Frede

That sounds really cool! I'll consider that; Interceptor's offices are about an hour and a half away from the city I live in. Thanks for the tip :)

Indeed. You'd have to wait for a pretty spectacular GOG sale to mnatch 3D Realms' price tag, though. That said, I did own some of these games, and am aware I could've bought them on GOG or Steam, but DRM-free Keen and Wolfenstein kinda sealed the deal for me. It's always nice when the studios actually care, instead of just slapping a semi-working port onto Steam.
 
Seems appropriate to add a little heads-up: if you buy this and you've already got Duke Nukem II via GOG, though, you may want to keep that version installed; the version 3D Realms are offering is, sadly, the edited one where Duke wears sunglasses...

As a regular at Duke4.net, I've known about this for a long time. Fresch, the CEO of Interplay, has been coming to that community (as it's the largest Duke Nukem/3DR fan community on the web) for input and feedback. This website was orginally supposed to launch back in July. So glad it's now finally out and they've done a good job!
 
I also had a bit of an in on it and was attempting to get a track of my own on the re-rockestrated album. Didn't happen, but my track will be used for something else in an official capacity which I'm excited about but can't talk about yet.
 
Also, Frede, if you're near them, Fresch has no problem with fans stopping by the offices and giving them a tour. Something you might be interested to check out, or anybody else who lives over there close.

It's been a couple of days, but considering many (all?) of us are into retro gaming in general, this may interest you: http://3drealms.com/news/3d_realms-is-back/. Yes, like Sierra, 3D Realms is officially back in business. But unlike the former re-branding, the new 3DR has a few of the old alumni on-board. Plus, they're owned by the Danish company Interceptor Entertainment, which I obviously think is insanely cool, and I'm not a patriot in the slightest.
 
Many of the games published or developed by Apogee/3D Realms were main fixtures of my childhood, so it's nice to see the company going back into business with a bang. Many of these games are obviously available elsewhere, but to my knowledge, this is the only DRM-free download of games like Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen 1-5 out there. I also think the $19.99 they're currently selling this pack for is a very reasonable price. You even get a cool little album of "re-rockestrated" music from a few of the games.
 
So, there you have it. If you know these games, you already know why this is likely gonna be the best way you can spend 20 bucks. If you don't, you owe yourself to find out!

I think I forgot to mention it here, but Frede and I are doing a little podcast on the side where we bitch and rant about adventure games in general.
 
It's a phenomenally low-effort kind of affair, so you may have to get used to the audio quality. It is quite literally produced by me calling up Fred, recording the call on my phone (using the Record My Call app) and then throwing the whole thing online without any editing.
 
It does, however, boast a pretty kick-ass chiptune intro theme by MusicallyInspired.
 
Check it out: http://backseatdesigners.podbean.com
 
RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BackSeatDesigners
 
It's on Stitcher, too: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/back-seat-designers
 
(Sorry, no iTunes yet. Because I suck.)
 
Please, feel free to comment on episodes here, or suggest new topics for us to cover!

I think it's amazing how I went my entire childhood without especially enjoying these games, and now they have such amazing nostalgic punch!
 
Goofing around in Secret Agent for 10 minutes really took me back... No need for more than 10 minutes though, lol.

The "puzzle" probably wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that the cash register in St. George's books is said to contain about $20 worth of change that Gabriel cannot pick up. A couple of millions worth of blood money, giving away a $20 gift certificate (seriously, what is it with Jane and her 20 bucks?) and stealing from the dead? All peachy. But using your own revenue to help you save the world from the clutches of evil? No way. Someone needs to introduce Jane and her team to Occam's Razor; if I need $20 and the cash register miraculously contains $20, then the game better allow me to pick up the $20 without throwing divine critters at me.
 
Of course, I wasn't aware that Activision had Phoenix on a leash to that extent, so I guess it makes sense that the game had to come out now. Okay, that makes me a bit more forgiving, but I still think Phoenix are repeating a few too many old mistakes.

The "puzzle" probably wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that the cash register in St. George's books is said to contain about $20 worth of change that Gabriel cannot pick up. A couple of millions worth of blood money, giving away a $20 gift certificate (seriously, what is it with Jane and her 20 bucks?) and stealing from the dead? All peachy. But using your own revenue to help you save the world from the clutches of evil? No way. Someone needs to introduce Jane and her team to Occam's Razor; if I need $20 and the cash register miraculously contains $20, then the game better allow me to pick up the $20 without throwing divine critters at me.
 
