As always, spoilers! Day of the Tentacle was first released in 1993, so…
Day of the Tentacle was magical to 13-year-old me. The establishing shot of the mansion with its wild, bendy architecture was mesmerising. The thick bold lines and flat shading of Purple Tentacle as he sipped the ooze and set the story in motion was like nothing I had experienced up before in a video game.
I first played this game when I was a youngling at my Uncle’s house and I remember being so excited when I booted it up and watched the witty Ballad of Freddy Pharkas play out.
The concept was original and captivating—an ex-gunslinger hangs up his sidearms to go out West and become a pharmacist before events draw him back in to his gun-toting ways—all set in a gorgeous cartoon Wild West setting.
I quickly filled the first two prescriptions that acted as the copy protection to the game, then enthusiastically took Freddy outside to explore where I promptly walked into a swamp and died.
This post was originally written before the 25th Anniversary Edition was released in April 2018
Simon the Sorcerer is a 1993 adventure game by Adventure Soft. You play Simon, a teenager who chases his dog through a portal and into a world is under threat from Sordid. It’s up to the rather sarcastic Simon to become a certified wizard, rescue Calypso, and save the day in a game that gleefully subverts and gently mocks many fantasy tropes.
Warning: As ever, spoilers about this 26 year old game abound.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a 1992 action adventure game from Lucasarts, featuring everyone’s favourite adventuring academic. It adheres tightly to the Indy tropes: a mythical ancient power has the potential to give the Nazis the edge and a sceptical Indy and a credulous sidekick (Sophia) have to go on a quest to find it first (which inevitably involves a little bit of colonial grave-robbing—altogether now: where does it belong?).
It’s a surprisingly realistic portrayal of what an archeological expedition might look like. As with many real life digs, it involves a lot of foreign travel, punching, and the widespread destruction of ancient artefacts.
I was ten years old when I first played Monkey Island 1 and it blew my mind. Granted, it does not take much to impress someone at that age: pirates, sharp writing, and a well-realised world is plenty.
A more mature and cynical eleven year old, on the other hand, is much harder to excite. It was therefore somewhat surprising to me at the time to have the belief I had experienced everything the world had to offer roundly shattered by the 1991 sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge.
Warning: spoilers
Space Quest IV is a graphic adventure by Sierra On-Line, first released in 1991, and is the fourth in a series of six Space Quest games.
This is my second Sierra adventure (the first being Quest for Glory IV, which I haven’t written about yet because I only realised after finishing it that it was published in 1993 and not 1989 like I first though) and I found this one to be more accessible and the puzzles to be a more straightforward. Unfortunately, it suffered from the same narrative problems as Quest for Glory.
When Guybrush Threepwood declares himself to be a mighty pirate, we all get to laugh at his naïveté—as if the simple act of declaring himself to be one is all it takes for him to be feared and respected—before he is roundly beaten into submission under a torrent of verbal abuse.
While technically a text adventure rather than a graphic adventure, it was written by Douglas Adams and it is this writing pedigree that got this game on my list.
In this department, the game doesn’t disappoint. The humour and characters set the bar high very early on for what adventure games could provide in terms of narrative and experience, foregoing the fantasy and science fiction to present a biting satirical critique on the modern world, one that still feels fresh and relevant today.