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Ask Slashdot: Best Adventure Game To Start With?
canolecaptain writes "One of my daughters (10 years old) has become interested in adventure games, and started playing Fate. It's been awhile since I've had time to play this type of game (since the Diablo 2 days), and I'd like to know what Slashdotters thought would be the best set of adventure games to start her on (PC preferred). Nothing too scary yet, so unfortunately, Diablo is out for the time being. I'd prefer one with multi-player so that we could quest together on ocassion."
You can do Titan's quest its alot more PG then Diablo, and also has multiplayer.
Setup a multiplayer minecraft server at your house, thats what my dad and my little brothers and I do, they play and every once and awhile my dad and I hop on and play with them.
Cartoony, Hilarious, and not impossibly difficult. And easy to acquire. A spectacular game all around and you can run it right in scummvm.
Really I recommend all of their games, but I'd suggest that as a best "first" game. Monkey Island 2 is my actual favorite scumm game, but its SUPER hard so not really a good "first" game.
So not Amnesia The Dark Descent?
The only thing a hack'n'slash has in common with an adventure game is mouseclick-induced carpal tunnel.
monkey island, indiana jones, sam & max, full throttle, maniac manson, the one with the squirrels on mars, ...
A great place to start for anyone. It involves a bit of imagination, but a fantastic game, and it's available for free on pretty much all platforms. It's the one I always find myself coming back to every once in a while. No multiplayer that I'm aware of unfortunately.
Zelda Zelda Zelda Zelda. Since she's 10, she might get a kick out of Wind Waker due to kid-friendly themes (while still not being completely kid-sanitized) and a slightly better learning curve than, say, Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time. You can't go wrong with Zelda, and Wind Waker is a really, really great game. Exploring those islands, filling my sea chart with maps of the islands and so on will live on forever in my memories because of the sense of discovery in that game. It was pretty easy to play, too, while still having challenging puzzles.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Depending on what she is interested in there are the Nancy Drew Mystery titles from HER Interactive.
Kudos for encouraging your daughter to go beyond the usual girly-girl commercial sites. Although there would seem to be a logical progression from imaginary adventures to adventures of an entirely different kind,
Three Squirrels
...didn't include hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers/RPGs.
If you're looking for actual adventures, then the Syberia series is a good point to start. Modern in their design, accessible mechanical puzzles and a wonderful non-violent story. There's also Amerzone, Myst and The longest Journey.
I loved playing those games when I was younger! I think I was around 10 years old when I started playing those.
Lo and behold, for I am a sig!
I was thinking like Syberia or Dreamfall, especially for a young girl. But then I looked at the game Fate and I believe I'm maybe in the wrong genre.
Torchlight. It was made by many of the people who made Diablo 2, but it's significantly less "scary". Good fun, if a bit repetitive towards the end. And cheap, too - It was only $20 at release, and is probably down to $10-15 by now. And it even has a "netbook" mode to run on low-end hardware, in case you haven't upgraded lately.
Fate plays exactly like Diablo, only it's PG. It's well made, but due to its nature, ultimately unsatisfying.
If you want co-op play, there's always Neverwinter Nights. Should be suitable for a 10 year old.
The whole Monkey Island series, which ranges from 8-bit to 3D modeling, is awesome for big and little kids alike. Who doesn't like pirates?
Beautiful artwork, music, compelling story, etc. You really can't go wrong!
Neverwinter Nights can be picked up for $10 and runs on older machines. There is a huge amount of content out there, though the engine is a bit dated, people have made lots of things.
Minecraft is the mainstay in our household, perfect for a ten year-old. Build, explore, mine, and create your own world.
We had a good time with Trine, and up to three can play. It's a pretty game, though hooking up multiple mice and keyboards to a PC can be tricky.
Just played TLJ for the 10th-ish time, first time in about 5 years. I was actually surprised about the amount of sex, cussing, drug use in the game!
king's quest, bizznitches! best game evar.
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
Torchlight is very much like Diablo, but not as scary, IIRC. Look into it. You can turn off any simulated blood, IIRC. There is a demo available at Gamefront file hosting.
BTW. These are TPL's (Third Person Looters), not adventure games. Usually, Diablo and FATE get called an RPG, which is a good enough classification. I almost recommended Zork I, based on the "adventure" genre, but then decided to RTFS. You can only imagine how disappointed your daughter would be cracking open a text adventure, wanting FATE instead!
If she gets into actual "adventure" games, the HER Interactive Nancy Drew series is a lot of fun, and has light to pretty difficult puzzles to solve.
--
Toro
West of House
There is a small mailbox here.
>read leaflet
"WELCOME TO SLASHDOT! YOU
MUST BE NEW HERE!
SLASHDOT is a game of adventure,
danger, and low cunning. In it you will
explore some of the most amazing
territory ever seen by mortals. No
computer should be without it!"
Pretty much all old LucasArts games are awesome.
Not sure if all of these were Lucas' but they are excelent adventure games.
Maniac Manison, Day of the Tentacle, Zak Mackraken, the Indiana Jones saga, the monkey Island saga, Full Throttle, Sam & Max, and more.
And of course, "The Dig"
Oregon trail. Learn history and epidemiology.
not multiplayer (I wish it was), but Oblivion is really good.
I gave my niece Myst as her first true "adventure" game and she loves it.
