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Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 12:06 pm
by darius
Regarding underutilized; I'd like a really good Sherlock Holmes game. Sherlock from Melbourne House was ambitious but didn't perform well on the old 8-bit machines. Not having played Sherlock from Infocom I get the impression it is a treasure hunt more than solving a (murder-)mystery.

Of course, more than a really good Sherlock Holmes game I'd love a really good Sherlock Holmes parody. (Has anybody played Robin of Sherlock by Delta 4 succesfully in an emulator? Preferably on Linux; I run Ubuntu.)

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:16 pm
by Gunness
Actually, Infocom's Sherlock is a terrific game - well written, really evokes the atmosphere of that historical setting - and with good puzzles. Certainly worth a try.
But I'd have to agree with the Melbourne House game. It was probably just too ambitious.

If you're not afraid of graphical games, the two Sherlock games from Electronic Arts are excellent. Verbose text and a excellent feeling of doing actual detective work :)

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:33 pm
by darius
I will play Infocom's Sherlock one day. It is an Infocom game after all. :)

I've indeed started to play Electronic Arts' first Sherlock Holmes game some time back but I've gotten into a Catch-22 situation. (After looking in a solve I found out that apparently I did something in the wrong order and I think I have to replay the game to get further. *tiresome*)

But I digress; I'm talking classic adventure games here and I've googled the following Spectrum games:
Sherlock Holmes: A Matter of Evil
Sherlock Holmes: The Lamberley Mystery

Are they worth spending time on?

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 1:09 am
by terri
If you scroll further, you can see my posts about technical problems with this game. Yes, it is interesting, but quite challenging about knowing what you need, and switching locations.

I haven't returned to it following my last post).

Give it a go, if you like. I can give you hints until the point I am stuck, while Doreen has written she has the solution.

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:29 am
by darius
Thanks. I'll get back with questions when I try it out.

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 12:50 pm
by Juan
darius wrote:Sherlock Holmes: A Matter of Evil
I have finished that one and written a walkthrough for it (you will have it soon, Jacob, along with other solutions.) It's OK. Kind of short for a 128K title, actually. It also has no graphics (except the title) or music, so I wonder why did the programmer feel he needed to make it for the Spectrum 128K instead of the 48K?

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 6:22 pm
by SDon78
For those of you attempting to contact Peter Killworth - It is my understanding that Mr. Killworth, sadly, passed away earlier this year.

https://www.myroms.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=778
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Killworth


Back to the topic of overutilized themes, I always felt that, with few outstanding exceptions, most games of the "humor" genre were simply the result of lazy development resulting in blatantly incoherent storylines. This is especially true with regards to those of the amateur format.

Another theme which I now believe is rather overdone is the "stranded on Planet X" storyline. I can't even remember how many games I've seen that specifically applied this theme. Ironically, I'm even guilty of this myself having once authored an illustrated text adventure incorporating the same concept (http://macrocosm.bizhat.com/).

Regarding the comments on the pretentiousness of certain games - this appears to be rather uniform throughout modern adventures. Notice the label "interactive fiction" (IF) as opposed to simply "text adventures". Modern IF attempts to emulate the literary elements of art as opposed to classic puzzle solving, hence the apparent pretentiousness of the genre as a whole.

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:23 pm
by terri
Thanks for the information about Peter K. I had tried to get a hold of him last summer. He will be missed - a good, unpretentious man.

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 12:16 pm
by darius
One theme that I felt was overutilized for a while was the memory-loss-scenario. You wake up somewhere and don't remember who you are and how you got there. Mindshadow comes to mind. Any more games in this vein? Has this topic "cooled down" lately?

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 12:38 pm
by Mr Creosote
Oh, yes - I don't think the memory loss thing has ever cooled down. Just from the top of my head: Deja Vu (by ICOM), Amnesia (by EA), Crime Time (by Starbyte), Babel (by Ian Finley)... In last year's IF Comp, there were three games which had the protagonist waking up after a night of drinking, a hangover and partial amnesia.

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:01 pm
by Gunness
Memory loss also seems to be a recurring plot device of choice for movies. I guess it's just a winning concept.

As for games with this theme... hmmm.... I seem to have played loads of these over the years, but right now, my mind seems to have gone blank (:lol:)

Apart from Mindshadow, Amnesia for the Beeb (a fine game) and Nine Princes in Amber (which of course takes its plot from the books) both deserve a mention.
SDon78 wrote:Ironically, I'm even guilty of this myself having once authored an illustrated text adventure incorporating the same concept (http://macrocosm.bizhat.com/).
There's nothing wrong with plugging your own productions, even if your find their theme overdone ;)

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 12:15 pm
by darius
Another suggestion for overutilized themes: Time Travel
Games that comes to mind: Eureka, Lords of Time, TimeQuest...

(on a side note to time-travel; here's a nice six word story from Alan Moore:
"machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time"
see: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html for more info.)

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:21 pm
by Mr Creosote
Many of these themes which have been listed in this thread as overused, I think, fall into the category of convenient plot devices. Memory loss is an excuse for lots of exposition (which always seems forced otherwise). Time travel, "lazy medieval" and bog-standard science fiction basically set most of the stage without any further effort. So they're easy - it makes sense many authors fall back on those.

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 4:35 pm
by darius
Mr Creosote, I'm not sure I understand what it is you are getting at. Are you saying that the authors were lazy and made it easy for them? Or perhaps that the sparing resources of the day in the form of virtually no computer memory, forced the authors to use prototypical themes to save room on text that would explain the background?

In other words you could say; are you criticising the authors or excusing them? :D

Re: Most overutilized/underutilized themes?

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 4:56 pm
by Mr Creosote
I'm ambivalent about it :D

Disregarding technical limitations (because, as we all seem to agree, most of these overused themes are timeless), I do think it's often laziness which lets authors choose such standard themes (so far for the criticism). On the other hand, if someone just wants to write a good puzzler, one of the convenient plot devices certainly isn't the worst choice, because they are established with the players, too.

This is basically what I tried saying concerning Jacob's suggestion of cave crawls, too. Sure, this has been done over and over again. Then again, if someone puts challenging puzzles into such a game, why not? It won't get storytelling awards from me, but I might still enjoy it - making this the superior alternative to not having made the game at all.