HA! I finished it!

[-budd-]

Just completed Hercule Poirot's ABC murder....very well done game.

Is that a point and click game? I have the Sherlock Holmes series, but have only dabbled in one of the games.

[Anguille]

Just completed Hercule Poirot's ABC murder....very well done game.

Is that a point and click game? I have the Sherlock Holmes series, but have only dabbled in one of the games.

Yes, it's a point and click game. What i liked is that the game is faithful to the book, it's fairly short (it took me about 10 hours) and, if you really don't find a solution, there's always a help function available so the game's mysteries are not going to keep you from finishing the game. I also like the artwork, music and the mood. I don't play these games so often but i did play a few of them (one Sherlock Holmes, Black Mirror, Broken Sword 1&2 and the oldest one: Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis!). I think it's an easy one to get into.

[Black Robin]

Good to know keep it going..! :)

[airboy]

Just completed Hercule Poirot's ABC murder....very well done game.

Congratulations!  Ever played Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers?  That is the best one I've ever played.  I bought the remastered version and have the original on gog which I would gift to you if gog will let me give a game to someone else and wipe it from my library.

[-budd-]

I find the point and click games relaxing. The puzzles can make or break a game. I like the games where there is a help function, not up to spending two days figuring out a game puzzle anymore. I go to YouTube pretty quickly for solution.

I'll have to take a look at the redone Gabriel Knight game, I vaguely remember playing that a very very long time ago.

[Anguille]

Just completed Hercule Poirot's ABC murder....very well done game.

Congratulations!  Ever played Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers?  That is the best one I've ever played.  I bought the remastered version and have the original on gog which I would gift to you if gog will let me give a game to someone else and wipe it from my library.

I just checked my GOG library and, surprise, i have it! Just installed. Will check it out. Thanks.

[JasonPratt]

For a relaxing point-and-click game series, I can pretty well recommend the Hero of the Kingdom series. Reminds me I should check to see if there's a fourth game yet...! 

[airboy]

What is Hero of the Kingdom about?

[JasonPratt]

Each story is self-contained (with a few nods to prior stories for flavor), but each involves a young man (only young men characters so far) leaving home and slowly working his way up in a medieval fantasy world until he's leading armed forces to save a kingdom and marry into a family. Very generic in that sense, but the details vary from story to story. My nieces love to guide him around doing things in the first game.

In the first game, you're helping your Dad take care of the family farm after your Mom has died, and while out doing chores the farm is raided by slavers working, ultimately, for an evil wizard trying to invade and overthrow the kingdom, so most of the game involves trying to track the slavers and get back your Dad along with dealing with the wider plot as the game opens up.

The second game involves pirates menacing a shoreline kingdom, where you and your sister have tried to settle as orphans. She's kidnapped and off you go, trying to figure out the pirate kingdom base and building a ship to travel the sea and take them down.

The third game I didn't recall (though I beat it): having been raised as a hunter by your uncle, monsters from underground are shattering the unity of four valleys of settlers. Defending your valley inspires you to reforge paths and connections to the other valley settlements, and putting down the source of the problem (an ancient buried god if I recall correctly). The plot is more diffuse and less directed than the first two, which is why I didn't easily remember it. ;)

There's gorgeous and detailed but not overly-showy hand-drawn art -- you basically play the game by clicking spots on each map, including transition links to other maps, talking with characters and picking up and using inventory. There's plenty of combat, but it's very simple: check what's necessary to beat the threat, find and/or create what's necessary, go back and use up those items or whatever to solve the problem. (All the problems get solved this way, more or less. The series is very much an inventory management game.)

Looking up on Steam, I see there's a new entry, Lost Tales 1! (Which looks like it's going to be a multi-story entry delivered in short portions.) The whole series may be on sale, hard to tell since I've got them all already.

The games are very pastoral and chill, no rush to do anything, a fair amount of reading, some simple storybook animations. It's an acquired taste, but I'd call it a cut above most point-and-click story games of a similarly simple type (in my admittedly limited experience. It isn't like the famous Sherlock Holmes series from Frogware, for example, much more complex.)

[Anguille]

I completed the commercial campaign in Port Royal 3!

[Rayfer]

I completed the commercial campaign in Port Royal 3!

