When you enjoyed, time flies! Time is aproximately, i don´t care how hours spend, even on galaxy i have disable time and achievements at all, only the cloud save is useful for me, :)

Yes, that puzle and other that is a crossword are difficult. The totem puzles takes me about 7-8 tries to solve. The worst is that you must complete the totem very time even you know you are wrong. But they gives you 3 tips, the girl says that it must be a "female shape" that means the type of a figure with curves. The pieces have the borders different and you can guess that borders may fit. And third pieces looks a figure, with eyes and lines. The first four parts looks a skirt, a body... only i thought i have to use one of the two discarts. But it´s difficult because the chief could make some sign if you are in the correct way for instance.

Or probably that i have training after finish 3 Skulls of the Toltecs that have puzles more decontextualized than this.

Or luck. I remember the "cookies puzle" of Still Life, a lot of people say that was very difficult and i solved at the second try. It was obvius that if they say "put a pinch of ...." it could be salt, but not eggs. And that the order of ingredients you have to use first butter before than flour.

On the other hand, in Full Throttle, when Ben have to enter to the car cementery and climb BY the chain i didn´t understand it and try again and again to enter by the door, obviously. In my mind didn´t fit that i have to use the padlock to close the door if i need to enter and climb by the chain. I even tried to use the padlock with the chain to maintain fixed the chain. I was blocked a lot of time because is a natural annoyance (indeed in the Remastered Tim "God" Schafer speak about this). Sorry for the off-topic.

Well, sometimes is only a luck question. As when you are fighting with the goat in Broken Sword and can´t pass and comes your nephew and move the mouse at random and woalá!

Regards!

What a difference a few units make. Gave that first scenario on the second continent another go, with a few new units bought, and if before I stood no chance, now I was never in danger. Still only won on the last turn though...

Just wanted to bump this, so it isn't forgotten. 1996 so far seems to attract less attention than 1995.
Haven't played most of the games on the list here, and don't really have much motivation to try any of them right now. I did play the remastered version of Broken sword: Shadow of the templars a few years ago, but have to admit I didn't enjoy it all that much. The exaggerated French stereotypes (like some 1950s American would imagine France, bizarrely outdated even in the 1990s) and the Dan Brown-like conspiracy plot got on my nerves tbh.
Worms is of course a classic, but pretty much a party game imo, only limited enjoyment in playing it alone as I would have to.

I need to reboot my time travel engines. Somehow I drifted back to present day.

Started another game released in 1996, Down in the Dumps. It is divided into chapters like a TV sitcom Currently i go by the fourth episode, finished first three.
The game is curious, not cartoon, it´s made with renders, as Chronomaster, Kingdom o´Magic, Dementia or Normality. A lot of renders in 3D Studio Max. Reviews said game was made with Silicon Graphics Station, what was it? A NASA machine? Wow;)

The first episode has almost three options to solve the first two puzzles so it´s quite impressive because you can lost a lot of funny actions, sure it was choose for the demo. In the second episode there is a TV show that is boooring. The third chapter... a Snowy Kingdom really? It doesn´t fit well.

In second screen genius is in really bad shape.

I've never heard about this one. Added to the list, thank you!


The list of travellers and games being played is quite long, in my honest opinion. Perhaps some of us need to make a more realistic approach (I'm also still struggling one of 1995 titles) ;)

Regarding Worms – fully agree, hard to imagine playing this one alone.

Regarding Broken Sword – completely disagree :D I really liked the humour. I perceived all those stereotypes about France and the States as a satire. And I really like the humour – with a lot of subtle, smart, non-obvious jokes. For "Dan Brown-like conspiracy plot" – remember, dear time traveller, that "The Da Vinci Code" (and the flood of this kind of books/movies) is published in 2003. In its time BS was a fresh idea, I think.

Indeed, iirc I even wondered when playing the game if Dan Brown had plagiarized the idea of a Templar conspiracy from Broken Sword. It still feels silly to me as a plot device (not a fan of such centuries-spanning conspiracies, that aspect somewhat annoyed me in Deus Ex as well), but it was probably more original back in 1996.
One thing I'll admit is that the graphics style in Broken Sword is very nice. As for the stereotypes, maybe I need to play it again...it's possible I missed the satire :-)

Another game on the list I played as a child in the 1990s is Settlers 2. I doubt I could replay it today though, its pace is just too glacial.

Things tend to attract more interest when they're new. As a long-term event continues, if the call reaches a rather stable audience, there will be more participants dropping out than new ones joining.

I don't know, I think it might be more due to the games published in 1996. I hope things will pick up steam again in the following years which will feature many beloved classics (e.g. even I might decide to participate, maybe replay Fallout when we get to 1997).

Ok I've started AD 2044 and so far it's living up to it's reputation. After watching the opening intro (graphics weren't half bad), I must have missed the part about men being nearly extinct and I thought the nuclear war already happened. Doesn't seem to match up with the synopsis on the game page. That's a minor quibble because the interface is really what's wrong with the game.

As far as I can tell you get 3 icons that all do the same thing: shoes, eye, and magnifying glass. All three of these will move you around the environment with different viewpoints and such but there doesn't seem to be a real difference between them. Finding all the different hotspots in an environment is pretty bad and I kept on cycling thru a couple multiple times (long distance view of a table, close up of the table, back of the table, underside of the table, and repeat). This makes it really hard to find objects in the environment because they don't seem to appear unless you're on the exact right screen. I had to use a walkthru just to find the first three objects in the game. One of them was a spoon under the table. I knew the spoon was there somewhere but I could not see it and I spent 5 minutes click around until I found the exact hotspot to send me to another viewpoint and only then did the spoon appear on the screen.

I also can't solve obvious puzzles. I have a pack of cigarettes, a box of matches, and a newspaper in my inventory and a smoke alarm that I need to set off. I can't seem to combine any of these with each other or the environment to get that smoke alarm to go off. There must be a very specific sequence of clicks that I need to perform for it to work which is really frustrating.

I think the only way I'll be able to get thru this game is with the walkthru open on another screen. I am proud of myself for finding the newspaper without help though.

Well I realized that I've never beaten Quake 1 so I'm doing that now. At first I was trying to get all the secrets and thought it'd be fine, was doing well for the first couple of levels, but I learned that it can be trickier to pull off than I thought due to the single use+auto trigger power ups and having to go into lava in some levels, as well as having no restart level option. A bunch of them have kind of boring rewards too, so I probably won't be doing that but will stay on the lookout for them when I can.

That first low grav level was pretty cool and the OST adds a lot to the experience here. Otherwise it's basically Doom, but with proper platforming and more complex use of 3D for the level design and combat at times, maybe shorter levels too? It's pretty fun and I do love the fast pace compared to a lot of other 3D games, though the weapon selection is somewhat lacking in variety and I would prefer having a map, even if just a 2D one.

Quakety.

So you're the one taking that one for the team then. Appreciate the sacrifice :)

As for me, one more battle won in Fantasy General, two units lost but went with it... And then won the next one as well, but didn't expect it, turns ran out, had rejected the surrender, and hadn't even realized I had captured everything, so victory condition was met and I won but I expected to lose, had lost an important unit early on and was rather just playing for practice, to reload and do better the second time around. So I guess I got to practice winning too, but I'm still doing it again.

GOG just opened a portal to Witchaven here! :O

Time for some Heroes of Might and Magic 2. I went through two missions so far. I've got the game from some bundle on Humble store and it still has old rectangular GOG icon.