Point And Cliick

Zhubin recently emailed me about a game called Al Emmo And The Lost Dutchman's Mine. The thing he was so excited about is the fact that the game is a comedic point-and-click adventure, in the vein of King's Quest. If you've known Zhubin for some time you know that King's Quest holds a particularly special place in his heart (the place is difficult to find, and it's guarded by a minotaur). So he was, needless to say, very happy when I told him that King's Quest is being re-released in a complete collection by Sierra, along with their classic series, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Police Quest. I would say you have a plethora of point-and-click adventures to choose from.

There is an apparent boom in point-and-click games popping up all over the internet. The Hapland series, Submachine, Submachine 2, Duan, Escape From Rhetundo Island, Galaktor, Priscilla Gone Missing, Samorost, Samorost 2, Quest For the Rest, The Magic Globe, and of course there's Peasant's Quest, a great parody of King's Quest.
Thanks to a great deal of nostalgia, and flash animation, more and more people are getting into point-and-click creation. Of course, some of these games are better than others, but I thought I'd link to as many as I could.

I really enjoyed King's Quest, but my experience is almost solely from playing King's Quest VI. My true fondness for point-and-click adventures comes from Lucasarts. When they were making point-and-click games it was a golden age. Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Indiana Jones and the Search For Atlantis, The Dig, Grim Fandango, Escape From Monkey Island and Full Throttle are some of the best point-and-click games you'll ever play. Here's hoping that a re-release of these is somewhere in the future.


Also, The Neverhood is one of my all time favorites. Great claymation graphics and an insane sense of humor make this an absolute blast to play over and over. Plus, the soundtrack is hilariously bizarre.


Now, a company called Telltale Games is creating a series of games, released in downloadable chapters, based on one of my favorite comics of all time, Bone. And they're getting ready to do the same with a new series of Sam & Max games.
I'm a Mac user, so I'm currently out of luck either way, but their may be hope for me.
TellTale Games has openly stated interest in bringing their new Sam & Max episodes to the Wii (yeah, I managed to bring it all together). Point-and-click games would make perfect sense for the Wii's interface, as does the Virtual Console for TellTale's episodic download structure. I'm excited about the prospect. If it does happen, and it is successful, then perhaps they'll consider releasing the Bone games in a similar fashion.

I've been wondering for a while why more new point-and-click games aren't being released. They were insanely popular (thanks to King's Quest and Lucasarts) for at least a decade. But the computer gaming industry got caught up in the faster-processing, polygon pushing graphics war, and the simpler games of the past fell into nostalgic obscurity. What the game manufacturers forgot is how freaking fun these games are. Sometimes it's just nice to play through an entertaining story without having to learn the most complicated control scheme known to man. Nintendo has been calling for a return to simpler times. They've seen the danger of bogging games down in more and more complicated play mechanics, which can intimidate new gamers from picking up a controller. That's pretty much the whole reason for the Wii existing.
It's refreshing to see a re-emergence of these types of games, whether they are brand new, or repackaged classics.