I realized she'd like it when one of her Hidden Object games was half adventure game and she really liked that aspect, so it wasn't just out of the blue.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
If you really mean adventure games, then I would recommend The Whispered World, and anything from Telltale.
But it sounds like you mean hack-n-slash RPG, in which case I would recommend Torchlight.
Oldie but a goodie!
It's not on the PC, but it's pretty cheap.
You can quest together on occasion.
It's generally not scary.
ScummVM is your one stop for Adventure games. The original point & click adventure games. It's free and available on any platform, but you will require original game files. Many can be had at Good Old Games, as well as the usual less legal options.
Start off with some of the Humongous Entertainment games. Freddie the Fish or Pajama Sam. Great for kids, and fun to play together. Then move to LucasArts games. Day of the Tentacle is very funny and colorful game. LOOM is beautiful, and fairly straightforward to play. The Dig is epic sci-fi, and not too complex either. Sierra games are for the advanced student.
Then just let her loose on Just Adventure and let her see what she likes.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If you're looking for a good old school point-and-click adventure game, I highly recommend hunting down a copy of Torin's Passage: http://www.allowe.com/Torin/index.htm
Lowe designed the game so he could play it with his daughter - he's most famous for working on the baudy Leisure Suit Larry titles. That having been said, there's some sly humor there that only adults will understand. But at heart, it's a fun family game - there's even a hint system so little kids don't get too frustrated with it.
The Windows version never worked well even on Windows 95, but the DOS version should run perfectly in DosBox.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
just don't play Heroes of Might and Magic 4 it sucks and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 needs the Unofficial HD Patch to work in newer os / systems. http://games.softpedia.com/get/Patch/Heroes-of-Might-and-Magic-3-Unofficial-HD-Patch.shtml
I can definitely recommend Lost Horizon as well. It sure had a lot of fun playing it and, yes, it is beautifully rendered. Quite cheap as well, which is always a bonus!
Recettear: an item shop's tale is a good one.
Torchlight is a great game and made by some of the same people as fate. http://store.steampowered.com/app/41500/
Great MMORPG with no monthly fees - just a one time purchase. Excellent depth, replay value, HUGE and beautifully detailed world and inherently multiplayer. It's quite complex though and I'm not sure whether 10 year old will get that much into depth.
Zork!
Ignoring the drivel that goes through trade chat (which can be turned off), World of Warcraft by itself isn't unreasonable for a father/daughter pair in her age group - it starts off easy, there's plenty of reading, it's actively rewarding, and there's lots of action and content to go through. If you want to be able to play with her, it's hard to go wrong with an MMO like that. It's designed with group play in mind. Then again, introducing her to that may be the first step down the long road of lifelong nerdiness, so exercise discretion.
I'd also give another vote for Minecraft, especially if you can set up (or find) a multiplayer server to play on with her. Double on the nerdiness there, though.
MUD or a MUSH. Get 'em reading while they're blasting something away with magic missiles!
Posted too soon. Pepper's Adventures in Time is also good. And it's freely downloadable: http://www.markseibert.com/the_full_game.htm
It has a girl as the protagonist and there's some good (if twisted) history lessons there too. Cute stuff.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
While not strictly RPG, I loved playing the Lego series with my kids (Lego Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, Pirates of the Caribbean was recently released). There are puzzles to solve and you get to run around through movie scenes and it's easy to play 2 players at once.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
SpyFox is a great series of games. It's a bit old, but cartoon graphics
It's not super-scary and extremely funny, with great characters and interactions. I recommend the TuTu mod for it, though it does flesh out some of the darker corners of the story. For instance, she should under no circumstances ask Kivan about what happened to his girlfriend.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Or maybe Animal.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I would second or third the recommendation of Monkey Island. There is an remake available that's been ported to many platforms (PSN, Wii, PC, iOS, etc) called Tales of Monkey Island. My daughter (who is 7) enjoys it quite a bit. Some puzzles are a little too hard for her and I need to help her out, so it might be the right level for your girl. The humor helps a lot too, she might not get the puzzles but she enjoys some of the responses she gets for incorrect answers- keeping her from getting to frustrated with it.
My daughter also loves the Zelda series like Windwaker and the Twilight Princess. She likes these worlds and loves to play in them not just for the story line. Like playing fetch with the a dog in Twilight Princess, or placing the pigs in Windwaker in funny spots like try to get them on a roof, or in a water basin. She sometimes plays the older versions like Majora's Mask or the Ocarina of Time but sometimes seems a little turned of by the lack of detail/responses of the environment. [sigh] Kids these days! ;)
She also likes to play on my World of Warcraft account sometimes (with supervision, of course)- although I can see many reasons not to go that route (monthly $, stranger interaction, addiction/immersion). She likes to roleplay in the environment- go fishing, follow/talk to NPCs, sleep, eat, and sometimes go on a quest or two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger
Different angle than what you're asking for, but I think a better game for a child than a mind-numbing hack-n-slash.
Probably best to start with King's Quest V for the semi-modern graphics. Earlier than that might turn a kid off to the series.
Ratchet & Clank for the PS3 or the PS2 are really great games they do have a bit of cartoonish violence but they are all great funny games they are pretty kid friendly too I think. I'm not acually sure if they are formally classified as Adventurer games though.
If you can find it, Darby the Dragon is absolutely wonderful. It is tons of fun, has lots of creative mini-games, and has GREAT music. My two daughters both played through it numerous times.
Vonnegut was right: Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."
