Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 80s

Herra 47 – Midsummer Festival

Posted on by Viljami

Herra 47 – Midsummer Festival is an adventure game inspired very much by Leisure Suit Larry. It is released for C64. You might be surprised about a new game getting released for such an old, or maybe “retro”, type of platform. The game is a new release after all. If you are interested should head to this address for more information and instructions on how to buy the game.

I got interested in this game just last Friday when I got my hands on the new Pelit magazine that is published here in my home country Finland. The magazine is released monthly. Herra 47 is produced by Vector 5 Games. The team consists of just a few people. The game takes strong influences from a comedy show from Finland from late 1980s and early 1990s. This show, called “Pulttibois”, featured this character named Herra 47. It is a character created by actor Pirkka-Pekka Petelius. You can actually find the picture of Herra 47 from this blog posts featured image. The featured image is actually a photo that I took from Pelit magazine just one moment ago.

Pirkka-Pekka Petelius is a funny Finnish and well-known comedian. He played a big role in Finnish television comedy scene and was actually one of the pioneers of Finnish television comedy scene. There was also another actor that played in this comedy series (“Pulttibois”) and his name is Aake Kalliala. Herra 47 – Midsummer Festival takes strong influences from Petelius’s character in this game.

The game is available for a price of about 7 dollars. As the platform is Commodore 64 there weren’t actually no adventure games originally released for C64 back in the day by Sierra. These adventure games that were very popular in the 1980s were based on this particular game creation engine that makes all these Sierra games feel and look like they are developed in this certain and very recognizable way. You can notice this if you have ever played games like Larry, Police Quest, King’s Quest or/and Space Quest. Since all these games used this game engine they all look a bit like each other. There was an update to this engine and it was utilized later to make more advanced adventure games by Sierra.

The idea of a game placed somewhere in fictional Finland (at least I think the game takes place in here) is totally hilarious. My imagination starts running when I think about Petelius’s character, Herra 47, running around during  mid-summer, and trying to get some female company. It is funny because mid-summer is a big happening here and almost everyone has a vacation then. So, there are lots of parties and partying going on. If you don’t head to countryside to your summer cottage you can spend your mid-summer also in the city. It is very quiet here then. It is actually a pretty calm period. Thinking about Herra 47 spending his summer days this way is very very funny.

While the game is a good game there are some considerations. The humor might be a bit rough for today’s audience. Also Pelit magazine mentioned that the storyline and all of the puzzles could have been designed a bit better. There might be a sequel coming some time and fans are of course waiting this to be something wild. I think you can enjoy the game if you like old Sierra games and especially Leisure Suit Larry. Technically the game is a definite master piece. Vector 5 Games has done a good job.

Since I am not so much into Commodore 64 and I don’t have a real C64 console this isn’t although a game that I would actually play. The game is interesting. If you are into C64 you should definitely invest a bit of your money and time to this game. I think it really deserves it. The game received a grade of 6 out of 9 (a funny joke also, knowers will know).

When Games Had No Graphics at All

Posted on by Viljami

We’re you playing video games when there were no graphics at all? This screenshot is the featured image of today’s new blog post. As you can see there is only text content for the player and no graphics. You can see the title, “West of House”, and the score. You can also see how many commands you have given in the game. That value is displayed as “Moves”. There is also an opportunity to save a game. You progress in the game with writing commands like where to move and what items to pick up and how to use them. The player also has an inventory system that can be displayed with a proper command.

This game is a text adventure game called Zork 1 – The Great Underground Empire. It was released originally in the beginning of 1980s. As you can probably already figure the first computer and video games were many times very moderate when it comes to graphical performance. They had no graphics. Some of the best text adventure games that I have come across include the first version of the adventure game Leisure Suit Larry. There was also an interesting game called Colossal Cave Adventure. It was one of the first games ever released on computer. It was released already in the 1970s.

It is interesting for me to look back in the video game history as I am such a young person that games for me have always included graphics of some type. When I was a small boy I played many DOS games on our family’s PC. Even some of the adventure type games, many of them were released by Sierra, had some sort of graphics. Later we saw games from Lucas Arts that even had an user interface that utilized some mouse interactivity. So, these games had already a real user interface.

