Escape to point and click adventure

Some of my best gaming experiences; in fact, only some of my best experiences during the last year of the 80s and during the 90s came from the incredible “Point and Click Adventure” genre. Also known as “Graphic Adventures”, each game was an absolute, deep and immersive journey: I disconnected from reality and tuned into a different world, allowing me to be someone else from the moment those discs were inserted until the moment he hit the ON / OFF switch and went to bed.

To escape my ordinary school life, all I had to do was boot, and I instantly became a pirate, secret agent, time traveler, space janitor, detective, archaeologist, wizard, or king. Douglas Quaid had “Rekall”, I had my Friend.

This was beyond the “book”; The adventures of Point and Click allowed the player to enter a rich history but in reality be the protagonist, walk like them, respond like them, interact with other characters like them and make their decisions for them; every time he is rewarded with more stories, riddles and riddles. Before the integration of real audio dialogue into games when they came on CD-ROM years later (which I think screwed them up); the much cooler generation of limited capacity floppy disk users were forced to read all the dialogue in their heads (creating their own voices if they wanted) with a 16-bit soundtrack and sound effects to go along with it. It was a sublime experience.

I preferred Point’n’Click alone
Often with intriguing stories and an intense need to overcome the current puzzle; Players would spend countless hours playing games without a break, playing all day, night, and into the wee hours of the morning. With a tired mind, this could transform them into a trance-like state, similar to a dream, as if the dream they were having was in front of them but in full color, completely controllable and lucid. These were the best dreams they had ever had. Everything that was beyond the 4 sides of the screen in front of them collapsed and there was nothing else but adventure; the only reminder that they were still a human looking was the feel of their wrist and hand pointing with the mouse and the sound of the clicks as they chose a verb, and then an object.

It was a very personal and lonely experience; a journey that can only be fully enjoyed by taking it alone. I sat down with a friend once, together trying to solve some puzzles from a certain game that was out at the time at his house. I had a feeling that I was invading his experience and he was definitely spoiling mine; this was an experience that I wanted to have locked in my own room, not his. It was similar to trying to sit down and read a classic novel at the same time as someone else, both looking at the same pages, one wanting to turn a page and read it, the other wanting to stay and take in the complexities. story and dialogue and apply imagination to enhance the scene. We were just two different instances of that sprite in two different mindsets. On his screen there was exactly the same animated collection of pixels, but I did not recognize this character, it was not the same one that was waiting for me at home. We had been through different things at different times; I had established a good relationship with mine, and here was only one clone that performed actions that I wanted to save for later, it just wasn’t the same. Needless to say, I never tried to co-play a Point’n’Click again.

Piracy of adventure games, before Monkey Island
It all started for me in 1989, my uncle had given me a pirated copy (naughty and naughty) of Delphine’s brilliant Future Wars; this whetted my appetite for the genre, however since only one floppy disk had been delivered for (unknowingly by either of us) a two-disc set, I was only able to complete a few of the puzzles before being asked “Insert Disc 2 “. Without the disc, I couldn’t continue, which was frustrating to say the least, but this had me hungry for adventure games, I needed to play more.

I used to order Amiga games from some kind of mail order catalog (I can’t ever remember what this was called, or why I was doing it this way, as I could probably go to a computer store in the city). However, I believe that this catalog contained games that were not widely known or distributed at the time, perhaps from abroad. Inside it, a small ad showing a game with a strange and exciting cover, like that of a cartoon or a movie from the 80s, which was accompanied by a captivating sales pitch, right there I had to find out what was happening in the Maniac mansion. And so it was ordered and the waiting time began (I seem to remember 14 to 28 days?). Every day was a “Was it the postman?” routine, until a warm fuzzy Saturday morning had finally arrived. I remember opening the big brown plastic bag and pulling out that amazing box. On the front, a large, colored version of what was shown in the catalog, but on the back, a strange painted image of the antagonists of the stories: Dr. Fred, Nurse Edna and Weird Ed. attracted; the fact that inside the box was a huge poster depicting a bulletin board with all sorts of references to the plot and story of the characters really made sure of it. Maniac Mansion Disk 1 was inside, and I was going to Maniac Mansion.

Adventures for a time without adventures
With a strong desire to point and click, and with the advent of the 90s, many more titles emerged; Zak McKracken and the Masters of the Alien Mind, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Secret of Monkey Island, Operation Stealth, Loom, Tentacle Day, Corpse Cruise, Larry Leisure Suit, King’s Quest, Space Quest , Police Quest, Dark Seed, Dreamweb, KGB .. Some atmospheric and serious, some full of incredible wit and humor; They came thick and fast, each one taking me to a different place, time and life.

As the genre became popular and consistently filled the charts, it wasn’t long before sequels appeared that gave us even more adventures and more time to spend with (as) our favorite characters.

However, as consoles became more and more the center of attention with their gamepads, this spelled the end of point and click (consoles don’t use a mouse of course), and with game sales on its lowest point due to quantity. from piracy of floppy disks; this spelled the end of the Amiga. PCs continued the genre for a while, but with the new generation wanting more shocking value and graphically exciting games in real-time 3D; the whimsical innocence of Point and Click games as we know them was gone and the adventures were apparently over. Fast forward 15 years or so … Although it lacks authenticity in interaction (less like “point and click” adventures, more like “look then touch” adventures), in recent years, with the intimacy of Touchscreen devices and tablets, the Point and Click adventure made a comeback and I was happy to see the re-release of some classics. It is good to see that the genre is popular again, although sadly for me they have lost the charm that made games what they were. Perhaps it is because the actual hardware that was used at the time to reproduce them is missing; Without a lot of storage space, processing power, and graphics capabilities, the stories and characters really shone because they had to. Or maybe it was because more was happening (or not happening) outside of the computer screen at the time. In an era before the internet, cell phones, social media, MMOs, and instant digital entertainment, there were few places to bring the consciousness of a child seeking true adventure. With such a lack of options at the time for escapism, the Point and Click adventure was a Point and Click from an entirely different world.