Obligatory Sam & Max post

You already know that the new Sam & Max games are supremely turbo excellent, right? Just checking.

For the record, my fave episodes were 102, 105, 202 and 204. Telltale is giving away ep. 104 at the moment, though I found myself enjoying that to a strangely small degree, perhaps because last year's version kept crashing on me.

Don't fret about playing episodes out of order, either; after all, Sam & Max thrive on anarchy.

The uniqueness of DuzzQuest

I suppose I should justify my claim that DuzzQuest is worth your time.

Basically: DuzzQuest is the first game in history that feels like it was made at a party. It doesn't have the flavour of some nerd in his bedroom making a game about something INCREDIBLY FANTASTICAL to put his mind off the desperate loneliness of his sad little existence; instead, it feels like someone slightly tipsy pulled out his laptop at an Australian drinking bash and started poking fun at all his friends while they cheered him on. Where Nelly Cootalot is technically an homage to the author's girlfriend, DuzzQuest feels more like, well...

DuzzQuest is a first foray into the unexplored field of surrealistic docu-comedy games. There's clearly something unique going on here that I can even utter that sentence.

It is in part a genuine if indirect documentation of a circle of friends, complete with background tunes by the band they of course are in, The Midnight Express. Some of the dialogue lines were obviously recorded at an actual party, for brilliant effect. Go ahead and see what happens if you try taking people's beer bottles from them; deliberately induce hallucinations in yourself to advance the plot; explore the mystery of why that guy is suddenly wearing a dress.

Of all the games that could have been made by some random guy using his friends for characters, DuzzQuest is possibly the best thing that could conceivable have happened. Bless those nutty Aussies.

DuzzQuest is also liked by CaptainD and that's about it.
Download here; the speech pack is probably worth your time as well.

Nelly Cootalot, saviour of my sanity

Sorry about that, it's been a horrible half year and I've hardly had time to play anything. In this orful time, the little AGS adventure Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! came as a Shubsend.


Cutesy? Well it is, but not in a nauseating kind of way. It's close to being one of the best possible light and casual adventures — even moreso than the new Sam & Max, come to think of it.

In theme, the game of course recalls the third Monkey Island, right down to the "verb coin" interface — my biggest gripe with the game is that I kept forgetting to hold down the left mouse button to activate it. The thing is, I had about as much fun playing Spoonbeaks as I had playing the much longer and more expensive (to make and to buy) Monkey 3. Nelly Cootalot just oozes a kind of infectious charm, underscored by the fresh visual style that takes it as far as it possibly can without becoming too precious.

Featuring as it does a meaty amount of great puzzles that only sent me packing for hints a couple of times, Nelly Cootalot is just about the perfect ticket for 3-6 hours of pleasant adventuring.