My girls and I have been having fun playing this the last few months. For a long time, our favorite thing to do was just to go ride horses together around Bree! Of course, there's plenty of adventures/quests as well, but what I like best about it is it's something I can get into (way more than they do), but we can still go have fun together, either completing some 'adventure', or just goofing off playing house or something. Since it's free to play, we don't HAVE to spend real money on it. I have, of course, but not required.
I was in the exact same position two years ago with my daughter. We opted then for ScummVM and the fabulous point'n'click-games of yesteryear. Day of The Tentacle was her absolute favourite, and we sure had some excellent father-and-daughter quality time...
-- I am the Monkey Guru.
An adventure game is between an action game and roleplay.
How can that be? One of the defining traits of the adventure genre is the ABSENCE of action gameplay.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Yep, and with ScummVM or similar front-ends, you can play it in HD with a hq4x filter or similar... breathing new life into those lovely lemon-headed cannibals!
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
my 10 year old LOVES Portal, and Portal 2 Co-op mode is loads of fun. It's not quite an adventure game in the pure sense, but the last level of Portal really captured her imagination, especially with the escape into the hidden areas of Aperture Labs. Portal 2 Co-op mode on an XBox is really good, because it's split screen, which makes it very easy to help out when the other player gets stuck.
NO CARRIER
Okay, people! What about ADVENTURE? Wonderful descriptive text, all puzzles solved by logical means, available on innumerable platforms in several variations. http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/info/advent.html This is the ancestor of all the textual-adventure-puzzle games like Zork and the Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (Now where did I put my orange smoke...)
Zelda is not an adventure, it is an action-RPG (in fact, Zelda DEFINES what action-RPG even means).
Circumcision is child abuse.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. Zork of course!
Look for ZORK1, 2 and 3. They are free now and were the first "game" i played like that. But the first game i played on a pc was star treck on a 8080 S-100 color computer in the 70's. Ahhh talk about old times.
Wasn't too complicated, and with all the Disney characters and story lines she should feel right at home and comfortable. Plus, it's still fun for older players to enjoy as well.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I can see some similar replies: "It depends on what you mean by adventure"... well, no. If you say adventure, you MUST mean games similar to Zork, King's Quest, Myst, Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight, stuff like that. Otherwise, you are simply using the wrong word. This is the traditional, well-established, widely accepted definition; it is not open to debate, period.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Huh? I've played both and don't think they're anything alike outside the interface...
How appropriate, you fight like a cow!
Zelda games aren't adventures? My childhood memories- heck, any memory I have about Zelda games tell me to disagree with that statement.
Are you talking about Adventure games, like Cyberia or The Longest Journey, or are you talking about dungeon diggers, like Diablo and (apparently; I haven't played it) Fate?
Your answers are going to be pretty crappy, when your question is so ... confused.
Comment of the year
Since you're misusing genres, given Diable is not an Adventure game.
Hence no one knows if you actually want adventure games and hence they should recommend things like Monkey Island, or if you actually want an action-RPG and hence they should recommend things like Torchlight.
And of course the jerks just point out you mixed up the genres instead of answering at all.
The "Quest for glory" series (especially IV), Beneath a steel sky, Superhero league of Hoboken, System Shock 1 & 2 (maybe a bit too scary) and of course all of the Sierra & Lucas arts classics allready mentioned.
get a sinclair spectrum emulator and a copy (yes, pirated) of the hobbit
I have to second either Myst or Syberia. Syberia is probably a little easier. They're not mulitplayer though like you want but that doesn't mean you cannot play together. I think if you can power through the first few scenes in Myst she'll be hooked in no time. I still can't believe they ended the series.
Great story, incredibly cute and artistically fantastic graphics, still pretty simple and all-in-all light on violence, available for just every platform under the sun, it's a great choice.
You can't go wrong.
Lex
1)
I can't believe nobody mentioned Magicka...
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
fun game, maybe a little challenging for a first adventure though. But great atmosphere and music, unique look and interesting story. It was on sale on Steam for like $5 recently. Still go back and play it occasionally. and the protaganist is a girl, so she might like that.
Ico
But like someone else, I suggest text adventures too. There's lots of free or shareware ones too.. e.g. http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgamesXzcode.html
Minecraft.
With local network and server the multiplayer aspect is wonderful. If you get into building and don't want to fight the creatures, you can turn them off.
Minecraft is a great way to introduce someone to team play, organisation, and resource management. All of these are vital for broadening one's gaming skills.
Maniac Mansion was always a fun adventure/mystery game for me when I was little. It's more fun when you have multiple people pointing out objects and giving suggestions on what to do with them. The second game, Day of the Tentacle was a bit more adventure-like, but it was also a bit harder.
... is where it all began
Great adventure - beautiful worlds, amazing creatures, great sound, Nali!, bonus: learn FPS controls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal
Also, UT3 needs more players :-(
Other than Zelda II I really wouldn't call the Zelda series an action RPG because it doesn't contain many RPG elements (EXP, etc.) rather I'd classify Zelda as an adventure game with only a few elements borrowed from RPGs (you have money, HP and MP). Rather, I'd classify an action RPG as a game like Tales of Symphonia or Star Ocean, games that are mostly RPGs but have action oriented combat.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
If you're looking for graphical/point-and-click adventures and cheap entertainment all in one ball of wax, I highly recommend the free remakes of Sierra's King's Quest I, II and III as well as Hero's Quest. They're available from AGD Interactive and did I mention they're free?
