Old faithful

It’s been a busy few weeks, between traveling, seeing old friends, and being short-staffed at work in between all that. But it’s finally a weekend where I don’t have anything going on, and we finally had our first snowfall of the year, so I figured this was a good opportunity to get another entry out.

I say “finally” about our first snowfall in early November, because according to people who grew up where I currently live, there used to be snow on the ground before Halloween. Consistently. But better late, than never–I still like winter, despite all the shoveling I have to do as an adult. The colder temperatures just sit well with me. I mean heck, my wife and I had our honeymoon in Iceland, where temps in the 60s (Fahrenheit) are positively balmy. And in a roundabout way, that brings us to today’s word.

geyser, noun – a hot spring which periodically boils over, sending a spray of water and steam into the air

Learned from: Space Quest (Apple IIGS, Mac, PC)

Developed by Sierra On-Line

Published by Sierra On-Line (1986)

The first game in a six-game series, Space Quest was sort of the adventure game version of Spaceballs: all ridiculous situations, jokes, and references to established sci-fi franchises. Star Wars was the main inspiration, but there’s some Star Trek, Dune, and other things sprinkled in there. You play as Roger Wilco, a space janitor who ends up embroiled in a nefarious plot that threatens the galaxy, and only he can foil the villain’s plans and save the day.

After escaping the exploding space station where he, until just recently, worked, Roger crash lands on a desert planet, and must survive the sweltering heat, deadly wildlife, a speeder bike action sequence, and unscrupulous used droid salesmen to get back to space and foil an evil alien plot. One sequence on the planet has you making your way through a cave system with a geyser that you need to plug up with a rock, so the pressure will open a secret door. Adventure game logic is really odd sometimes.

Fun fact about the word, “geyser,” though: It’s actually named after a region (and a town) in Iceland, famous for its various hot springs, mud pots, and yes, geysers. The most famous one (called Geysir–not sure why the spelling changed in English), is now largely inactive. Strokkur is the most vigorous geyser in the area, going off every couple minutes, and it is pretty spectacular.

Fun fact about Geysir, Iceland: Everywhere we went in Iceland, was multi-lingual. Street signs, restaurant menus, signs on businesses; all of them were in at least two languages. Sometimes more. In fact, during our time there, there was only one sign we ever saw that defied this rule; the sign was at Geysir, and it was written only in English. Basically, “Despite appearances, this water is incredibly hot. If you touch it, you WILL get burned. The nearest hospital is over 50km away.”

I have a photo of it somewhere, but it’s on an old laptop I haven’t used in awhile. But yeah, if you ever wonder what the rest of the world really thinks about the United States, this thinly veiled jab toward famously monolingual Americans pretty well sums it up.

Also not my photo. The laptop my Iceland photos are on is old enough that it’s not compatible with Windows 11, so it’s sat untouched for some time.

My favorite time of year

Earlier today, my wife and I headed out to her folks’ place to spend part of the afternoon helping her father harvest grapes, which we will later also help him crush to turn into wine. Somewhere, there’s a photo of me grinning like a maniac, with my arms stained red damn near up to my elbows, like I just murdered somebody. Good times.

Anyway, for me, this is the official start of autumn: being out there with a cool breeze blowing over us, and a beautiful view of the changing colors of the trees on the far bank of the river, foraging through dense vines and leaves, looking for clusters of grapes hidden just out of sight. Again, good times. And that brings us to today’s word.

foliage, noun – plant leaves

Learned from: Space Quest II: Vohaul’s Revenge (Apple IIGS, Amiga, Apple II, Mac, PC)

Developed by Sierra On-Line

Published by Sierra On-Line (1987)

I have very fond memories of the Space Quest games, despite having only played the first two of them (3 and onward never came to the Apple IIGS). Comedies seemed a lot more popular when I was a kid, growing up watching movies like Naked Gun, and Police Academy. And some games got in on the action, too, particularly adventure games like The Secret of Monkey Island, which was a spoof of pirate stories, and Space Quest, which was a spoof primarily of Star Wars, but sci-fi in general. Sort of like a Temu version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: not bad necessarily, but certainly not as polished as the name brand. I used to play these a lot with my father, laughing at the ridiculous situations Roger Wilco, janitor turned reluctant hero, would get into, and puzzling over how to get out of them.