I don't know the game, but anyone who finishes a campaign in any game gets a thumbs up from me,  O0

[airboy]

Congratulations!

What do you think about the game?

[JasonPratt]

The PR series is essentially super-Pirates, since Sid Meir wasn't able or perhaps interested in updating his Pirates game at the time. The main drawback between PR3 and PR2 is the simplification of the combat, but honestly the game isn't so much about the combat as the original Pirates was anyway -- I still prefer PR2 to 3, but there's a good argument for quality of life improvements in 3. (Though I've played Patrician 3 a lot more than either of them. Its combat is significantly worse than either, but that seems to be on purpose to fit the setting: the pirates and anti-pirates weren't as developed, up in the Hanseatics.)

So, take Sid Meir's Pirates -- the original one I mean (for the C64 or early PC etc.). Now add a bunch more town interaction and even management options to it. You won't only be sailing from place to place trying to sell off your merchant and/or looted goods, you'll be looking to invest in property, both buying and building; and if you get cozy enough with one of the factions, and wealthy enough to afford it, they'll be expecting you to go found your own Caribbean colony from scratch! (Something Pat3 doesn't allow, by the way, although you can take over any number of the towns on the map theoretically.)

I'll be curious about Anguille's report on the game, too. The Pat/PR series is one I always want to get back to (in the back of my mind), and what amuses me most about Grand Ages: Medieval is that instead of being a city/colony builder like Grand Ages: Rome, it's really a land-based update to the Pat/PR games (thus an extension of Sid Meir's Pirates in that sense)!

[Anguille]

Congratulations!

What do you think about the game?

Thanks. It's a nice game with a good campaign. I don't think i'll get the sequel as it looks to be more of the same (they have been doing the same game for the last 20 years).

The PR series is essentially super-Pirates, since Sid Meir wasn't able or perhaps interested in updating his Pirates game at the time. The main drawback between PR3 and PR2 is the simplification of the combat, but honestly the game isn't so much about the combat as the original Pirates was anyway -- I still prefer PR2 to 3, but there's a good argument for quality of life improvements in 3. (Though I've played Patrician 3 a lot more than either of them. Its combat is significantly worse than either, but that seems to be on purpose to fit the setting: the pirates and anti-pirates weren't as developed, up in the Hanseatics.)

So, take Sid Meir's Pirates -- the original one I mean (for the C64 or early PC etc.). Now add a bunch more town interaction and even management options to it. You won't only be sailing from place to place trying to sell off your merchant and/or looted goods, you'll be looking to invest in property, both buying and building; and if you get cozy enough with one of the factions, and wealthy enough to afford it, they'll be expecting you to go found your own Caribbean colony from scratch! (Something Pat3 doesn't allow, by the way, although you can take over any number of the towns on the map theoretically.)

I'll be curious about Anguille's report on the game, too. The Pat/PR series is one I always want to get back to (in the back of my mind), and what amuses me most about Grand Ages: Medieval is that instead of being a city/colony builder like Grand Ages: Rome, it's really a land-based update to the Pat/PR games (thus an extension of Sid Meir's Pirates in that sense)!

I have a special thing for the first Port Royale....love the intro movie and the mood. Port Royale 2 was, from a gameplay point a view, an improved version. Unfortunately, both don't run well with windows 10. I feel that Port Royale 3 is weaker, gameplay wise, but i has a zoom function and a full story. Obviously, the same team made the story of Grand Ages: Medieval, which is, as you say, first and foremost a medieval economic simulation. Having enjoyed Grand Ages: Rome a lot, i was hoping to have something similar but you don't get new historical city-builders anymore  :'(

So i think i'll keep on playing this from time to time (i also have to play Rise of Venice and Patrician 4) but think that i will skip sequels as long as these work in windows 10. But the motivation to keep on playing has dropped with the end of the campaign. By now, it's too easy to make money etc.

[JasonPratt]

I think there's a PR4, too, isn't there? {checking} Ah, release date at the end of this September. (29th, Michaelmass Day!)

I forgot PR3 was upgraded in proper 3D gfx (Pat 3 isn't, it's just a patched up Pat2.) So the fleet combat differences must be between PR1 and PR2.