Alida

I just installed this game in my XP computer and I just have to say Yikes! This looks like it may take me all year to play. Lots and lots of halls and tunnels and machines and things.

It's a wonderful game! Enjoy!

And a giant guitar.
have
...and a giant guitar.
Have fun.

Thanks! I'll certainly try!

Well, after 7 hours of looking around and trying to make sense of something, I've decided I need to use the walkthrough.

I'm really wondering how the average person would know any of this. I admit to being disappointed with the puzzling. Also with a few things I missed that I shouldn't have!

UHS Hints doesn't seem to have hints for it, unfortunately.

I used to be better at playing games like Alida.
But there are so few like it now that I'm way out of practice, and probably wouldn't get anywhere with it without a walkthrough.

I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Actually, I just had to get out of the game as I was getting tears of frustration in my eyes and I AM using the walkthrough. I didn't even attempt the sound puzzle with the birds and animals because my hearing comprehension is not that good to differentiate the sounds. The blinking light stuff is what I was just trying to accomplish. Mostly I can differentiate the blinks except in the machine where I needed to match a symbol to some blinking light sequence, I could not find any blinking patterns at all, just flashes - no pattern to them. The walkthrough is telling me that the same planet is spinning in the cabins as what I did someplace else but I don't think so. Maybe it has to do with me being turned around somehow or maybe it's because the walkthrough doesn't know that I tampered with the planets before I ever was in that other place. The walkthrough never told me to touch the planets but I already had. Hopefully I will be able to get this part figured out tomorrow.

I am not sorry I am playing the game but I really wish I was enjoying it a lot more.

It's been so long since I played it that I don't remember the blinking lights.
And I remember animal sounds in Riven, but not Alida.

There are some playthroughs on YouTube.

And there are Hints for individual puzzles that were originally on the game's website,
now archived ***here***

Thanks for the link Jenny!

This thread inspired me to take a look at Alida again. It was one of my favorite games. I have manila envelopes stacked full of AG reviews. Jenny did a really nice review of a Alida. Actually, all of her reviews have been excellent.

One thing about Alida is that it is highly portable. You can put it on a zip/thumb drive and carry it from computer to computer. It doesn’t interact with the registry at all ie. the computer doesn’t know it’s there.

Its a great game. Really good graphics, gameplay and music for its time, considering its humble origins. There’s something sad about the fact that current AGs require about 4 times the CPU & GPU power to run games that aren’t all that much better than Alida. And Alida didn’t make me dizzy and nauseous.

Have fun if you're replaying.

If you can move this game from computer to computer, does that mean it can be played on Win 7 or Win 10? What about the Quicktime?

I also like the fact that it doesn't make me "dizzy and nauseous"!

Just for giggles, I plugged my Alida zip/thumb drive into my Win7 32-bit laptop and it ran perfectly. (I installed QT 6.5 without problem.) And by creating a shortcut that forces 640x480 resolution, it ran full-screen. There might be problems with a 64-bit system so I’m not sure about Win10, most of which are likely to be 64-bit.

Okay. Thanks for that info.

I liked Alida a lot - glad to hear it is so agreeable at moving about.
And I think it had an Australian pedigree, predominantly the work of one person?

I finished the game tonight. According to the walkthrough "you can experience different endings here, depending on your choices, so save your game". I couldn't figure out how to get any different ending though.

It was a nice game but too hard for me to play without the walkthrough.

Well Done, oldbroad

I played most of the game years ago but it wasn't really my cup of tea and I found it difficult

Alida should be exactly my kind of game, but I found it overwhelming and underclued when I played it years ago. Don’t remember much about it now and will probably replay it someday. Maybe I’ll understand the logic behind some of the puzzles and find the clues to their solution this time around. There definitely is a good game there somewhere and it’s a very impressive game considering it was made by one person.

By the way; I seem to remember that the developer was very close to releasing Alida for iOS a few years ago and had plans for a sequel. But since I received an e-mail declaring the iOS version was being beta-tested I’ve heard nothing.

frazap, the work was halted by the developer in 2017. It was announced in 2015 that they were working on it. Hopefully they will give us good news that it's being worked on again.

Thanks for the info. Yes, let's hope!