Step by step: how to become an excellent Point and click gamer!
This is not me saying how to be good at adventure games. This is a question I would like to ask you. 
I've always been horrible at point and click games (lack patience), but I've always loved playing them because of the stories, characters and the satisfaction of figuring out a puzzle.
I personally blame the internet for this, as it is so tempting to look at a walkthrough if I get stuck.
With the new kick starter Adventure game coming to us hopefully 2013, I want to get into training. I want to beat all the classic point and click games and become an excellent adventure gamer.
So here is my question. If someone was new to adventure games, in what order of games would you let them play to work their way up to harder games.
For example: What order would you have a newbie play these games from easiest to hard. (ignore non-adventure games like Brutal Legend and Psychonauts.)
I've always been horrible at point and click games (lack patience), but I've always loved playing them because of the stories, characters and the satisfaction of figuring out a puzzle.
I personally blame the internet for this, as it is so tempting to look at a walkthrough if I get stuck.
With the new kick starter Adventure game coming to us hopefully 2013, I want to get into training. I want to beat all the classic point and click games and become an excellent adventure gamer.
So here is my question. If someone was new to adventure games, in what order of games would you let them play to work their way up to harder games.
For example: What order would you have a newbie play these games from easiest to hard. (ignore non-adventure games like Brutal Legend and Psychonauts.)
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I'll remember that next time
Perfectly enjoyable on its own.
I don't like Maniac Mansion.
Dott is my favourite game of all time. Funny that.
Edit: well not that I hate Maniac Mansion, I've just never been able to enjoy it on the same level as DOTT. But this might be down to fact that I'm not good at Adventure games.
When it comes to adventure games, the best advice I can give you is the following.
- CLICK EVERYTHING. Even if it seems irrelevant, try clicking on it. You'll be amazed what you can pick up.
- TALK TO EVERYONE. Another fairly obvious one, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to overlook. Dialogue choices will often change after you do stuff, so remember to keep talking to them on a regular basis.
- IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE WORLD. This can be tricky, but you need to embrace everything about the game. A good example in Monkey Island 2 is with the waterfall. You need to turn a valve thing to shut off a waterfall. Best way to do that? A monkey wrench. Can't find a wrench? Find a monkey and use it to wrench the valve. Doesn't work in the real world, but in the game it makes perfect sense.
- USE UHS. If you need a nudge in the right direction, this site will give you that. Never consult a walkthrough because the temptation to read the whole paragraph or more is always there. Just get the pointer you need, then leave. Your playing experience will benefit immensely.
- TRY TO HAVE FUN! If you're getting stressed out, take a break and/or try a different game. Don't play a game if you're not enjoying it. That is the whole point of games, after all!
Spoken like a true LucasArts biggot.
You know, I'd be happy to recommend LucasArts adventures first to adventure newcomers if it wasn't for the fact that it would most likely turn them into Sierra-haters. Or even anything-harder-than-LucasArts-haters.
Honestly, these days, many non-LucasArts games might scare away newcomers. They might not enjoy the idea that hours of work could go to waste because they unknowingly worked themselves into an unwinnable state.
Also, isn't the entirety of MM inside DOTT on the computer?
(Just direct it to the original game's files and voila!
This right here is the biggest problem.
When many of these adventure games came out, there wasn't any sort of Internet thingy that you could use to look up hints on, at least not in the extent that there is today. If you couldn't get anywhere on an adventure game, you'd have to put it aside for a while and come back a few days or weeks later, to see if the time off had given you any new perspective. Or play it with a friend and see if your different viewpoints caught anything obvious. Or beg a friend who had solved it to tell you.
Are you willing to put yourself through that, when you know the answers are just a couple of clicks away? Probably not. But if you give yourself a time limit, saying you're not going to check for hints until you've tried some silly things for at least an hour, maybe that will work out. When you do look up a hint, the reaction you want is, I never ever would have thought of that. If it was, oh, I should have tried that, you looked for the hint too soon.
Try doing funny, off the wall things with your inventory and the characters, and sometimes something unexpected will happen.
One day I'm going to make an adventure game where doing that causes your inventory to explode! >: )