games for newbies

If we are talking about recommending games to Newbies, I’ll be looking at somewhat easier games, rather than simply my all-time favourites. Some of these are older games, but all are playable on Windows XP, and almost all on Windows 7, my current operating system.

Draculas 1 + 2 – These were sold as separate games, but the second one takes off on the exact same scene that the first first one leaves off; as far as I am concerned both are actually a single game.

Agatha Christie III (Evil Under the Sun)
Agon (Mysterious Codex)
Atlantis IV
Atlantis V
Aura II (Aura I is too difficult for Newbies, and Aura II will play well as a standalone)
Cameron Files II: Loch Ness
Darkness Within I (Loath Nolder) (Darkness Within II is too difficult for Newbies)
Gabriel Knight III
Jack the Ripper
Journeyman Project III: Legacy of Time
Lost Horizon
Messenger
Necronomicon
Nibiru
Post Mortem
Return to Mysterious Island I (RMI II is altogether too difficult for Newbies)
Secret Files I: Tunguska

Antoinetta III

Thanks.

Hoo! You're going to get an argument from me about how 'easy' those are, Antoinetta!
For instance, Evil Under the Sun is very unforgiving. You do everything in exactly the right order or you do not progress.
Gabriel Knight 3 has that awful, hard, unending computer puzzle which MaG probably breezed through and you may have, too, but the rest of us - not hardly.
It also offers probably the stupidest puzzle ever in computer games. (Cat hair, for crying out loud?)
And why, oh why, did Jane Jensen have to experiment with 3D?

That said, I agree that the annual competition is most often a list of favorites rather than easier games well suited to someone new to adventures, but IMO, it doesn't matter.
What does matter is that a game grabs and holds the one playing it.
Grim Fandango is not the easiest game by any stretch of the imagination but it was my first and it hooked me on the genre though it took me forever to finish.
And then I was sorry I had.
So, you never can tell what will hook a new player and start them on the road to BAAGs.
IMO, the list does what it should do, offer suggestions of games we'd recommend for anyone who'd like to dip a toe into adventurous waters.
Oh, and let flotsam get another plug in for Isabelle.

Gil.

The easiest adventure game I have ever played was Road to India, and I enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately it's a game from 2001 and I have no idea what newer systems it might run on (unless you were to run it in an emulator, like Virtual PC).

a player's review

I also remember thinking that the game was too short and that I wished it had been longer (it was gratifying not to have to look at a walkthrough frequently).

I agree that Evil Under the Sun would likely be a difficult game for someone new to adventuring. It has an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing to try the patience. It's an enjoyable game but nitpicky, as Gil says.

Aura II and Darkness Within I are also challenging games. (At least, I thought so!)

I would, however, concur with Antoinetta that Dracula: Resurrection would be an ideal early choice for any new gamer. NiBiRu too, possibly, as it is so linear.

I loved Road to India and have played it more than a few times. I must haul it out and see if it installs on my Win 7.

I am thinking maybe, Amerzone,Scratches, Sherlock Holmes Mystery of the Mummy, The Cameron Files and the Carol Reed Mysteries. I also enjoyed Jazz and Faust and do not remember it being difficult. These are all older games, except for Carol Reed, and I do not know if they will play on the newer machines.

Well, some easy games I liked where:
"So Blonde" (may be hard to get to work) &
"Captain Morgane and The Golden Turtle"

Then of course there's all the Nancy Drew games.

The Carol Reed games are an excellent suggestion !!

I see we have different ideas about what is "Easy."

Of the three Agatha Christies, I felt that Evil Under the Sun was a somewhat longer game that with perseverance the new player could work through. Many good games for newbies are also older and shorter games; I can play through Dracula I in just over an hour.

I felt that Aura II was much more playable for newbies because it doesn't have the several game-stopper puzzles the first game does.

Recommending even a largely easy game that contains just a single game-stopper puzzle seems likely to lead to frustration and people just giving up on the genre.

And Missilo, you consider the Nancy Drews to be EASY. I have found them to be more frustrating than any game discussed on this thread.

"Easy" can indeed be subjective. I wish I could say that I had ever gotten through a Nancy Drew game without looking at a walkthrough, but I have not.

Let's see, easy games eh... You might try The Book of Unwritten Tales (1 & 2) as well as the Deponia series. If you can still find them, Kyrandia was a good set of games as well.

I enjoyed them all, but then again most of the games I play are generally to take a break at the end of the day.

I only play the HOGs of Agatha Christie (I loved Death On The Nile and Peril At End House (which might not be the easiest of those) but I agree with Traveler about some of the others as well: Post Mortem was no picnic (a great game though) and I recently replayed Journeyman 3 (Legacy) and got so stuck I had to replay it just to finish it! I didn't even know you could foul yourself up so badly in that game!

