5 Days A Stranger
by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw
A year or so ago, while searching for free point-and-click adventure games on the internet, I stumbled across a website called Adventure Game Studio. AGS is a program that allows a person to create his or her own adventure games, using a very user-friendly template. The associated website and forum became a trading post for passionate adventure game fans to share their own creations with the world. There are a TON of great games on AGS, a lot of which, in my opinion, actually rival the classic Sierra and Lucasarts adventures. My favorite AGS developer, by far, is a guy named Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Croshaw has created a number of games using AGS, all of them excellent, but my favorite work of his is the Trilby series. 5 Days a Stranger is the first game in the series, and it is followed by 3 sequels (7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby's Notes, and 6 Days a Sacrifice) as well as a spin-off platformer (Trilby: The Art of Theft). In the world of point-and-clicks, where humor and horror are the two most prevalent elements, Croshaw excels at them both. This series is definitely on the horror side of the fence, and it is often extremely creepy. It's impressive how these incredibly primitive graphics (drawn, I believe, in MS Paint or something similar) can convey such a sense of dread and tension. The game's story is epic and completely enthralling, with some fascinating and shocking twists along the way, and the puzzles are top-notch. Play this great series of games and you will be hooked. Then play everything else Croshaw has ever made.
Passage
by Jason Rohrer
Passage is probably the best evidence I've ever seen that video games ARE art. I don't want to spoil to much about this beautiful game, but I think the most brilliant aspect of it is the way that its use of the cliched old video game conventions - mazes, treasure, points, hazards - are reworked as metaphors that serve the piece's main theme. Because of this, Passage is not just an interactive piece of art; it is actually an old-school video game, played for a high score. At the same time, its message is extremely powerful (so much so that it nearly brought me to tears - nearly). The concept of this game is so brilliant that I'm hoping it eventually gets noticed by a big developer, and made into a full-length modern game - this is a concept that definitely deserves to be expanded upon. Go play this game - it will only take literally five minutes. After you've played it, and formed your own opinion, check out the Creator's Statement to read about the author's intent with this game.
Cave Story has been around for a few years and seems to have a pretty large fanbase, but I only just discovered it. The game is very similar to the 2D Metroid or Metroidvania titles, in that the playing field is a vast series of mazes to explore, while discovering new abilities that allow you to venture into previously unreachable areas. But it also stands apart from the aforementioned games by incorporating interesting RPG-esque elements. The most obvious is the story, which advances through interaction with charming non-player characters in town-like areas. Your weapons, of which there are many, also get levelled up (and down!) through a simple RPG-like experience system. The game's environments are beautiful, quirky and fun as hell. The characters and story are a step above most side-scrollers, and the music is great. Cave Story is a fantastic accomplishment that must be played by any platforming fan.
Mario Adventure is a Super Mario Bros. 3 hack. However, unlike most Mario hacks, which offer up minimal cosmetic differences (as well as brilliant names like Super Retarded Bros, Super Napoleon Dynamite Bros, and Super Mario Bros Except if Mario Was Black), this game is more than just the ROM equivilent of a bootleg Bart Simpson t-shirt. This is a whole new game, and quite frankly, it's one of the best Mario games I've ever played. Taking the "rules" of a Mario game and twisting them as far as they can be stretched without breaking, the end result is something that even Nintendo could learn a few lessons from. Brand new worlds, enemies, power-up costumes (Magic Mario is amaaaazing)... randomly generated weather elements that affect each level... gameplay goals that go beyond the "point-A-to-point-B" challenges of most Mario games. This game is incredible, and if Nintendo has any sense, they'll hire this dude as a level designer. There is also a sequel, entitled Mario vs. Luigi, which I have yet to play. But Mario can get a Mouser suit power-up in which lets him toss bob-ombs! Holy shit!! NOTE: You will need an NES Emulator to play either of these games.
