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Casual Games Thread

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While I think of casual games as a separate genre of adventure games, there are a few things that set them apart. I’ll do a brief list, and I’m hopeful others will join in.

First and foremost are the hidden object scenes. While not all casual games have them, most do.

Second is length of gameplay. Most adventures last for 20+ hours. Most casuals can be completed in less than six.

Contributing to the above is a general lack of character development as well as simplistic plotting. Now this is a generality in the extreme, because there are casual games with excellent character development as well as complex storylines.

I would say that most casual game players also play adventure games, but the opposite is not true.

     

For whom the games toll,
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I would just add that the best way to find out is just to play one.  I like them especially because they are fairly quick to play and if you’re busy and leave it for a week it’s easier to get back into it.  A good one is “Beyond Light Advent” which we played here as a group and I enjoyed very much.

     
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Mike the Wino - 27 July 2016 03:18 PM

Has anyone here played either of the Nick Chase games; Nick Chase: A Detective Story or Nick Chase and the Deadly Diamond?

Like Dara100, I’ve played the first, but not the second. The game, to me, was very similar in style to the Women’s Mystery Murder Club series. Even the background music seemed the same. The WMMC games were produced by Jane Jensen’s Oberon Games/Lighthouse operation. I have not looked to see if I could track down a connection between Nick Chase and WMMC, but the similarities are so strong, I’m guessing there is one.

Regardless, yes, I played the first game. I played it after I had pretty much burned out on the WMMC series. I made it through the game, but had no desire to play the second.

Don’t know if that answers your question.

Side: Raising a glass of Pinot Noir in your direction as I sear off some tuna steaks for dinner.

     

For whom the games toll,
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From my files… Investigative report re Nick Chase

The good: Lots of good puzzles, unconventional HOS, and gameplay that required occasional consultation with walkthrough; nice atmosphere with voiceover and music; transitions in form of comic-book style black-and-white art.

The bad: confusing storyline; dim and complicated scenes, while artistically pleasing, are very hard to work (play) with; overall a bit short.

The ugly: final puzzle is a killer in both serses—it’s very hard, and then you die. It has three phases and if you fail the third, you have to go back through phases 1 & 2, which are very tedious. Eventually I skipped it, which left a rather bad taste.

Not sure if I would do another in the series. 2.5 stars.

P.S. The iPad version looked good, but repeatedly crashed. Not available for Mac, but played well in a Windows simulator.

     

These days I go everywhere with a carpetbag containing a crowbar, a flashlight, a screwdriver, an oilcan, a ladder, a zipper tab, and a chihuahua.

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Tim, cluelass—thanks for the feedback. Think I’ll give the first one a try using a game coupon from BFG, and we’ll see if it makes me want to look at the second one.

Tim—*clink* !  Just finished smoking a 14 pound brisket (took 15 hours!) and am draining a wonderful glass of Washington State Sangiovese as we speak. Hey, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere! (Ever smoke a brisket before? Man it’s hard to keep those suckers lit!)

     

Life is too short to drink bad wine…

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No, I have never smoked a whole brisket. I’ve seen TV shows where people have done it. Basically it sounds like prep and season brisket. Put in smoker. Check the smoker firebox and replenish wood every two hours for the next 18 hours. Wrap brisket in butcher paper for the last two hours. Let rest for an hour.

I’m afraid the temptation would be to consume large quantities of beer, or wine, while “supervising” the process. Thus rendering the “cook” too blitzed to eat the result. (This has happened on the occasional Thanksgiving, where the cook rises at 4AM to start the stock for the gravy. The cook, who shall remain nameless, always has a bottle or two of bubbly in the fridge to keep him company while the rest of the household sleeps.

I forgot about the ending of the first game. Kind of a downer in more ways than one. Still, let us know what you think when you’ve finished it.

     

For whom the games toll,
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I did reload the first Nick Chase game. It was developed by Gestalt Games. The music was composed by Strategic Music Studios. I could find nothing about either via Google. So tracking a connection between them and Jane Jensen will be difficult if not impossible.

     

For whom the games toll,
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Found one connection. The music was done by the above mentioned studio. One of its other clients was Floodlight Games. Another of JJ’s companies. Don’t know if anything else is worth searching for.

     

For whom the games toll,
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Played the domo of the new Mystery Trackers game, Mystery Trackers - Train to Hellswich Collectors Edition.

