Rare yet great games

Hi everybody!

I am pretty new to your board so I want to say hello to everyone who keeps this place rolling.

I got an idea while going through these threads to start something pretty weird. Everyone here is usually talking about new adventure games or gems from the past which were covered by many reviews.

My point is to share in this thread experience with games which are rare and definitely not the mainstream of adventure gaming. I want to profit on this myself (because I love to play old and forgotten games ).

Anyway let me start. My favorite games from the past are definitely

1, The Portal (one of the best stories I found in the computer game)
2, Cosmology of Kyoto (weird beast yet pretty immersing)
3, Blue Ice (this one is much more known)

4, Shadow of the Comet (this one is a classic but sadly a lot of people doesn't even know the name)

Also has anyone heard about the game 'Jonathan'? I found a review many years ago but didn't find the game. It is supposed to be a good adventure-horror.

... hmm I am better off for now ...

Hi you. :kiss:

So you have taken the plunge. Towels are over there to the left in the back room.

ALright - great list. I know we have some insanely expert Blue Ice members here. It is the best game I still haven;t beaten.

Cosmology - I just had the pleasure of playing a few mionths back. Really odd game but riveting. Reminded me in some ways of Spirited Away.

Shadow of the Comet is a great game. Better than Prisoner of Ice. It is a bit disjointed in the middle - but worth playing.

Let's see - fave obscure or older games. I really liked this kids game called Uncle Albert's Mysterious Album. It is very strange and more challenging than you would think.

I am also a fan of Hopkins: FBI. Gory in places and comic book styled. But what a wild weird plot.

I enjoyed Wrath of the Gods. It's fairly obscure, but it's pretty good. It doesn't have an amazing plot, but you roam around ancient Greece, and actually experience many famous myths of Greek mythology.

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. Astronomica. Nightmare Ned.

Duckman!!!

I really love that game.

--Erwin

Well, I don't know how rare these are, but I don't hear them mentioned much and I thought they were a lot of fun.

Gene Machine - Kind of a humorous sci-fi romp with a lot of Jules Verne influence. You play a late 1800's British secret service agent out to save the world from the evil doctor.

Chronomaster- Another sci-fi game. This one has multiple "pocket universes" that are about as different as they can be. Some are techno-logical, and some are pure "out there" imagination. I suspect this is a game you'll either love or hate.

Feeble Files- don't know. This one's still in my Too Play Pile.

Albert

I liked Duckman as well, so funny. But my favorite hard to find game would have to be Touche.

The Feeble Files can still be purchased new, at least for the Mac, at MacPlay. It's a terrific but tough game which has been responsible for several more gray hairs lately.

A rare 3rd-person adventure game for the Mac is Derrat Sorcerum. A young apprentice wizard passes his journeyman exam and suddenly finds himself having to outwit a powerful and evil wizard. It's fairly linear but has some excellent puzzles and a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor. It's been on my list of favorites for more than four years.

Edit: Excuse my manners. Welcome to GB, Metamorphium!

Hi again,

...ah such a nice names. I really loved Chronomaster, which has so great puzzles. Callahan is great game but since it's from Legend I took that game as a must have which any serious adventurer should have. (the same applies of course to Death Gate) :-)

I didn't like Gene Machine much, because it somehow didn't draw me in, maybe I'll give it another shot sometime.

One game I really liked was Dark side of the moon, which was unfortunately slightly spoiled by ugly CD swapping (it was more like playing cards with CD's than playing game), but I've heard it came also on DVD which would be probably much better.

Touche was still lying around in bargain bins here but somehow it's not my cup of tea.

gatorlaw: hmmm, shadow of the comet wasn't only better it was excellent and prisoner was one of my biggest disappointment in computer games. Neither prisoner nor Necronomicon didn't stand against Shadow of the comet. The only place I didn't like was the underground worm run.

Also I have to look into Amber, I heard some good rumors about it, but I've not seen it.

This Astronomica looks worth exploring, thank's for the tip Becky, I love astronomy.

... hmmm, I am better off for now otherwise I'll start talking about IF, which I played for a long time and still love it sometimes ...

Metamorphium -- Astronomica is well worth playing. If you do manage to track it down, I just wanted to warn you that it uses an ancient version of Quicktime, which may conflict with newer versions of Quicktime that may already be living on your hard drive.

Thanks for the warning Becky, however I've solved this already because I had similar problems with Starship Titanic (also another game worth playing especially if you like Monty Python meets Douglas Adams kind of thing) and after one sleepless night I have a special setup for older games.

Eric the Unready, another Legend game which is absolutely hilarious

I just want to welcome you to GameBoomers.

I haven't really played any obscure games I guess. I have Alice: An Interactive Museum. I guess that's obscure.

~Dee

If you're looking for Amber, I saw one on eBay today that ends today, and so far, no one has bid on it. I tihnk it was starting at $5.00.

FGM

thanks for info Fairygdmther. We have it here for the same price, but I am not sure if it's worth buying. My shelves started to overflow with games so I should be careful and pick only good titles.

From all accounts, Amber is a good, spooky game. It took me 2 years to find a copy for my Mac, but it seems to be more common for PC. It's on my to-play-soon list.

It sounds like you're getting a nice case of BAAGS, Metamorphium.

hehe, not at all. I actually cured my BAAGS some time ago. There were even times in my life when I played stuff like Adventure at the Chateau d'Ore and other terrible things. So I am nowadays pretty normal - buying only adventure games I think I'd like. So it's like demibaags.

I on the other hand can appreciate great story so even nowadays when many people judges games by their cover or graphics am still able to play games like 'Portal' considering them much better then many adventure games up-to-date. That's basically the reason why I started the thread because you never know if some really magnificent game just slipped through your fingers because of the lack of publicity.

I used to work for the company that did the Mac port of Blue Ice. I saw just enough of it over the programmer's shoulder to never want to go anywhere near it! It was sooo weird!

Gremlin

Ah, blue ice is wonderful. It has somehow twisty logic but when you get a grip of it, it's not hard. There is though a mathematical puzzle included and I didn't even try to solve it because it doesn't provide any clues and contains too many red herrings. (I believe back then it was a money contest)

Amber is definitely worth buying. It's short, but very atmospheric. Reminded me of Morpheus, if you've played that.

Anyone interested in obscure games should visit Home of the Underdogs, a site devoted to old and rare games (www.the-underdogs.org).

WW

Heh, I think you are the first person I've ever heard utter the words not hard with Blue Ice.

A few rare games that I enjoyed playing are GAG (Girls Are Great) and Erevos (short and very campy but still fun). Synnergist is another game that I found very enjoyable.

My favorite old/rare game is Rise of the Dragon by Sierra/Dynamix. Would love to find another copy of it out there somewhere and play it again. Mine was long ago sold.