Another excellent series of games made with AGS. The Ben Jordan series (which has six installments so far) features a globe-trotting paranormal investigator, who tracks down monsters and ghosts in exotic locales (everywhere from Florida to Japan to Scotland to Greece). Though each chapter is a stand-alone story, certain plot elements span the entire series. So it's fun to see, for instance, a friend that Ben makes during one adventure continue to hang out with him in subsequent ones. With great puzzles, fun visuals, charming characters, and a unique sense of humor, these games are perfect for any point-and-click fan.
Linus Bruckman will most likely drive you nuts. What we have here is essentially one long logic puzzle (like the type found in a Dell puzzle book) in the form of a game. Or... I guess, more like two long logic puzzles. You see, there are two seperate games going on simultaneously, on the top and bottom of the screen, each with a distinctive artistic style and mood, but with similar gameplay. The movement of your mouse in one playing field elicits a similar reaction from the elements in the other field. So you can solve each puzzle seperately (which I did, with the aid of like six sheets of scrap paper), or by god, you can even solve them SIMULTANEOUSLY (which I have yet to do, and holy shit do I tip my hat to anyone who can manage to do that). If you enjoy head-scratchers, Linus Bruckman is definitely worth your time. If you wind up enjoying the game, click here to read a great article about its development (it was inspired by the Nintendo DS!).
Okay, so if you can't get behind the concept of video games as art, how about video games as wackadoo abstract art? A bizarre mixture of weird, pretentious poetry, crazy-ass crayon scribble graphics, and basic old-school gameplay, the final result is a strangely hypnotizing mess. This is the one game on this list that I'd be very hesitant to describe as good, fun or even effective in achieving whatever crazed, ether-inspired goal its creator was trying to accomplish, but it's still totally worth playing, at least once. If nothing else, it is a great example of just how much potential there is within the genre for new, different and completely innovative ideas. With all the dumb-ass, creatively bankrupt bullshit there is in the gaming industry (Hooray! A FPS with World War II as its backdrop!), something like this is refreshing to see. Whether or not you find it entertaining, the fact that things like this are even being dreamt up and executed is an encouraging sign.
Cursor*10
by Yoshio Ishii
So I was posting on my favorite message board, and I wondered why there had never been a time travel video game that actually incorporated intereaction with your past self and his or her actions. What I meant by this was, a game where you play through a level, and then later go back in time to that first level and there before you is a "recording" of your former self, performing the same actions you had performed when you played that level. If you had spent part of level 1 running around in pointless circles, there would the the old you, now a non-player character, running around in those circles. Your interaction with these "ghosts" of your former actions would make up the basis for the game's puzzles and challenges. Soon after I speculated on this imaginary game, somebody on the board posted a link to this flash game, which is pretty much a simplified version of exactly what I had in mind. In Cursor*10, as its title would suggest, you play as a cursor, and you have ten lives, each with a rigorous time limit.. The goal in each of its 16 levels is to find a staircase that will allow you to progress to the next stage. This game's gimmick is that once the time runs out and you move on to your next life, each of your previous lives' cursors will still be on the playing field, performing the same actions you had performed during that life. So, for example, if one level requires that you must push two buttons simultaneously to make the staircase appear, you'd have to hold on to one button, wait to die, and then use your next life to push the other button while the ghost of your former life pushes the first one. This makes for some extremely interesting puzzles, the likes of which I've never really experienced in a game before. This concept, fleshed out into a full-length game, would blow peoples' minds right out of their skulls. Check this out immediately.
The Simpsons Jeopardy!
by Hangoversoft
As dopey as it is, it would be dishonest of me to exclude this game from the list, since I pretty much play it all the fucking time. There is absolutely nothing for me to say about this game that you can't figure out from the title. It's a Jeopardy game with Simpsons questions. Choose your avatar (from a list of characters from the show), pick from different categories, answer questions, and die a little bit inside as you realize you've wasted your life. A fun little diversion when you have ten minutes to waste.
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