Dear Agony Aunt
A cute, quirky little game about answering agony aunt emails. Very simple but a nice experience. The only feedback I have is that it would be nice to be able to resize the email windows since there’s a lot of empty space on the screen
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Retro Nostalgia Games.
This is a very sweet, relaxing little game. The spam emails are worth a read!
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Timequest
Extensive damage to 3000 years of history reported on four continents – Report for duty immediately.
The unthinkable has happened – a renegade from the Temporal Corps has traveled back in time and altered critical events in history. Only you can prevent this madman from shattering the timestream and destroying current civilization.
Your mission will take you to four continents and across three thousand years – from Stonehenge, the Circus Maximus and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; to the Aztec Temple of the Sun, the Great Wall of China and the Great Pyramid of Cheops. You will face mystery, intrigue, danger and death as you untangle his masterful web of deceit.
The villain’s targets include Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, Harun al-Rashid, Genghis Khan, Montezuma, Napoleon Bonaparte and many others. Your orders are to repair the timestream, track this criminal down, and bring him to justice.
Timequest is a classic graphical text-based adventure game of breathtaking scope and astonishing depth. Travel to 80 locations to see the effects of your actions unfold over 3 millennia. A treat for science-fiction fans and adventure enthusiasts alike, Timequest includes time-travel puzzles played through the innovative Legend Entertainment interface for text adventures
Read More: Best Retro Mystery Games.
Wager
I really want to give this a good review but I have only been playing for a bit (5h or so of play) and I think I am done? No progression, unlimited cash, most runs. If it goes no where then what is the point? I have done a few runs and it seems very limited in variety. ALso, fix the numbers, add notation or something to that at least we can see the big numbers. This game needs some work to be worth paying for.
– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Retro Strategy Games.
Fun little game, needs lots more items and has some balancing issues and bugs
On my first game I have found Assembly Line + Stacking Use ‘em is very broken, add some above and below 10 free money and you can catapult into the stratosphere very quickly.
I ended up getting so much money I caused a buffer overflow plunging me into negative coin values XD
Would like to see more than 28 items, as you get to know all of them and which ones are useful and which are not very quickly.
Needs some more work to make the gameplay interesting for much longer than half an hour or so
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Monsterland
Don’t be fooled by the graphics: This isn’t a Roguelike, it’s a top-view Doom! I had a copy of this way back in the early 00s and loved it, and was thrilled to see it’s on Steam. It’s heavy on the atmosphere, despite being just ASCII graphics. It uses sound effects, story cues, and fading colors in a surprisingly moody way, and is a lot of fun to boot. I’ve got Doom 2016 in the other room, but have been playing this instead. Now, the bad points: I do think it’s a little too easy to kick the bucket sometimes– it would be improved if there were less need for level memorization. I also wish the enemies didn’t score damage when they are simply adjacent to you. They should have to be adjacent for a short period of time (like the pink demons in Doom)– otherwise they’ll score hits instantly when you open the door, even though you can minimize it by getting ready to back up fast. But despite the few issues it’s a compelling play and well worth the 99 cents. I hope they make another or maybe re-release the original version for fans (since it’s impossible to find now!).
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
When I first saw that Monsterland, formerly Dead Colony in its lesser version (on Desura), was released a little over a month ago I was more than a little surprised. Don’t get me wrong I understand that there has been a revival of classic era-style gaming. Atari recently announced that they were bringing back 100 of their classic games in the spring with multiplayer support to Steam in the northern hemisphere Spring and Sanctuary RPG has been relatively successful on Steam as an ASCII adventure but a text shooter? How was that going to work? Surprisingly well and very playable as it turns out.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
SanctuaryRPG: Black Edition
ASCII game, you ask? Many modern age games are noteworthy accomplishments of graphic design. (And, as the technology evolves, tomorrow’s development will make today’s games simply look primitive and stupid.) This leaves us with the questions of what makes a “good game” great? What are the most essential features? How can you evaluate whether a game is worth your time?
Answer: Opinions will certainly vary on this. Fundamentally, I think the quality of the game is simply how much you enjoy playing it. For me, it’s based on the story/writing, game balance, creativity, music, and tactics/strategy. Sure, graphics are important, but without these other features, the game is just eye candy, and it won’t keep my attention.
– Real player with 239.7 hrs in game
I had picked up SanctuaryRPG during a Steam sale a few years back. To be real: It was less than a dollar and I was feeling frisky. But after 70+ hours of playing this game, my thought is that the sale price is an insane steal. For the hours of entertainment and enjoyment that I’ve received from this game, I think the full price tag is worth it and I feel almost guilty for paying so little for a game I love so much. But hey, if you see it for 90% off (like it is RIGHT NOW… at least at the time of writing this) I fully recommend picking it up. That’s value.