Stop listing adventure games. They are great but the author meant action rpg's ala diablo/TQ/torchlight.
I was looking for the old dungeons and dragons games a while back and I ran across The Quest, from Redshift. They have it for iOS also. Its very cool and is only $10. They have an expansion pack as well. Also, there are good 3rd party expansions from Zarista Games. Its very fun.
http://machinarium.net/demo/
Awesome game that kids will love.
Diablo is not an adventure game, not even close.
Adventure games are puzzle/story based games that come in a few flavours such as the old school text based adventures like Zork and the graphical adventures that include Myst, Monkey Island, and Syberia among a plethora of others.
I would offer suggestions but they have already been covered.
But if you were more specific in what you want I am sure I or someone else could offer a suggestion. Particularly, why is Diablo not acceptable but some other game like it would be (they all involve killing people, and yes sure it contains demons but they are just cannon fodder and I really do not think anyone would ever consider them scary).
But since she has not played many games yet maybe sticking to a single genre does not make sense because she might enjoy another one just as much.
And /. is hardly the place to ask for gaming advice, there are tons of sites dedicated to just that thing (with lists and forums for the persona touch) that will offer you better results.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Legend Of Kyrandia is an old but very good adventure game that runs very well in DOSBox. Very easy to control (it only uses mouse & left-click), not too hard, and rather entertaining. Graphics are hand-drawn and, IMO, look pretty nice even today - not too cartoonish, more like a fairy tale book. It's also rather "family friendly", as there's no blood and gore involved (even though it's possible to have the player character die).
As well, there are three games in the series, all looking and playing mostly the same, with connected storylines - so you get a lot of play time out of the whole thing.
Quest for glory 1 VGA remake
That said, one adventure game I would recommend pretty much no matter what is Machinarium. It has a simple and cute story, which is not told through long speeches, in fact there is no talk at all, but rather through a few animated thought bubbles. It is pretty short and has fairly simple puzzles, though you might have to give a helping hand once in a while, especially towards the end.
I'm going to put my neck out and say that Machinarium's puzzles are brutally fucking hard, especially the second to last one and the maze game in the arcade. Definitely way too hard for kids IMO.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Just get the Australian version. (Quick, before their new system kicks in).
My webcomic
Zelda is not an adventure, it is an action-RPG (in fact, Zelda DEFINES what action-RPG even means).
It has elements of both, but Zelda is almost entirely an adventure game. Even though it's an action game and has RPG elements, that doesn't necessarily make it an "action RPG". Adventure games involve getting from Point A to Point B, usually from solving a puzzle or collecting an item that allows you to pass (in the case of Zelda, a weapon you find in a dungeon or a key item). This fits the definition of "adventure game" perfectly. The only Zelda game that I'd consider to be Action RPG-like would be Majora's Mask, because there's so many sidequests and optional things to do in that game that it really has that Action RPG feel.
If you want a good example of an Action RPG, check out Kingdom Hearts (first one preferably) or Monster Hunter, especially the latter game which is much more RPG-like in nature.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Day of the Tentacle. You quest together by trading turns using the mouse.
Perhaps, put on some hiking boots, open the front door and head out for an adventure in the real world. It'll give her a far better grounding in life than spending even more hours in front of a screen than she (probably) already does. Seriously.
Mythos was made by a couple of the old D2 devs and has very similar play style to Diablo. It's free right now, but I think only the European version is technically live. Things are in English, but some of the translations aren't so great, and there is only one half-decent website with info on finding items, though it happens to be in German. http://www.mythos-europe.com/
I got my hands on Ultima IV when I was 10 years old, and it was literally a life-changing experience. Now, more than 25 years later, I'm still hooked on the Ultima titles.
Either Loom or Secret of Monkey Island 1.
Unless you are over 18, then go for Leisure Suit Larry series. However ONLY play the ones that Al Lowe was involved in. The newer ones SUCK!!!
Still playable - Still awesome.
Pick up an emulator and the ROM somewhere..... I think someone built a c++ version for the PC about 10 years back.. that may still be around. It allowed for custom mazes to be defined.
It's simple graphics wise - but I can totally see a kid still getting into the game. :-)
Huh?
You're asking for adventure games, which are puzzles that involve no combat, but list only action RPGs like Fate and Diablo.
I can't think of either adventures or RPGs with network capability that aren't MMOs (which I'd dismiss out of hand because they're mostly grinding scams rather than games). Myst and its sequels are unbelievably awesome adventure games, and work well when a group sits before the screen too. Other such puzzle games include Monkey Island, as well as Zork and the old Infocom text adventures if you don't need graphics.
As for RPGs, my favorites are the Exile, Avernum and Geneforge series (all with turn-based combat). There's also a steampunk RPG with a somewhat Diablo-like interface, but more dialogue and options for real-time or turn-based combat. And again, if you don't insist on graphics, the Rogue-likes like ADOM and Angband are also fun.
If by Adventure game you mean point-and-click Adventure (and if you do not, how dare you soil the term "Adventure"!), then I would recommend the Wallace and Gromit series from Telltale. Solid think-hard adventuring with fun quirky logic and completely kid-friendly.
If you're ok with something less kid-friendly, the Monkey Island series is awesome. My (very) young one loved helping me play Monkey Island 4, but there were times I wondered if it wasn't a bit too gritty for her. I tried firing up version 1 and 2, but the graphics and lack of voice acting put her off.
