Loom may not exactly be obscure by any standard, but I don’t see it being mentioned nearly as much as, say, Day of the Tentacle or Monkey Island. But it was a truly revolutionary way of reimagining the adventure game genre, and in a very early age of point-and-click. No inventory, single mouse click interaction, using spells to interact with the environment…
Of course, you’ll want to play the original floppy version to get the full story; the CD-ROM version had its dialogue heavily truncated to fit onto the CD.
What’s your pick?
Is Toonstruck well known? And should it be?
This isn’t so much a recommendation as I’ve never got round to playing it, but it doesn’t come up that often.
“Live Action” Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit etc.), in a cartoon world point and click adventure sounds amazing. I sort of daren’t play it in case it’s a let down.
I’ve played this game not expecting much and thinking it would be so dumb that I would end up playing it for a few minutes. In the end I completed this game in a couple of days, got stuck a few times on some of the puzzles, and quite enjoyed it. It’s not the best game ever made for sure, but it’s not a bad game. It’s challenging at times and the jokes are funny (for the time period). I would recommend this game if you don’t jump in it expecting a masterpiece.
That’s cool, I’ll play it sometime, sounds like it will be fun since I’m already not overhyping it
I loved Toonstruck. Christopher Lloyd being in it had me hooked before even booting it up, but it’s a solid adventure. Not to mention the voice cast is phenomenal! Tim Curry is the main antagonist and Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson) is your sidekick Flux!
Wadjet Eye Games’s The Shivah (old enough to be a classic at this point! But still pretty obscure and underrated.)
I need to get around to more Wadjet Eye stuff generally, but I really enjoyed Resonance
I have recently played the Blackwell series after thoroughly enjoying Unavowed but The Shivah didn’t seem interesting. Will give it a try thanks!
I think a lot of adventure game fans have heard of it but Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon is pretty great and it’s my favorite game designed by Josh Mandel. I really wish it could get a digital rerelease.
A lot of people really hold this one in very high regard. Unfortunately, with regards to a rerelease, the rights situation is a tangled spiderweb of immense proportions.
In response to the OP: I love Loom in principle but I’ve barely played it. Really need time to get into it. Hopefully the SteamDeck will let me do that at some point.
But yeah, memorized tunes functioning as the verb interface, and physical looms that weave existential magic? I’m into that.
The Dagger of Amon Ra was groundbreaking when it came out, but it seems to be remembered as the inferior sequel to the Colonel’s Bequest. Personally, I loved the artwork, and I thought the almost-Metroidvania approach to the pre-museum bits was incredibly clever. The back half of the game was still Sierra’s usual frustration-machine, but the top-tier presentation meant there was still a lot of charm to it.
I never played this sequel but I saw it’s on sale for the GOG summer sale. I now know what I’ll be playing this weekend.
How about “The Dig” I have fond memories of this game, I suppose it’s not terribly obscure.
<bites tongue, swallows blood>
For me this would be Kings Quest 7. I just mentioned it in another post, it was the first adventure game I really liked. The Kings Quest series is often mentioned but somehow the 7th iteration gets forgotten. I think it is really quirky and fun.
It’d be Loom as well for me. I loved Brian Moriarty’s earlier game Wishbringer, and his Loom felt somewhat similar, just with graphics and music instead of a text parser. The audio tape in the box with the prologue was pretty unique as well. Sadly, the sequel Forge was never finished.
I’m going to say Hokus Pokus Pink. It’s not the greatest adventure game ever made, and its puzzles are fairly simplistic if I recall, being aimed at a younger audience. But it’s got a certain weird charm to it. It’s compellingly bizarre!
The writing is surprisingly good too, and the Pink Panther and his utter cluelessness about what’s going on makes for a fun protagonist.Discworld…the game is hard, confusing, and sprawling, but so much enthusiasm went into the animations, voicework, and design.
Also: Gobliiins series. In a class of its own, highly inventive and sui generis French design that is often overlooked for being so oddball.
- YU-NO (has some lapses in taste, but is overall truly epic and impressive, and still way better written than most other VNs/VN-style games)
- Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood (among the best implementations of story branching and multiple solutions)
- Death Gate (strong in all areas, the 2D artwork in particular is amazing)
- Frederik Pohl’s Gateway (perhaps the best parser-driven game I’ve played)
