Luke G
Today's op-shop score - a slightly waterlogged copy of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume 1 on CD-ROM. The CD looks clean enough and it seems to come with newspaper clippings that will provide clues for each case. I don't love FMV games but I couldn't leave it behind.
Jun 19 at 3:02amMastodon for Android
Show threadmother gramboneJun 20

@MutantFuturist wild coincidence - only last month, at a local tip shop, I picked up (for free!) a water-damaged jewel case for a different variant of Consulting Detective, with a manual but no disc inside. (Hence getting it for free.) I'll take a picture tomorrow.

In any case, it seems to me that this can't be a coincidence, but evidence of a criminal master plan...

Show threadLuke GJun 20
@majamps I suspect the waterlogged nature of both copies is a major clue. I also suspect it might be from people throwing their copies of this game into the sea because I do remember playing it as a kid - we had it from a CD rack in the newsagent at the local Westfield - and it's nowhere near as good as the other Sherlock game I had, 'Case of the Serrated Scalpel'. Now there's a beautiful game!
Show threadmother gramboneJun 20
@MutantFuturist It really is. I remember playing the demo of Serrated Scalpel from a magazine cover disk, at a too-young age, and being terrified that Jack the Ripper would run on-screen and murder Holmes & Watsom at any moment. (I blame King's Quest III for traumatising me first: it ought be considered an early survival horror game for all the nightmare ambushes that take place)
Show threadLuke GJun 20
@majamps I'm pretty sure Serrated Scalpel was my second PC adventure game after Day of the Tentacle. I eventually got a copy of the sequel Case of the Rose Tattoo but I never finished it.
Show threadmother gramboneJun 20

@MutantFuturist My mother mail-ordered from Infocom and Sierra, so I played most of the 80s Sierra graphic adventures, including things I truly didn't understand like Leisure Suit Larry & Police Quest. Mind you I still don't quite understand Leisure Suit Larry.

And thinking back this far, it occurs to me that the first VGA game I ever played was probably Ultima VII... talk about a high bar to set for my childhood opinion on video games (I would have been seven or eight at the time)

Show threadLuke GJun 21

@majamps Good old Larry! I have the Leisure Suit Larry's Greatest Hits (And Misses!) collection. I've never found them to be quite as controversial as they were occasionally made out to be - pearl-clutchers everywhere in those days as well as now!

I played one of the new Larry games - 'Wet Dreams Don't Dry' - some time within the past few years and there was something really off about it. The designers weren't happy with making a Porky's-esque sex comedy, it seems.

Show threadmother gramboneJun 21

@MutantFuturist They're certainly so much less risque than you'd expect from their reputation. For some reason, the only game my mother deemed too adult for me to play was Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 (I have no idea why, because I wasn't allowed to play it...) It's actually pretty funny to revisit all the scandalous games of the era - Ecstatica, DreamWeb, Phantasmagoria, etc - and see how tame they mostly are.

I also just realised my first VGA game was Might & Magic III. Still close enough!

Show threadLuke GJun 21

@majamps The first RPG I probably played was a rented copy of Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System. I did have the CD of a game called Entomorph, bought at the local shonky shop, although it either wouldn't run or I didn't like or understand it because I don't remember anything about it.

I didn't get into any RPGs until I played Pokemon on Gameboy when I was around 12 or 13. I don't really like console JRPGs, these days, although I do make am exception for Dragon Quest, and Lufia for SNES.

Show threadmother gramboneJun 21
@MutantFuturist I absolutely love Entomorph, but I might also be the only one. Neat soundtrack, great setting, fun plot twists, and crunchy combat with satisfying fx (it's essentially a "grimdark" Al Qadim, if you've played Al Qadim.) I actually enjoyed it more than Diablo!
Show threadLuke GJun 21
@majamps I have never played Al Qadim, although it is in some small way stuck in my memory and I'm not sure why. Maybe I should give Entomorph another try some time.