Day of the Tentacle is superb, but requires solid adventuring skills because the puzzles are quite out there.
Get her a copy of Zak McKracken & The Alien Mindbenders.. If she can beat that, she's smarter than me, or at least smarter than me when I was at 10 years old. Note, that if you catch her playing Commander Keen because Zak McKracken was too hard, she'll probably end up failing at life... You know you've definitely lost her if she gets into Duke Nukem, as DN1 leads to DN2, and DN2 leads to Duke 3D, then it's all "Shake it, baby!" and the pixelated pornography and the patch to remove the nipple tassels and the whore headshots. Not too sure where I'm going with all of this...
/usr/bsd/games/advent
GET LAMP
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If I was a Dad I would be playing Sleep is Death by Jason Rohrer with my kids: http://sleepisdeath.net/
Pay what you can, full source code, two player storytelling game. First Dad gets to make the world come alive, then the real fun begins as the kids learn to be the storyteller.
Complexity Happens
Ultima IX Ascension has a huge, very beautiful world, not much violence and the graphics still look awesome. Little Big Adventure 2 also still looks good, fantastic world and great soundtrack.
Don't let 10 year olds see "leisure suit larry"! Or use google, I guess.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The real story-driven adventure game genre slowed to a crawl more than a decade ago around the release of critically acclaimed Grim Fandango, which bombed commercially. Many of the adventure games released since are remakes or some attempt at episodic content.
If you're looking for good stories, then the Longest Journey and Syberia are fun PC adventure games with strong female protagonists that might appeal more to a 10 year old girl.
While I was growing up, I knew some girls who enjoyed the classic Monkey Island series of adventure games. Another classic is Tim Schafer's Grim Fandango for originality in art design and storytelling, plus a great soundtrack that supposedly sells on eBay for more than $100.
Diablo is not an adventure game
I've been playing a bit of Tales of Monkey Island with my kids who have enjoyed it even though they don't understand English. I think it's quite enjoyable and does the originals justice.
.: Max Romantschuk
I was going to recommend this myself. Searched the comments first, though, to make sure someone else hadn't done so already.
Excellent game! Great fun and definitely kid friendly.
I play this game with my 5 year old son. The combat is card based a la magic: the gathering so less than scary. some of the undead bad guys are bit scary to him in appearance. there is zero gore. the defeated enemies fall down and fade away.
Very nice point and click adventures. Syberia on Wikipedia
Great graphics, good story and very relaxed atmosphere. These are old games -- released in 2002 & 2004 but still look pretty good even on a 27" screen.
And you can find them on Steam for less than US$ 10.
I love this game and NWN2 as well, because of it's capabilities to create own adventures. Coop questing, Solo adventures, persistent worlds, you name it.
NWN1 has a native Linux client and NWN2(with all 3 addons) runs without problems in wine.
On the downside, I think Atari gave up one it or something. The website didn't see an update for a long time, but the forums at Bioware are still very active. There is a huge community, that creates adventures and persistent worlds for both NWN1 and NWN2 engines.
If your thinking of action RPG i'd recommend torchlight or some of the older infinity engine games like Baldur's Gate 2 if you have a more story-driven/strategy leaning. When it comes to adventures try The Longest Journey. You and your daughter will love it, hell you should try it even if you really ment Action-RPGs.
Well, it all depends on what kind of game you really want to play, IMHO diablo doesn't fall into the 'adventure' category but more in the reign of RPG (which is something completely different).. You want adventure games? then play the old sierra/lucasarts games (or visit sites like Scummvm.org where you can find a lot more info on these kind of point and click adventures).. You want 'diablo' kind of games (which IMHO also means World of Warcraft), there are so many mmo's out there.. and honestly? nobody can tell you what's the best 'adventure' game to start with, because it all depends on YOUR preference of gaming..
Moria on VAX/VMS I found to be a great start ;-)
You're mentioning Diablo 1 & 2, but those are not adventures by far. ... these games are not necessarily new, but they are fun to play and Broken Sword especially is a game that one generation has grown up on.
...
If you are asking for good adventures, the answer is Broken Sword 1 & 2, The Longest Journey, Siberia, Gabriel Knight 3, Lost Horizon,
If you are asking for RPG (Diablo-like games), then the answer is Fallout 1, 2, 3, Tactics; Albion (old), Final Fantasy VII, Oblivion, Baldur's Gate 2, and there are hundreds of other good RPG's - they vary in genre, so you can pick one your children prefer - fantasy, scifi, futur noir,
anyway, most of the RPG's are single player and include violence in more or less brutal way. If you like your children to play some good, multiplayer, non-violent game, maybe you could go for MMORPG's like Eve Online, where you don't get to (1) fights with other pilots (2) person-to-person fights; if you don't want to... You can actually play peaceful career and it's still a lot of fun.
Id suggest Star Control 2. It has action, adventure, and it teaches a lil about resource managment. I think the ending of that one would be reached.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, but this is one occasion I cannot pass up.
"The Neverhood", by Microsoft, is a hilarious and not too challenging point and click adventure which requires almost no language skills (save for a few very specific bits of knowledge, such as the meaning of "bobby"). It may me a bit hard to come by, though. :-(
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King's Quest and Space Quest have always been on the list of my favourite game series, the latter of which, as an added bonus, is filled with humour (PG-13 i believe).
