How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
August 3, 2010 10:48 AM Subscribe
Graphic Adventures is a 500 page book about the classic adventure games. It's available through Amazon and Lulu, but is also free to download and read.
Bonus link: Monkey Island Insult Swordfighting!
Bonus link: Monkey Island Insult Swordfighting!
Numbers of classic adventure games have tripled in the last six months.
posted by Electric Dragon at 11:06 AM on August 3, 2010
posted by Electric Dragon at 11:06 AM on August 3, 2010
I love adventure games, and adventure game history, but a collection of Wikipedia articles seems lazy.
posted by dortmunder at 11:06 AM on August 3, 2010
posted by dortmunder at 11:06 AM on August 3, 2010
Flagged because I HAD THINGS TO DO DAMMIT.
posted by griphus at 11:07 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by griphus at 11:07 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
> Look MetaFilter
You see a link to a book about Graphic Adventures with convenient shopping links to Amazon and Lulu. There is also a link to a free download to the book.
> Look Amazon
You see cover art and a book description for a Graphic Adventures book. It is on sale for $26 and some change.
> Look at download link
Your browser opens a request to download a zip file of what appears to be the entire book in html format.
> Head assplode.
You die.
posted by cavalier at 11:11 AM on August 3, 2010 [3 favorites]
You see a link to a book about Graphic Adventures with convenient shopping links to Amazon and Lulu. There is also a link to a free download to the book.
> Look Amazon
You see cover art and a book description for a Graphic Adventures book. It is on sale for $26 and some change.
> Look at download link
Your browser opens a request to download a zip file of what appears to be the entire book in html format.
> Head assplode.
You die.
posted by cavalier at 11:11 AM on August 3, 2010 [3 favorites]
$ grep -i 'The Longest Journey' ./graphic-adventures-html/index.html |wc -l 0FAIL.
posted by Electric Dragon at 11:12 AM on August 3, 2010
See also: Twisty Little Passages by Nick Montfort.
posted by pharm at 11:12 AM on August 3, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by pharm at 11:12 AM on August 3, 2010 [3 favorites]
FAIL.
The HTML is really a collection of, well, jpeg files constituting the pages. Keeps the formatting great, but, yeah, no searching.
posted by cavalier at 11:13 AM on August 3, 2010
The HTML is really a collection of, well, jpeg files constituting the pages. Keeps the formatting great, but, yeah, no searching.
posted by cavalier at 11:13 AM on August 3, 2010
a collection of Wikipedia articles seems lazy
"What I did was edit the Wikipedia articles through heavy or light rewriting, depending on what I figured the article would need to look good in book form. I then went to find additional information from other sources where I felt having more could be fun, and I added screenshots. And then I conducted interviews with many people who were involved in producing the classic graphic adventures."
posted by Ian A.T. at 11:37 AM on August 3, 2010
"What I did was edit the Wikipedia articles through heavy or light rewriting, depending on what I figured the article would need to look good in book form. I then went to find additional information from other sources where I felt having more could be fun, and I added screenshots. And then I conducted interviews with many people who were involved in producing the classic graphic adventures."
posted by Ian A.T. at 11:37 AM on August 3, 2010
Well, I'm sure many people on Lulu do the same. In a way it's nice that he's honest about it.
posted by Artw at 11:41 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 11:41 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
I so want to replay Grim Fandango, but for some reason it's not available on Steam.
If you don't want to waste hours, avoid reading all the Sierra pages on tvtropes.
posted by jeather at 11:48 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
If you don't want to waste hours, avoid reading all the Sierra pages on tvtropes.
posted by jeather at 11:48 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
If you don't want to waste hours, avoid reading all the Sierra pages on tvtropes.
Dammit.
posted by mysterpigg at 11:59 AM on August 3, 2010 [2 favorites]
Dammit.
posted by mysterpigg at 11:59 AM on August 3, 2010 [2 favorites]
The HTML is really a collection of, well, jpeg files constituting the pages. Keeps the formatting great, but, yeah, no searching.
?
I don't know what zip file you downloaded, but that's not consistent with what I got from the "download" link. The index.html is some 500 odd KB and 5000+ lines of text.
Also, TLJ isn't in there, but neither are the Quest for Glory series (probably due to the rpg trappings) nor Syberia (the first one, at least, is great). God I love the ending to Syberia, despite its cliffhanger/sequel setup-ness.
posted by juv3nal at 12:05 PM on August 3, 2010
?
I don't know what zip file you downloaded, but that's not consistent with what I got from the "download" link. The index.html is some 500 odd KB and 5000+ lines of text.
