Adventure Gamers - Forums

Casual Friday

This screenshot is from The Emerald Maiden - Symphony of Dreams. I wish I could have posted a dozen because the variety of screens is incredible. Everything from this, to a brightly lit terrace restaurant overlooking Paris, to the darkness and grunge you would expect to find in the bowels of an early 20th century coal-fired ocean liner.

This was one of my favorite games when I first played it. Strangely, I never got around to replaying it. Other things just got in the way. But I knew I wanted to use it as an AGSotD. So, now that I reloaded it for the screenshot, perhaps I will replay it after all.

The game was released by Gogii Games in December, 2013. As such we were starting to witness the demise of straight, random list HO scenes, and were starting to see more variety. This game was definitely moving in that direction.

The basic premise of the story is that, as an infant, you were abandoned by your parents twenty-five years ago. But now you have received an invitation to a cruise. And that invitation also hints at the possibility that you will learn something about your parents, and what might have caused them to leave you behind. Obviously you must accept the invitation.

Much of the history is told in brief video clips. The rest is told in a series of dream sequences that are activated by a machine once you insert a dream card into it. These cards, as well as the video reels, are found as you explore the ship.

You do have a sidekick. It is a robot. But unlike most sidekick games, you don’t find/activate your sidekick until you have played the game for about an hour. This is a long game. So you will have plenty of time to enjoy finding out what your sidekick can do when properly motivated.

The SE version of the game has a very satisfacory conclusion. By that I don’t mean to imply that everyone will like all parts of the way the game ends. I only mean that the game ends with no “loose ends” to tie up. It also ends with no hint of a sequel, which is just fine with me. There are far too many games that should have been one-off, and their sequels simply outlived their welcome.

A very enjoyable game.

Sounds like another contender for a CPT.

And that screenshot has a very “Bioshock” vibe, imo.

Becky - 22 January 2016 08:54 AM

This is one of my favorite casual games. It’s been awhile since I played it—that screenshot brings back memories.

This has suddenly become a contender on the casual playthrough thread.

I have started to replay this game. Yes, the variety of HO scenes is much improved from the random list scenes. But there are still a lot of them. I also remembered the puzzles being much harder. With the exception of a few, they are quite simple. Maybe I remember them as hard because they were hard…compared to other games from that era.

It is still a great game with a good story, music, voice acting, graphics, etc.

It’s just that replaying it now, after playing Drawn, Enigmatis, Angelica, EEC, it doesn’t seem as good as I remember.

It’s kind of like running into an old girlfriend, who has occupied your dreams in all the bad ways, only to find out that she wasn’t nearly as wonderful as you remembered her to be. For those of you on the other side of the fence, please feel free to substitute “boyfriend”.

Well said, Tim. I had exactly the same reaction when I recently started to replay Eternal Journey: New Atlantis, which I first played in 2013. Sigh.

I am reminded that in literature, particularly in popular literature, the surest way to make sure your novel will not be timeless is to strive for currency. And the surest way to timelessness if to eliminate time from your writing.

I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read where the author tries to impress the reader by mentioning the extravagance of the situation, and only makes him or herself look ridiculous in the eyes of a later generation of readers. Example: “I can’t believe it that they were trying to charge $.25 for a pack of cigarettes.” That’s straight out of Earle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novels.

Another example from real life is ‘the surest way to make sure your company’s literature is obsolete the day it is printed is to have it contain the picture of a prominent employee!’ As sure as the sun rises, that employee will be fired. Thus rendering thousands of dollars of printed material instantly worthless.

Some games just age better than others.

As I said -

It is still a great game with a good story, music, voice acting, graphics, etc.

I just didn’t think it was as good as I remembered it to be. I’m not unhappy that it didn’t win.

Edit: I should clarify the above comment. It’s a very playable game, and I would encourage anyone to give it a try. But I don’t think it is playthrough material. I think there are other games, such as Fright, that are better representative of what the casual genre is capable of.

cluelass - 26 January 2016 06:03 PM

Well said, Tim. I had exactly the same reaction when I recently started to replay Eternal Journey: New Atlantis, which I first played in 2013. Sigh.

I had the opposite impression. Lady Kestrel nominated it for the playthrough, and I was going to buy it. But, happily, I found that I already owned it. I have not replayed it recently, although I loaded it and played for about 20 minutes. I think the fact that you collect inventory items that aren’t used immediately, e.g. you get items that will be used in the lab before you even find the key that lets you open the lab door, adds a lot of interest. The interactive map is probably better than any hint system.

Although I do see that the games have much in common.