Playing a text adventure game that has no graphics can be very charming. Early in the game you become used to the limitations. While there are many functions in the game they are a bit harder to figure and image. So, this leaves a lot to your imagination. You have to figure out what are the main commands that can make you progress in the game. It helps if you have some experience in playing adventure games be it that they would have had some kind of graphics. You can get into text adventure games more easily if you know concepts like items, maps and/or inventory systems. In some games your character even has some kind of development that can be based on for example experience points. Your characters abilities can sometimes open new opportunities like some new function that is enabled as your character has a more advanced ability. Sometimes there can be a new option inside some conversation dialogue. This all is based on charaters abilities like intelligence, luck or strength that can have a value like a number from 1 to 10. So, this number increases when your character goes up a level. Sometimes you may have options on how to develop your character. Character progression is however considered to be more of a character of a role playing game. Most text adventure games aren’t considered role playing games.

I encourage you to try for example Zork 1 or its sequels. You can get an idea of the surroundings of the space or room you are in with a command like “look around”. Then you are beginning to find some points and items that you can interact with. The score tells you about your progression in the game. Text adventure games are a bit limited but they can be a fun way to experience something new. They sure tell us a lot about the history and origins of video and computer games. The first Zork game is considered abandonware and you can download it from internet and install it through Dosbox. You can maybe use a frontend like D-Fend Reloaded that I am personally using for this purpose.

 

Point and Click (Adventure) Games

Posted on by Viljami

The idea for today’s blog post originated as I got to play a remake of Lucas Arts classic point and click adventure game Day of the Tentacle. I have only played so little of this game and I don’t really have enough experience from it that I could tell you anything else about this game. Lets just say that it is still something worth to experiment with even today.

Instead of writing you about just one game I decided today to tell you about point and click games in general. There are loads of great games if you end up enjoying this type of games. This whole genre was at its time something that the latest hardware could support. This era was dominant way before we got used to playing in these interactive three-dimensional environments.

To understand point and click games we have to talk about how they evolved in such a direction. Where did this genre actually come from? The first thing, when it comes to adventure games, were text-based games. First adventure games were like this – you actually had to type in every move you could make in the game. Sierra leveled the game up so you could move around. Some years after point and click games became very popular. You could just click and point what you were trying to do in this game. It was a new way that you could interact with a video game. Of course you used your mouse to perform these operations.

Adventure games, and so also point and click games, involve a lot of discussion between the characters in which you have to make choices. There is also a lot of items that you have to collect and use with other items to solve different problems. You often have a score that tells you something about how you are progressing in the game.

Many adventure games in the 1980s were brought to you by a gaming company called Sierra. The strongest adventure game in the end of 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s was Lucas Arts. It brought us games like Maniac Manson, several Monkey Island games and many more. Sierra had also some point and click titles like the Space Quest series. I think the third one was somewhat a point and click adventure game. As Lucas Arts developed their user interface to suit point and click playing style also Sierra had to level up their games.

Day of the Tentacle is full of humoristic scenes, conversations, interaction and puzzle solving. It is promised a steady five hours of playing time that is described by “How Long To Beat” website. I have only completed a small amount, under 10 percentages, of this game but I think it was worth its price. The game is available today for Xbox Series S/X as a digital copy. I think there are versions for some other devices also. The price is today about 15 euros but the price might come down a bit if there is a huge sale or something like that. I paid only three euros of this game during a sale opportunity.

Some other classic worth-to-mention point and click games are Sam and Max series, Indiana Jones adventure games, Full Throttle and The Dig. Sierra has also some adventure games that have to be mentioned: Police Quest series and Space Quest series, Leisure Suit Larry games and also King’s Quest series.

Some other notorious point and click games are Clock Tower series and Discworld series. You can probably find more from your favorite sources of information be it a search engine, an actual physical book about the subject (my favorite is Juho Kuorikoski’s book (“Suuret seikkailupelit – tietokonepelien klassikot) about adventure games in general) and maybe you could try asking an AI tool for more information. This tiny blog post seems to be too small for a more detailed description. This was my post this time. I hope you enjoyed. See you next time!