Also, TLJ isn't in there, but neither are the Quest for Glory series (probably due to the rpg trappings) nor Syberia (the first one, at least, is great). God I love the ending to Syberia, despite its cliffhanger/sequel setup-ness.
posted by juv3nal at 12:05 PM on August 3, 2010
Oh, I see Manny on the cover. I've missed you Manny. I still dream about you, Glottis and Meche sometimes.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:27 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:27 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
What I did was edit the Wikipedia articles through heavy or light rewriting, depending on what I figured the article would need to look good in book form. I then went to find additional information from other sources where I felt having more could be fun, and I added screenshots. And then I conducted interviews with many people who were involved in producing the classic graphic adventures
I don't really know how Wikipedia's licensing works, but how is it legal for them to sell this? What am I missing?
posted by Think_Long at 12:58 PM on August 3, 2010
I don't really know how Wikipedia's licensing works, but how is it legal for them to sell this? What am I missing?
posted by Think_Long at 12:58 PM on August 3, 2010
> Pay $29 for a bunch of edited Wikipedia articles
A hollow voice says "Fool".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:15 PM on August 3, 2010
A hollow voice says "Fool".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:15 PM on August 3, 2010
My first of the adventure games was KQ4, and I remember saving my game every 10 seconds climbing up and down that stupid staircase in the castle. God, that was annoying. Not as annoying as the cat/rat and yeti/pie puzzles in KQ5, but still.
It's not that the Monkey Island puzzles were any saner than the KQ/SQ puzzles, but at least there were no unwinnable states or deaths.
I miss getting new adventure games.
posted by jeather at 2:24 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
It's not that the Monkey Island puzzles were any saner than the KQ/SQ puzzles, but at least there were no unwinnable states or deaths.
I miss getting new adventure games.
posted by jeather at 2:24 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
I miss getting new adventure games.
Have you tried the Sam & Max episodic games from Telltale (or the rest of their catalog for that matter)? I believe if you poke around there's demos available (season 1 episode 4 is free on steam at the very least).
posted by juv3nal at 2:35 PM on August 3, 2010
Have you tried the Sam & Max episodic games from Telltale (or the rest of their catalog for that matter)? I believe if you poke around there's demos available (season 1 episode 4 is free on steam at the very least).
posted by juv3nal at 2:35 PM on August 3, 2010
I wonder how long it'll take the wikipedians to incorporate any new material he has dug up..
posted by khedron at 2:46 PM on August 3, 2010
posted by khedron at 2:46 PM on August 3, 2010
Well, if anyone tries citing him it;s going to give the more uptight wikipedia types an aneurysm.
posted by Artw at 2:50 PM on August 3, 2010
posted by Artw at 2:50 PM on August 3, 2010
Think_Long: Text on Wikipedia is co-licensed under the GFDL and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Both allow commercial reuse of content.
posted by zsazsa at 2:51 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by zsazsa at 2:51 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
While this is delightful, it still won't let me play Grim Fandango on modern hardware.
posted by chairface at 3:49 PM on August 3, 2010
posted by chairface at 3:49 PM on August 3, 2010
While this is delightful, it still won't let me play Grim Fandango on modern hardware.
Have you tried the slow down util and alternate launchers on this page?
posted by juv3nal at 3:55 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
Have you tried the slow down util and alternate launchers on this page?
posted by juv3nal at 3:55 PM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
Chairface: Use this installer, which automatically installs this launcher which should let you play on newer versions of Windows with newer hardware.
posted by zsazsa at 3:56 PM on August 3, 2010
posted by zsazsa at 3:56 PM on August 3, 2010
If you can find the program image and the right emulator, you should be able to get it to work.
I've revisited a lot of Mac System 7 and C-64 games using emulators in the past couple of years.
posted by hippybear at 3:57 PM on August 3, 2010
I've revisited a lot of Mac System 7 and C-64 games using emulators in the past couple of years.
posted by hippybear at 3:57 PM on August 3, 2010
GOG.com has quite a few good titles that work on modern systems.
posted by Harry at 2:35 AM on August 4, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Harry at 2:35 AM on August 4, 2010 [1 favorite]
Aroof aroof LeChuck!
posted by Put the kettle on at 2:00 PM on August 4, 2010
posted by Put the kettle on at 2:00 PM on August 4, 2010
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You type "Classic adventure games do not have graphics. Also: from the pages of Wikipedia?"
You feel a warm glow of smugness.
Your karma has been adversely affected.
posted by Artw at 11:04 AM on August 3, 2010 [6 favorites]