The first serious game I played was Myst. It was new and there was a lot of buzz, so I bought it. I would go to bed with the puzzles whirling in my brain. It took at least a week (evenings after work), but I made it all the way through on my own! I don't even know if there were any online bulletin boards at the time -- the Web was either brand new or not yet out -- so I had no one to go to for help.
After some experimentation, I decided that my favorite "genre" was adventure games. I no longer have (if I ever did) the kind of quick reflexes needed to play many of the more popular games (let alone the stomach for all the violence). My all-time favorites:
- The Longest Journey -- Like an interactive novel.
- Syberia and Syberia II -- Introduced me to the beautiful artwork and the creative genius of Benoît Sokal (I just looked him up in Wikipedia to get the circumflex on the "i", and discovered he's from Belgium! I had thought he was from Quebec for some reason.)
- Culpa Innata -- A trip into a future world of intrigue where even the dressy shoes are sensible flats!
- Bad Mojo -- Still one of the most creative games -- you play as a cockroach, and have to solve puzzles and avoid hazards as a cockroach would.
- Mysterious Island -- Not quite in the same league as the others here, but still a very good game. I loved the brown/white sketches that served to tell the story line, as when you finally succeed in making a meal! (When I think back on it, this is an Escape game.)
How I found EG24 and Escape Games:
I've had trouble finding good PC games for awhile. Partly, cause I'm not going to Fry's very often, partly because fewer are made. I eventually found Brainbashers, which has new puzzles out every day. That site led me to NotDoppler.com, which is where I ran into my first room escape game. It was a hotel room with a locked door and there was no way out and nothing lying around. I finally looked for a walkthrough on EG24, and my first reaction was not favorable -- why would I look under the bed or inside the lamp? But, THEN I stumbled on a Submachine game. (One of the later ones, maybe 5 or 6.) The puzzles were so well done, I had to go back and do as much of the series as I could find. And I was hooked!
As with others, I lurked for a while. It takes some practice to learn common conventions (like, check under and behind all furniture and the like. Eventually there was a live game when everyone was saying "Where is ...?" and I wanted to jump in and tell them, but couldn't! So, I had to come up with a moniker and open a blogger account. I decided to go for the "power of Z", (like zoz and Zazie and Zoe et al.). Of course, once I started posting, I was afraid I'd cursed myself, as it seemed I was always begging for help ("What stick? Where?" or "What other view?"). I console myself that we've all been there, and if I'm there more than most. So, the question mark will remain an important part of my icon.
Advice to others new to the genre, do several by the same maker. (Minoto and Sakura were the ones I started with. Selfdefiant is has a good rigorous approach.) This way, you're concentrating on solving the puzzles instead on what are the conventions this writer is using. (For instance, in a selfdefiant game, the cursor changes when you get to a "hotspot". Others, you have to click on everything you can think of trying to find views and items.)