– Real player with 78.6 hrs in game
The Crimson Diamond: Chapter 1
A faithful-take on the Sierra-style adventure games of the 1980s, The Crimson Diamond takes the player on a Laura Bow-esque mystery adventure providing a text-parser and 4-bit graphics to guide you through the tale.
While the game is decidedly dated, it does a great job emulating the style and mechanics of games from this period and of this genre. It lasts about 4-8 hours and is more fun to solve than it is a chore, but it does require some puzzle-solving. The creator of the game is an illustrator and very much wants you to see their quality work of the pixel art variety and does a good job not to gatekeep content behind unnecessarily difficult challenges. The text-parser is also great and generally does not get in the way of figuring things out. It gives useful feedback if words or actions you are attempting are flatly not possible or going in the wrong direction. If you’ve not played a game using a text-parser, this certainly is a great way of seeing how they were typically implemented in games back in the day.
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
Want to go back in time and replay an old Sierra Classic? Well now you won’t need to “use hammer on head” to achieve that result!
In seriousness, The Crimson Diamond has all the hallmarks of the Sierra adventure games of old, and even some helpful extras! The look of the game is spot on as is the feel. With an interesting cast of characters and a plotline sure to devolve into chaos, this demo promises great things for the full version.
If you’ve never played any classic Sierra adventure, this game is a smooth and fun glide into that style of game featuring helpful and unintrusive tutorials into the gameplay.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
The Eye of Borrack
having been born far after the text based adventure genre, and much more used to mainstream rpg’s I wasn’t sure what to expect from this game. After an hour of wandering around the world trying random words to see what happens and encountering the bizarre characters that inhabit this world the change in pace and lateral thinking required to proceed was refreshing. A brilliant game found somewhere I really wasn’t looking. Now I just need to find where I put that axe down…
– Real player with 16.5 hrs in game
Have played a bit and generally enjoyed (but also kind of hated) this blast-from-the-past text adventure. It suffers from the problems that these games suffered from 30 years ago when I played the original zork, adventure, scott adams etc - basically there are not enough clues on the correct terminology to use or how to proceed when you get stuck. I will keep plugging away.
– Real player with 10.9 hrs in game
ASCIIDENT
It would be nonsensical to think that this game was developed specifically for me, but that’s how it feels; the story, art, feels, crafting, upgrades, and worlds. I lerv everything about this game.
Please follow my curator page, Designer Plays , for a truly massive number of concise and honest reviews from a 25-year veteran Game Designer.
– Real player with 8.8 hrs in game
I absolutely love the concept, story, effects, overall just the whole game is addicting. if your into the unique and need a break from adrenaline types of games from time to time, you can find yourself playing this for hours. The longer i played, the more curious i got from the map, crafts, and the creative animations. Craving to play much more and hoping to see this game go further. Brings back the concept of how much imagination you can pack into a simple concept. Keep up the good work and Thank you!
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Feels
This game is incredibly interesting. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind the whole command prompt thing.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
I am having fun so far. You can use physical attacks, spells, or blessings (based on the god you choose). If you like turn-based combat and ASCII graphics, I recommend you try this game out.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
The Outpost Nine: Episode 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uryrbLSVRr0
NINTENDO SWITCH GAMING LIBRARY
1 week ago
if like me you played the Hobbit text game on the spectrum 48k and played point and click games since gaming began then this is the game for you it harkens back to old school text games with 80’s style visuals and top notch atmosphere
this episodic game leave you wanting more
the sound design is pretty good wearing headphones s a must
Now the story is you play as a captain of a ship on a rescue mission answering a destress call from a Freighter
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
Loved the first episode. It’s a point&click game that’s closer to a being visual novel with a plot similar to the classic movie Alien. I like how it has a text-based feel but illustrated by being able to examine what’s displayed on computer screens and other clever ways to make the story more immersive. Even though the story is nothing new to me, it is still well done and carries a lot of suspense.
Episode two started out strong too, but I found myself taking a break from it after getting a bit frustrated. At one part you need to occasionally find a room to hide, but it’s hard backtracking to find one and the conditions that lead you to needing to hide feel arbitrary. I died a handful of times and didn’t want to repeat it over again to take another chance so stopped playing for the time being. I understand how needing to hide can help further immerse you in the story, but the way it’s done feels too annoying for a game that focuses on progressing the story over roguelike deaths.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game