I first encountered adventure gaming when I was given a copy of the old 1985 Mac game "The Uninvited," a floppy-disc effort that worked with my first computer, an old Mac SE with the 9-inch black and white screen. It was a black and white graphic little game, in which you negotiated a haunted house. It played in a tiny square in the small screen, so I would have my nose almost touching the screen. When I encountered my first ghost, I jumped in my chair, it scared me so much.
Uninvited Screenshot. The beginning of graphic adventures.
So that was it. I was hooked on adventuring right then.
I managed to finish The Uninvited, and replayed it enough that I finally wrote my own movement-by-movement walkthrough for it. That was a real accomplishment, because it was before the internet, or at least years before I was on the internet, so there were no walkthroughs to consult. I got some other adventures for that old Mac, but can't remember much what I did with them until I finally got an old Performa with my job at the university and played Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within because it had German in it. That grabbed me. Somehow I got a copy of Shivers. I either played it on that Performa, because it's in color, and that's the first color machine I had, or when I bought my blueberry iMac after I moved to New Hampshire.
Anyway, it was The Beast Within and Shivers that really grabbed me for adventure gaming, with Shivers grabbing me for puzzles (and excitement with those dangerous ixupis!). Great graphics, excellent puzzles, many of which really made you think hard, and some thrills when the ixupis jumped out at you. In fact, the graphics still look good even today.
I played it with Dad when I first moved back to Oceanside, and he loved it too, although he never could figure out how to move around. But I always had an amazing amount of fun with it, it was so replayable.
My old system 9 iMac has developed a terrible buzz in the sound system, so I've retired it until I can afford either repair or a "new" one on E-Bay (I have so many system 9 games that I'll really have to replace either the part or the computer). But I wanted to play Shivers again now, darnit. I just got the bug for it. I now have this great old vintage IBM Thinkpad running Win98SE, so I went back to E-Bay and got a good copy of the game for a little over $6.00. Even though I'm seriously poor right now, the $6.00 isn't going to hasten my demise too much, and it'll keep me in a happy mood.
It runs great, except that for whatever reason, it won't go full screen, which is seriously annoying. But aside from that, there it is! Actually Shivers!
So I'll blog this next, because it was the game that cemented my love of adventures. They don't make 'em like this anymore, but these old games haven't lost any of their punch.
I skipped most of the opening movie, because the opening and ending "movies" with the teenagers are just lame. However, I got the letter from the dragon's head by the gate, looked at the sign outside the front of the museum, climbed the stairs and found two of the colored symbols I'll need to get in, listened to the door announcement, and headed to the back and the entrance puzzles.
The voiceover work really is great in this game. I dunno who that guy was, but he milked his lines right in line with the spooky but slightly humorous spirit of the game, and adds a lot to the gameplay.
I remembered where to look for the other colored symbols, but I didn't remember how to open the gazebo puzzle. It has a three-number combination. I went looking for numbers. Looked in the letter, which has a three-digit number in it, but nope, that didn't work. I trekked back up to the museum entrance, but nope, no numbers there. Finally I tried manipulating one other thing that is manipulatable, and there was a two-digit number. I plugged that in, starting with zero and voila(!), the puzzle opened! Solved!
But now I faced what really is a toughie, one that I always took several tries before I solved it when I played the game before. I did remember the trick, but that trick still won't work unless you do everything right. The Gaming Gods were with me--I solved it on the first try! Wow! I know I never did that before! After all these years!
So I trekked across the stones to get to the Stonehenge puzzle. I remembered the colors of the symbols. Again, my ancient memory of this game must have helped, because I solved that easily too. I got the lights turned on, and saved at the beginning of the maze that leads to the underground lake. (I'm still not actually in the museum, just under it.)
If only I could get this thing to go full screen! I can't understand why it won't. It's a Win 95 game that ought to run just fine under Win 98. It has a "full-screen" option, but clicking it just doesn't have any effect. Very strange.
Still, so far it's meeting my expectations. I can play Shivers again! And it's been so many years since I've played it that I know I'll have trouble with some of these puzzles. I never did solve the chinese checkers puzzle--always had to follow a WT for that. However, that's quite a ways ahead.
Obviously, I can't put any screenshots here, because the old Thinkpad isn't going to be compatible with my state-of-the-art Mac now. But I will blog my progress anyway, with cute cat pics.
To the Museum!
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