Some may tell you that they're too hard, especially the first games of the series (keep in mind that point and click didn't come until KQ5, so everything is typed). While that may be true, my response to that is that it gives you an added chance of bonding with your daughter by working with her (they grow up fast at that age). Some of my best memories of childhood involved my dad and I getting through King's Quest together...
Tons of great suggestions ... obviously no shortage of possibilities. Despite fear of starting a new thread alltogether, how long do you slashdotters let your "slashdaughters" adventure like this? Two hours evenings after homework and dinner in place of movies or DVDs? Six hours starting from getting home from school eating a snack in front of computer? Without constant supervision, what kind of schedule do you put your little gamers on? I personally opt for the "evening entertainment alternative".
rm -rf ms/*
Indiana Jones's Desktop Adventure! Too bad it won't run on Ubuntu
Syberia.
Every end has half a stick.
She may be a bit bored with these games being as dated as they are now, but I suggest the King's Quest series. In fact, many now have remakes by fans that bring them up to VGA graphics and have voice packs, and Kings Quest 6 now has a fanmade sequel that I believe is 3D rendered (while keeping true to the original artwork). What is great about the King's Quest series is she is right inside of their target age-range.
Another great series, and more recent, is the Fable series. This is a great segway between adventure and RPGs, and may get her interested in the still-popular RPG games.
If she enjoys Fable, I suggest then introducing her to more RPGish games. Try Eternal Sonatra, Tales of Vesperia, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross.
If she enjoys King's Quest, and wants to stick with that style of game, you could try her on the Monkey Island Series, which is currently getting a makeover, or something like Day of the Tentical. And if she wants to get into something spooky without being overly scary, she may like Gabriel Knight - although that may be a year or two away if she is 10.
This is a cute little love story where a boy bunny tries to woo the girl bunny he loves. There's one racy dance scene by the Pirate Bunny (who has a thing for the hero). But it's all cute and quite fun. I think the game mechanics are all understandable by a kid.
http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/07/bunni_how_we_first_met.php
1. 2.
If you really want to go old school, check out sarien.net. It has flash versions of some of the older Sierra adventure games.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
http://www.ultimaforever.com/
I think that LOTRO is very well suited for the young, especially if you start out in the Shire as a hobbit, which is a very charming place. Although it does have some "scary" areas, such as the Barrow downs (wights and such). You develop virtues such as Compassion, Charity, Honesty, Innocence, etc that adds to your abilities. You don't get killed, you get defeated. And yes, it is multiplayer. And the artwork of some of the areas are just beautiful. I especially like the elven areas. Falathlorn and Rivendel are very nice, and Lothlorien (a high level area) is just breathtaking in my opinion.
It's good for old timers too. I love the game, and I'm almost 49 years old.
You'll have to face the truth:
When it comes to electronic gaming, your daughter fits squarely into the Nintendo demografic. (As does mine, btw.)
Get her a used DS(i) and any of the Zelda Titles or aim for 'Dad of the year 2011' and shell out the money for a 3DS and the Zelda Title that comes with it. It's an Ocarina of Time remake, AFAICT. The 3DS costs 250$ / 225€, which is a bizar pricepoint for a childrens gadget, but I've seen it in action and have played with it a bit and you have to hand it to Nintendo: It *is* an awesome device. ... And since my employer gave me a DSi for christmas I didn't need to buy it myself. ... But then again, I'm also a game developer, so I've even got some extra "awesome cool dad" score with built-in bragging-rights for my sweetheart on top of that. :-)
You'll be a "Dad of the decade" if you get yourself one too and play Mario Cart or some other multiplayer funtitle with her and her friends once in a while.
I do that once in a while, it's a good unsuspicious way of peeking into the girly-clique mechanisims currently going on every once in a while.
One more advice on the Nintendo portables thing:
Do think twice if you'll buy her some mini-social title like those of the "Animal Crossing". Those are freakishly addictve, as they press the right 'doll playing' buttons with pre-teen and teeny girls. You'll have to impose some rules if you introduce that to your little girl. As for Zelda, she'll probably ask you to help her out from time to time when she gets frustrated with some riddle. We report to each other on our progress every once in a while, which can be a nice conversation piece.
And expect a regular-basis ass-whooping in Mario Cart after half a year or so, once she gets the hang of it. ... Just telling. :-)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I'd recommend the King's Quest series or Grim Fandango. Great puzzles, it's cartoony, it's funny and you can play together by helping her solve the harder puzzles (Grim is "harder" than King's Quest I think). Space Quest was pretty cool too.
May I recommend checking out www.gog.com 's selection of games, I'm sure you'll find something there.
~Syberz
Sixteen kilobytes of pure fun.
The mongoose, unfortunately, was really a squirrel...
How the heck did this IDIOT confuse a squirrel with a BIRD????
( Much later I realized this actually makes perfect sense, but at the time, it seemed ridiculous. )
...
I'm a terrible father. I introduced my daughter to Nethack at 8 yrs old or so, she quite enjoyed it. She got down to the fifth or sixth dungeon level on her first go at it, asking lots of questions as she went. Poor kid had no idea how hard it is to actually "beat" Nethack though.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
What the hell has happened to "Adventure" Games?
Telltale Games is holding the torch there pretty well. The Sam & Max series has been a lot of fun. All available on PC on Steam, but many are on the Wii, and a giant HDTV with a wireless pointer might just be adventure gaming Nirvana. They even have a some Wallace & Grommit games I have been wanting to try.