You have 90 minutes to complete the demo. It took me 58. The demo is of the “fixed-length” type. I.e., you can only go so far, and then the game tells you that you’re done. In this case the entire demo takes place on a train. When the train stops and the villains get off with their kidnapped victim, the demo is over. I assume when we see the villains heading for some sort of castle in the distance, that that is where the rest of the story will take place. But I don’t know that for sure. I played the CE demo because that’s all that is currently available.

I have liked Mystery Tracker games in the past. They are/were put out by Elephant Games. However, I am of the opinion that Elephant Games has lost its way a bit. Not just in terms of this series, but in general. One example is how they have chosen to use the CE versions of their games. The description on BFG essentially says that the Bonus Game is required to finish the game. That is something that annoys me greatly. Another annoyance is the puzzle descriptions. Now I can understand that the puzzle might make perfect sense in the original language, when read by somebody who is fluent in that language. But something falls apart in the English translation.

As a result, I probably won’t be buying the game. If the only way to finish the game is to double its cost for an extra hour of gameplay or vicariously watch somebody else play the game on a YouTube video, then it doesn’t sound like a game I want to play. Which is really a shame because despite the puzzle description problems, the game was somewhat enjoyable.

     

For whom the games toll,
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Just a heads up (and I posted this in the adventure game discount thread as well), Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek (Collector’s Edition) is on sale for $2.99 on Steam until 8/16/16….

     

Life is too short to drink bad wine…

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This is one of those “Yes, but” moments. Didn’t you have a bad CE experience recently with a Steam-bout game?

     

For whom the games toll,
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rtrooney - 09 August 2016 12:55 PM

This is one of those “Yes, but” moments. Didn’t you have a bad CE experience recently with a Steam-bout game?

Yes, but (and I should have posted this earlier) with that particular game it turned out to be a known technical glitch with the strategy guide, and BFG (!) customer support made it as right as they could by giving me a coupon for any other CE game from their site. I was really impressed that BFG would go to that length when I bought the game on Steam. They (BFG) really are pretty top-notch, customer service wise…

     

Life is too short to drink bad wine…

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I played The Secret Order - The Buried Kingdom demo. It’s the fifth game in the series. I’ve played four. I liked the demo, but I’m not sure whether I liked it enough to make the purchase. The problem is that I really liked the first game, and the games have been going downhill since. It isn’t enough that the idea of a flying, time-traveling ship is preposterous. It’s that the plots have become ever more preposterous with each succeeding game.

In this game, the opening sequence tells us that the ships have been dry docked. But the fight between the Griffins, (of which you are a member,) and the Dragon People is still ongoing. Not having a ship at your disposal puts you at a distinct disadvantage.

We’ll see what happens. Maybe my inner Sarah Pennington, the protagonist’s name will get the better of me and I’ll find out how she does her magic without time travel.

     

For whom the games toll,
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I’ve been playing Surface: Mystery of Another World and am a couple hours into it, I think. I just came across a mini-game where you have to put basic math signs (i.e.: plus, minus, etc.) in the rows and columns between the keys on a cash register so the numbers form an equation that equals a number in green at the end of those columns and rows. We’ve seen mini-games like this before. What I hadn’t seen before is the errors in the math that are needed to solve the game! See the screenshot of my solution taking note of the top row and middle column (yes, it’s a spoiler!). Has anyone seen this blatant type of error in any other HOPA mini-games before? I thought only public schools in the U.S. that teach math using the Common Core system turned out students who couldn’t add or subtract!  Tongue

[spoiler][/spoiler]

     

Life is too short to drink bad wine…

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Mike the Wino - 11 August 2016 05:48 PM

I’ve been playing Surface: Mystery of Another World and am a couple hours into it, I think. I just came across a mini-game where you have to put basic math signs (i.e.: plus, minus, etc.) in the rows and columns between the keys on a cash register so the numbers form an equation that equals a number in green at the end of those columns and rows. We’ve seen mini-games like this before. What I hadn’t seen before is the errors in the math that are needed to solve the game! See the screenshot of my solution taking note of the top row and middle column (yes, it’s a spoiler!). Has anyone seen this blatant type of error in any other HOPA mini-games before? I thought only public schools in the U.S. that teach math using the Common Core system turned out students who couldn’t add or subtract!  Tongue

[spoiler][/spoiler]

What is wrong with those answers?
1+(2x3)=7 and   2 + (8x5) =42

     

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