On topic, I played Schizm 1 for the first time a few days ago.

Overall I found it to be pretty enjoyable, a big improvement over Detalion's previous attempt (my thoughts on Reah are somewhere in the earlier pages of this thread).

It had some crazy difficult puzzles - some just hard work while others were... not exactly nonsensical, but the rules weren't communicated effectively and were hard to intuit.

I did enjoy it and the ending was a bit more satisfying than Reah's. I need to get hold of Schizm II now (and Sentinel?). Anyone know of a good, DRM-free place to get them?

Congratulations! Schizm is considered one of the hardest games. I had played some of it about 15 years ago but never got to completion. (I wonder how I would treat it today though)

I never played Schizm II, although I actually own a nice physical copy xD

I own Sentinel as well and that one I did actually complete when it was released. I remember it had some crazy puzzles as well, but overall it was an excellent game!

Don't know, though, if these games are actually available DRM-free anywhere. (Does FireFlower release games published by good old The Adventure Company?)

Thanks, I had found these but due to GamersGate's tenuous definition of DRM-free I've been hoping for an alternative. I know the method to bypass GG's "DRM-free"-DRM but I'd still rather avoid giving them money if I can. ;)

I didn't do it entirely by myself, but I only used UHS to try and understand the puzzles that I couldn't make sense of, I still did the actual heavy lifting of solving the puzzles.
One of the puzzles I accidentally solved by sheer fluke while trying to figure out the rules (it's fairly early - filling the airship with gas). After I used the UHS to find out what was going on there I calculated that accidentally getting the correct solution was a 1 in 100 chance.

The base 12 coordinate conversion was fiendish and I worked that one out all by myself.

I think FFG has some The Adventure Company games, but doesn't seem to have these ones. I'm guessing they might not still have the rights since they were only the US publisher for some of them - I think L.K. Avalon still has the rights?

When the entire portfolio of dotemu and zodiac disappeared from the scene in a second, I blamed myself for not having bought all drm-free games there. I regret it until today, because it is a fairy tale to believe that such old games will appear somewhere else again.

And compared to the lameness of the gog installers, the setups from GG are almost a relief.

The setups that GG encrypts and requires you to login every time you want to use them?

While it's laughably easy to bypass, it's still a complete lie to call that DRM-free and I prefer not to reward them for that.
For all GOG's flaws, at least their offline installers are actually DRM-free.

You are right, the encryption is stupid and - above all - simply useless.
But I prefer the idea of owning the games drm-free in the end anyways ... instead of having to wait forever for them.
Or do you think that K. Hawk Survival Instinct or Shells of Fury or Project Anderson will ever show up in another store?

I couldn't possibly say as I've never heard of any of them...

Hey chums, there's a small halloween sale going on at Fireflower Games: https://fireflowergames.com/sales/halloween-2021

All four RHEM games are part of it and the Black Cube series too, plus other non-first-person adventures.

Tempting, though Imma hold out some more. Maybe they'll pop up on GOG, like the other 20+ games I bought on Steam...

Very unlikely the RHEM series will turn up here. GOG seems to have rejected them from what I understand. They also rejected ASA, the first Black Cube game. FFG is a great store for adventure games because GOG only seems to accept relatively heavy hitters in the genre, or ones which catch their eye at least.

Hmm, I'll check the store out, then!

Thanks for sharing man, much appreciated!

So are these deals good to grab now in FFG? I mean, how probable is it for these games to be discounted at the same levels in e.g. a Christmas sale? Asking mostly because I try to plan my budget a bit.