GOG has Syberia (personal favorite) and lots of other classics.
The indie scenes has some gems like Machinarium.
That being said, there should be a place in any true gamer's heart for both puzzling adventure and becoming screaming, bloody death from above. ;-)
... adventure games. Although, if Diablo is your marker for what makes an "adventure game" you might be better off looking to something like the newer Zelda games. They're not multi-player, but sometimes the best way to roll through a game like that is to sit on the couch with a friend and take turns working out the puzzles / fights.
Wizard 101 is a good fit for that age group and very kid-safe. It has the added advantage that the base game is free (though you will have to pay to unlock later areas). Especially on the "free" areas, it is easy to create a second account and play at the same time as her.
Also agree with Portal/Baldur's Gate/Lego Star Wars,Harry Potter, etc / Zelda (Nintendo DS).
There are also the MySims' series of games. She may enjoy MySims Agents (I've only played on Wii)
Why the hell are you worried about "Scary" for your daughter? What's wrong with something scaring the kids? It's not a giant floating head giving somebody a blow job, it's fine, she'll get over it. I played Metroid when I was a kid a lot, that was scary as hell back then. You're all alone, on an uninhabited planet, diving deep into its core with no hope of seeing the surface again in a long time, looking for monsters that can kill you with lighting, dealing with acid pools, darkness, mutants... and you have the Wave Beam to help you get by.
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I would say that Half-life 2, Picross 3D, Starcraft 2, Super Mario World or Madden NFL '11 would be good adventure games to start with.
Ignoring Cost, World of warcraft is worth consideration. It's pretty much a cartoon masquerading as a Adventure game, And from a newbie prospective it's pretty vast.
Star Control 2 was one of the defining games and experiences of my life; my brother and I played through it together when we were 8 and 10 respectively, and it was monumentally influential on us. Paul Reich and Fred Ford became his idols, and he went on to became a coder. The struggle for freedom influenced me, and a few weeks later found a copy of Slackware and became a *nix admin.
Coincidence? Ok, maybe. :) But still a spectacular game with a truly epic story.
I'd actually recommend the DOS version under dosbox, without the 3DO voice acting, as it leaves more to the imagination.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I introduced a niece and nephew (ages 11 and 7) to Machinarium recently, and so far they've really enjoyed it. Definitely one of the best adventure games made in recent years.
The term has been used in so many ways that it might be a good idea to generalize.
I.e., 'I don't know what I means, so I'll just make shit up.'
Adventure games are actually very well defined. There is not a line or RPG - adventure - action. That is not how it works.
RPGs and adventures are both non-action, at least originally. Strangely for your claim, at this point, RPGs tend to be more 'action' than adventure games.
The difference is that an RPG has a character that evolves over time in a manner you choose, solving some random problems in random manner, usually by fighting, using skills that you have 'earned' over time. Often there is an open world.
An adventure game, meanwhile, has a character you cannot change, solving specific problems with specific tools, usually ones found in the environment. There's a very specific path though the game. There are often full-screen puzzles.
Both of those started as turn-based, where events didn't happen until you moved. Nowadays, RPGs tend to not be that. Some purists call those 'action RPGs' or 'real-time RPGs'. Likewise, with adventure games, if they have enough action to actually make the game difficult, they are called action adventure. Now, you can argue the 'action' boundary all you want. Fahrenheit is certainly action adventure, Monkey Island, probably not, The Long Journey 2, possibly.
But the boundary isn't important, the important fact is that it's not some sort of idiotic scale of RPG-adventure-action. RPG and adventure are different styles of games, that have nothing to do with how much action they have. And, as I said, at this point RPGs have a fuckload more action than adventure games. Have you actually played a modern RPG and a modern adventure game?
And, of course, there are mixed RPG/adventure games, also. Almost all RPGs have adventure aspects mixed in somewhere...the entire 'dialogue tree' concept is straight from adventure games. And some adventure games veer into RPG territory by letting you choose different things about your character, although there's a lot less choices. (For example, the Bureau 13 adventure game didn't let you evolve your characters, but it let you pick a team of two pre-built ones out of many, so you had to solve problems in different ways using their skills. It's about as RPG-ish as an adventure game gets, which makes sense, considering it's from the Bureau 13 RPG.)
As for what we're talking about, Nethack is a type of roguelike, which is a subset of turn-based RPG.
As for story, adventure games probably have the most story of any genre, although a lot of that is because they are the most linear of any genre. The idea that The Pandora Directive or Fahrenheit has less emphasis on story than Neverwinter Nights is idiotic.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
How about Fable?
Torchlight. It's newer, shiny, made by the guys who made the original Diablo, and is decidedly age-appropriate (unless something happens in the latter half of the game I am unaware of, since I've never gotten more than ten hours in). You might also consider Eschalon I and II, both are a bit more involved and "adventure-ey" with detailed stories and such, but they might fit the bill, and I don't recall any age-inappropriate stuff, myself. But then, I don't honestly recall anything "inappropriate" in Diablo I or II either....so my sense of perspective on this may be skewed. And yes, as everyone is delightedly pointing out, these games are technically Rogue-likes or action RPGs, or hacknslashers but the adventure game appelation technically means "point and click and solve obscure puzzle" types.
Zelda is what I would consider one of the first action-adventure games.
