It’s a design concept that’s stuck with me ever since. Good stuff.
Ah, DoTT. Hours upon hours of Hoagie complaining that “I don’t wanna”.
It’s a close one against Sam & Max, and Full Throttle never gets enough love in my opinion. But I really hope it stays as that glorious blip in the ’90s, and doesn’t get fed into the Telltale milking machine, for the very reason highlighted in this article: the dream team that made it so good has been broken apart scattered to the four corners of the Earth.
*wide eyes*
That has to be one of the best reviews of TLJ I’ve read in quite a while. Wonderful writing. Also, absolutely correct and mirroring my experience on all levels.
I’m too young to know any of those exept the longest journey >__< I really liked the story-driven gameplay, even if I did have to check online walkthrough every now and then.
I’ll always be bemused by how people could rate Grim Fandango above DotT, it’s not even close to how sublimely structured, logical and yet bizarre the puzzles are. It’s quite possible there will never be another adventure game anywhere near as good as DotT.
TLJ, I dunno but I don’t suppose it’s aged well because I tried playing it for a number of hours on Walker’s recommendation and didn’t get anything out of it other than a sense it was quite honestly written.
I never played Dungeon Master but I had pretty much an identical experience with Eye of the Beholder as people had with Dungeon Master. The simple sound of footsteps in it was the only genuinely scary thing I’d come across in a game until playing Looking Glass games, much, much later.
None of you mentioned Elite. *Suprise*
For those that haven’t read the other mentions of TLJ by Walker, here you go:
It’s a fascinating thing to read about the gaming experiences that have shaped other people, and to compare them one’s own.
yah but it was mentioned several times in the other threads of this nature :) I still haven’t played a game like Frontier where you can just fly into the planet’s atmopshere so smoothly as Elite: Frontier . You can in the battlecruiser games but there is a cut scene that seperates space from planet. In Evochron you can just fly right into the planet’s atmopshere but it seems diffrent for some reason, maybe its the same I dunno ;) I need to play that game more, the demo wasn’t long enough.
Blast, well and truly messed the formatting up on that one.
Serondal:
Absolutely! I’m amazed that that there are so many space sims out there but so few that even attempt the planetary landings. Evochron was the closest but it just didn’t do much for me as a whole (nerd sigh).
GibletHead2000:
Totally off-topic but just noticed your avatar! Star Fleet X-Bomber! Awesome.
Hydra9 have you ever played Hardwar? If not I highly suggest it. I had some very good times in this game reminded me a lot of Elite but in a much smaller world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwar
Man, DOTT. It was a great game and everything, and I know “gameplay over graphics” is, or should be considered a mantra to developers, but the art direction of DOTT was just so great.
I would play the game (my English wasn’t all that good back then so I couldn’t get the full effect of the humor in the game) just to gawk at those awesome pixelated chunks of, uh awesomeness.
tl/fwi: I freaking loved the graphics in DOTT, and they still look just as good.
Serondal:
Actually, I’ve owned Hardwar for years but *still* haven’t got around to playing it. But I can open my desk drawer right now and the CD is there on top of the pile – Meaning I might even play it sometime this year ;)
I just now realized that Helm from the comments is the person that did those wonderful zx bot comics. I feel stupid.
To the two people that said DotT feels too American. Can you expand on that a little bit?
dungeon keeper rules!
Thanks to John and to everyone else for an excellent series of articles. It’s weird to find out that some of my intensely personal formative experiences were shared by loads of other folk. At the same time.
Longest Journey was wonderful. One of the few games that has moved me. The two things that stick in my mind: it was the first game that treated homosexuality in a grown-up and matter-of-fact way; and the voice acting was by far the best I had ever heard. Not sure it’s been bested since.
The actor who played April was present for ALL of the recording sessions, so her conversations with each of the other characters were played out “face to face”, rather than each actor doing their lines in isolation. And it really shows – the delivery of the lines, the tone, the emotion is just perfect.
Bigredrock said: “her conversations with each of the other characters were played out ‘face to face’ ”
Very interesting, I never knew that but it certainly makes sense. Nice one.
Awesome write-up on TLJ :D You warm my heart, Mr. Walker. Not like that other Walker who just warms my gut.
Very nice article, The Longest Journey write-up especially brought tears to my eyes. One of my most important games and certainly the one that’s had the greatest emotional impact on me. Games CAN have good stories and characters!
I first acquired a bunch of Lucasarts adventure games in an old compilation they released (which came in a pretty stupid box, but a box that clearly had nothing on the insanity of DOTT’s original packaging).
Anyhow, ludicrously, my copy of DOTT languished unplayed until about 5 years ago. I do have a lot of still-unplayed games in my collection, so I only knew it was ludicrous in retrospect after having finally experienced it first-hand, but DOTT turned out to be one of the funniest games I’ve played.
And thanks to ScummVM it still looked great when I played it, so DOTT was definitely well worth the (pointless, self-imposed) wait :)
The amount of time I’ve spent in Guildford over the past four years at University and all I’ve had on the second floor of the White Lion Walk is a bloody Next. That Ultima store would’ve been a dream come true.
At least I can now say I’ve visited the birthplace of the famous John Walker. Happy days.
Oh man, already weighed in with a comment on one of the earlier ones, but forgot about DM! I spent some serious hours in that dungeon. Pirated it as a kid, and no-one had a manual, I remember trial-and-erroring my way through the spell glyphs recording which ones didn’t give me the “…mumbles a meaningless spell” message. These have been a great series, btw.
FUL IR FTW!