HOGs are, at best ersatz Adventure games, and their discussion belongs in a non-adventure location in the Forums, IMHO.

I hope HOGs are not becoming an overall deterioration of the genre. In the past several years I have seen:

Frogwares degrade Sherlock Holmes to a HOG (Baskerville Hall, which would have made a great REAL Adventure game.

City Interactive degrading the Art of Murder and the Chronicles of Mystery series to HOGs.

At least the Agatha Christie HOGs are older games, predating the three real games.

Post Mortem is indeed a great game, as is Journeyman III, but alas, I cannot get the latter to run on Windows 7. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

Antoinetta III

I wouldn't agree with you that Sherlock Holmes was "degraded". The Baskerville casual game wasn't intended as a replacement for a full length Holmes adventure. We already have a long-running and continuing series of Frogwares Holmes adventures. The seventh game in the series is currently in development. If Frogwares choose to also produce the occasional casual game with the same character, then that's excellent, I think. More choice for everyone!

I wasn't discussing HOGs, just mentioning that they were the only Agatha Christie games I've played. Newbies might like them (or not). The games I mentioned (Death On The Nile and Peril At End House) are real games following the stories completely and done very well, especially 'Death...'. The artwork and music were exceptional.

Post Mortem

and Journeyman III Legacy of Time are both available at GOG.com and work on Windows 7.

I can vouch for the GOG version of Journeyman Project 3. It played flawlessly on my Windows 7 64 bit computer. One of my favorite games of all time.

I have Legacy both from GOG and on disc. While the game played ok on disc, I still bought it from GOG and it plays great. I just reinstalled Post Mortem on the 2 CD set and it plays fantastically on my Win7! I sort of got involved with it while just trying to test it out and had forgotten how good a game it was. Still Life was my favorite of these two games, but I did like Post Mortem. Newbies might find it just a little tough (not as tough as that one puzzle in Still Life with the lasers).

I think games for newbies don't necessarily have to be really easy but they should be uncomplicated.
To my mind there are 2 essentials:-
1. They must install and play flawlessly with no problems or glitches.
2. They must play "fairly" in that it's impossible to mess up the game or come to a dead end by doing things in the "wrong" order.

(The second Dark Fall (was it The Lighthouse?) allowed me to get to the end before the rest of the game had been played. Luckily, I saw it coming and was able to retreat from this point. A fabulous game but it could have been spoiled for a person new to adventure games)

I think the Nancy Drew games and the Carol Reed games are good starting points for anyone new to gaming.

I don't think she did. The move to 3D was the studios idea. They were trying to make it look like a "modern" game.

Jane Jensen seems to be infected with the "make it look modern" bug, too, as witness her lead character in Grey Matter and the dreadful (my opinion) comic book graphics that mar her games now.
I wouldn't be surprised if she had gone along with the studio quite happily.
And lest you get the idea I don't like her games at all, Sins of the Fathers is on my list of top adventure games and The Beast Within is close.
I just think she has little judgment when it comes to some of her choices.

Gil.

Didn't she use the comic book graphics in Sins of the Father as well. Maybe she, or the artists on the games are comic fans. Can't say it bothers me one way or the other. It's when those moving stills become more of a *replacement* for animated scenes because it can sometimes look cheap and "casual game" like (Cognition for ex). I'm sure cost cutting is part of the reason.

Theres a vid somewhere on youtube on the making of GK1, perhaps their reasoning is explained there.

When I see Metamorphium and his partner, a two man team, working long hours and doing their dead level best to put out a quality game in J.U.L.I.A. Enhanced without resorting to 'cost-cutting' graphics, I feel very little sympathy for someone like Jane Jensen when I am sure her team consists of considerably more than herself and one other person.

Bill Fisher, a team of one, was criticized for 'outdated' graphics but they are lovely, IMO.
He certainly didn't stint on the appearance of his Last Half of Darkness games.

Jane Jensen has a solid reputation in the gaming world but it's predicated on her writing, not the presentation of her games.

Gil.
cranky as always

I agree with Meryl. When I first started gaming I got extremely frustrated when games were twitchy just to install them. Then there the ones that asked questions I had no idea what the answer should be. I just didn't want to blow up or melt the PC. My first game was DOOM on the PC in DOS.

My first games were DOS too and I was as nervous as all heck about wrecking my computer when trying to play them.

[And wreck it I did .... TWICE ]

Now it's much more likely to be me that gets wrecked - trying to fathom the new operating systems as they come out