Although at this point, as people tend to mean 'adventure games with action sequences', I'd probably call such a game 'Zelda-like'. ;)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Not too difficult. Woman Hero. Good dialog. Inexpensive. And has a sequel.
http://www.longestjourney.com/
Have fun!
:T:R:A:N:S:
Don't get me wrong, Day of the Tentacle is a great game but I think it might be a little too hard for a 10 year old. It's been decades since I last played it but as I remember some of the interactions of the different items in the game are abstract as hell. Not the same as The Dig or Full Throttle where things made contextual sense.
SMALL SPOILER: In The Dig you might get a tool and that will be used at some point as the tool. Same with Full Throttle, a motorcycle part is just that, used in a motorcycle. However, in Day of the Tentacle, you got some coins which were actually used as coins but were used to pay for a dryer that was used dry a wet sweater which would shrink it (sometime in the far future, didn't I mention 3 different time lines?) so that a wet hamster that you defrosted in the microwave because he was encased in a block of ice from the ice machine can be warmed up. Make sense? And that's not even one of the more abstract puzzles.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
what, no love for Peasant's Quest?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Ultima IV was a great game, and for a kid great as it was turn-based. Endless exploration and discovery.
The Geneforge series is a very similar but modern one of the same type that is still around today. Try those.
Apparently most are fondly remembering their youthful days of Lucas and/or MUD adventuring. I too love my days of MUDding and Lucas was revolutionary and influential -- my kids (and I) loved them back in the day! However, I don't believe a contemporary 10-year old would have much patience with a MUD or GOG-updated 10-15 year old games (with the exception of the Monkey Island remakes).
:) Today I'm playing "The Next Big Thing" -- she would love it! Hilarious!
If you want a great contemporary adventure game (and, yes, I'm ignoring the fact that you apparently aren't asking about adventure games per se), I would highly recommend "Edna & Harvey: The Breakout" from 2011, easily one of the best games I've played in years. Very traditional but has both a fascinating story line, great voice acting and the wonders of a different (and usually quite witty) response to 98% of combination attempts. None of the repetitive "No, that doesn't work", but a unique on-point retort. The programmer claimed 30,000 lines of dialogue!
Another one from the same company is "The Whispered World". Artistic backgrounds, great story, great voice action. Highly recommended.
Both of these are from Germany -- the Germans are the ones making the best adventure games these days). Another is "The Book of Unwritten Tales" from 2009. This is more 3-D, a bit of action, delightful story. Problem: it's only in German but you can grab fan-written subtitles.
Black Mirror II & Black Mirror III are also recommended. Culpa Innata. The Runaway & Broken Sword series are good for a Lucas-like experience. And, yes, I'm still a connoisseur of adventure games at 57.
*sigh* It is not my job to define things. It is, quite possibly, your job to look things up before of making up shit.
Here is the definition of an adventure game from Wikipedia:
The term "Adventure game" originates from the 1970s computer game Adventure,[5][6] which pioneered a style of gameplay that was widely imitated and became a genre in its own right. The video game genre is therefore defined by its gameplay, unlike the literary genre, which is defined by the subject it addresses, the activity of adventure.[1]
Essential elements of the genre include storytelling, exploration, and puzzle solving.[1] Adventure games have been described as puzzles embedded in a narrative framework,[7] where games involve "narrative content that a player unlocks piece by piece over time".[12] While the puzzles that players encounter through the story can be arbitrary, those that do not draw the player out of the narrative are considered examples of good design.[13]
Here is adventure vs other genres from Wikipedia:
Combat and action challenges are limited or absent in adventure games,[1] thus distinguishing them from action games.[7] In the book Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design, the authors state that "this [reduced emphasis on combat] doesn't mean that there is no conflict in adventure games ... only that combat is not the primary activity."[5] Some adventure games will include a minigame from another video game genre, which are not always appreciated by adventure game purists.[1] Of course, there are some games that blend action and adventure throughout the game experience.[14] These hybrid action-adventure games involve more physical challenges than pure adventure games, as well as a faster pace. This definition is hard to apply, however, with some debate among designers about which games are action games and which involve enough non-physical challenges to be considered action-adventures.[1]
Adventure games are also distinct from role-playing video games that involve action, team-building, and points management.[7] Adventure games lack the numeric rules or relationships seen in role-playing games, and seldom have an internal economy.[1] These games lack any skill system, combat, or "an opponent to be defeated through strategy and tactics."[5] However, some hybrid games exist here, where role-playing games with strong narrative and puzzle elements are considered RPG-adventures.[15] Finally, adventure games are classified separately from puzzle games.[7] Although an adventure game may involve puzzle-solving, they typically involve a player-controlled avatar in an interactive story.[1]
ADVENT and the Adventure on Atari are both adventure games, one graphical, and one text. However, Blackmoor isn't an adventure game because it's not a fucking computer game, you nimrod.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Start with the grand-daddy of them all: rogue.
The multiplayer MystOnline is free. Great environments and puzzles.
http://mystonline.com/en/
It's been a couple years since I've played it, but my friends and I used to really enjoy this game. From what I know, it's very similar to WoW, but it uses the free to play with cash shop items available model. Realistically, if you will be playing on a semi regular basis, there are a few things from the cash shop that you need, and that may make WoW a better choice depending on the costs involved. But this is one game that I downloaded for my wife, who doesn't play any games, and she actually played it for a month or two of her own accord, which surprised the heck out of me.