Of course, I wasn't aware that Activision had Phoenix on a leash to that extent, so I guess it makes sense that the game had to come out now. Okay, that makes me a bit more forgiving, but I still think Phoenix are repeating a few too many old mistakes.

This is basically turning into a written episode of Back Seat Designers right here. ;)

I lol'ed. :)
 
Okay, scary games. Well, for my money, you need the threat of death for something to be truly scary. Even if it's the sort of "zap! right back where you started" try again-type deaths. The psychological implications of just having gotten someone killed -- by extension yourself -- is the sort of primal fear that is so deep-rooted, it's a given.
 
Okay, so you could conceivably imagine a game where you don't outright die, but are captured and either thrown in a dungeon or a pit, or horribly mutilated, or whatever. That still counts as a death scenario in my book. (And, for the record, Maniac Mansion had both!)
 
If you take away the threat of incapacitation or death, stuff merely becomes creepy, not scary.
 
That's not to say you can't do creepy without deaths -- I mean, The 7th Guest was pretty creepy, at least conceptually -- and you can't die in that game ... because, well, you're already dead. Oops, spoiler.

I agree to a certain extent. But if Hitchcock had worked with death the way Sierra often did, Janet Leigh would just have tripped and hit her head in the shower.
 
Jane Jensen tended to do death the right way. In KQ6, GK1 and GK2, death always adds to the tension and never feels totally unfair the way King Graham's fabulous five-inch falls do.

I beg to differ:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCu3txSxzaQ

I agree to a certain extent. But if Hitchcock had worked with death the way Sierra often did, Janet Leigh would just have tripped and hit her head in the shower.
 
Jane Jensen tended to do death the right way. In KQ6, GK1 and GK2, death always adds to the tension and never feels totally unfair the way King Graham's fabulous five-inch falls do.

That's brilliant! Especially given Trent Reznor's height! :D

Misread that as Five Inch Fails. This needs to be a band name so much!

I agree to a certain extent. But if Hitchcock had worked with death the way Sierra often did, Janet Leigh would just have tripped and hit her head in the shower.
 
Jane Jensen tended to do death the right way. In KQ6, GK1 and GK2, death always adds to the tension and never feels totally unfair the way King Graham's fabulous five-inch falls do.

I think you can definitely do creepy/scary without death. The game Serena, for example, definitely gave me some serious creepy vibes the first time I played it (and this was when the game was still incomplete in the beta stage!)
 
I was also severely freaked out by Ben Croshaw's Chzo Mythos series, and although you can die in those games, you basically go back to right before you die (like in the Manhunter series). Nevertheless, the first time that the hotel transitions to the "other world" in Trilby's Notes, I freaked out (I was playing the game at night with the lights out, so that probably didn't help).
 
Another good example - after hearing about the game Amnesia from Frederik on the Back Seat Designers podcast, I watched a YouTube video of the first 20 minutes or so. Even though none of the creatures that CAN kill you in that game attacked the player character in the time that I watched, I was DEFINITELY creeped out by it.
 
While death definitely adds a level of suspense to fear, you can still use the sense of dread to evoke fear in a player's mind by playing with their heads...Making them *think* there's something there when there's actually not. I mean, even though haunted houses are obviously fake, there's a willing suspension of disbelief that you have to have upon entering to enjoy the experience. Of course there's no one in there REALLY going to hurt you, but if done well, it can still seriously freak you out.
 
In the same way, if you take a game that uses the environment to evoke a sense that something *might* come out and attack you, whether or not you're actually in any danger, you can still seriously freak the player out.
 
Brandon - I played Maniac Mansion as an adult (just a couple of months ago), and those scenes you mentioned still seriously freaked me out in the same way!!! :)
 
Talk to you later!
 
JDHJANUS
Josh

I refute this. She'd die by falling in the shower if she didn't take precautions first, like installing anti-slip pads in the shower. I submit that every death in a Sierra game is reasonable and has a purpose. Whether they're annoying or not is another matter.
 
I've already refuted this before. :)

This could be one of the best arguments for death scenes in games. What would a Hitchcock or any thriller, suspense, film noir, horror movie be if there was never any threat of death. Or really a majority of the film genres. A death free/unlosable game is like being a toddler playing a game with a parent who always lets the child win. Possibly fun for the child, but boring for anyone else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOs4vsthLD0

This isn't getting into the old "Xenonians reproduce the same way humans do" debate, is it?

Sorry, your attempts to render us mute will fail miserably. You can't just brush us aside.

Prove to me otherwise.

I concur.
 
HCH

Someone tried to track down Ray Trace once, but he's a shady fellow.