As the title of the second game suggests, Sludge Vohaul, the series’ villain, is out for revenge against Roger for foiling his plans in the first game. He has goons kidnap you in the opening of the game, and instead of killing you, he has them take you to a remote location so you can be forced to watch the downfall of galactic society at the hands of the genetically-modified insurance salesmen he’s developed. Or something along those lines; it’s been decades since I played it.

Anyway, something goes wrong with the hovercraft the goons were transporting you on, and it crashes into the dense forest of an alien world. As you look around, the narrator comments on the lush foliage–foliage you need to hide within at least once to keep from being found by Vohaul’s reinforcements, as you try to find a way off-planet to foil his latest insane scheme.

It’s an incredibly goofy game, filled with the sort of absolute moon logic that was common to adventure games of the era (e.g., I think you have to discover and mail in an order form for some kind of space-Tazmanian devil thing at one point, to solve a certain puzzle, while making sure the creature doesn’t catch and kill you in the process). But that was part of the fun. And the days of sitting around that 8-inch screen with my dad, tossing ideas back and forth about “well, what if we tried this?” are memories I will forever cherish.

I forgot the sheer *Mystery Science Theater 3000* vibes, in this box art.

Standalone

Recently, Merriam Webster shared a post about words you almost always seem used in pairs. Hem and haw; hither and yon (or hither and thither); pomp and circumstance, etc. Granted, it often only applies to one of the pairing, like “thither,” or “pomp,” since it’s pretty easy to find standalone usages of “hither” and “circumstance.” One of the other pairings brings us to today’s word.

beck, noun – a stream or creek

Learned from: The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow (PC, Mac)

Developed by Cloak and Dagger Games

Published by Wadjet Eye Games (2022)

Granted, the “beck” in “beck and call” has a different meaning, derived I would guess from “beckon,” but MW’s post reminded me of this other definition all the same.

The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is an extraordinarily slow burn horror adventure game, with a retro pixel art aesthetic, akin to something like The Last Door. You play as Thomasina Bateman, an archaeologist who receives a letter from an old man living in the remote English village of Bewlay, detailing a forgotten burial mound that she might be interested in…well, excavating. Exactly who he is, or how he learned Thomasina’s mailing address are only the first of the mysterious goings-on. Followed swiftly by his unexplained absence when Thomasina arrives, the fact that her luggage seems to have never made the trip, and the fact that everyone in Bewlay seems a little bit…off.

For being just a pixelated point & click adventure game, Hob’s Barrow does an incredible job of building atmosphere. There’s the little village, the nearby woods (complete with beck running through them), and the endless moors surrounding it all. That’s it. The game wastes no time in establishing a feeling of complete isolation and vulnerability, considering you barely have enough money on you when you arrive to pay for a room for a night at the local inn–the rest of your funds are with your luggage…wherever that is. There’s this feeling that everyone knows everyone else, and you’re constantly under scrutiny that culminates in a real sense of not knowing who to trust, what to say, when the villagers’ grudging goodwill is going to run out, or if you’re ever truly safe. Especially when I found myself stumbling across something valuable, lying to a villager and saying it’s mine so he’ll buy it so I can have enough money to keep staying at the inn until my supplies finally (hopefully) arrive–and then running into the item’s owner the next day, and the entire time worrying that these backwoods folks are going to discover what I’ve done and descend on me, Wicker Man style or something.

This is folk horror at its finest. Thomasina is very much an outsider, and throughout most of the play time, it’s an open question whether the weird things she catches glimpses of, and the deepening paranoia are all in her head, or if something truly nefarious really is going on. It’s not a very difficult game, as adventure games go, but damn does it tell a good story.

Have remote villages with hidden pasts *ever* been safe places to visit in fiction?

Hindsight

We’re currently undergoing a remodel where I work, and it’s…not really going as planned. They just got all of the offices usable again, a week and a half behind schedule, the new desks they put in take up like 75% of the floor space, and one–and only one–of the offices has carpet that looks like dirty, bare concrete. It’s not mine, but I really have to wonder if the CEO just doesn’t like that particular person or something. But beyond being behind schedule, this whole project is seeming like a worse and worse idea as time goes on: We’re losing workspace on the teller line (I work in a financial institution) that we really kinda need during shift changes. No one seems to know where we’re putting the printers, since we’re losing counter space. Actually, no one seems to know what the final product is going to look like–but somehow we’re putting in a waiting area for our members…that’s going to be in the same general vicinity as the entrance to the vault. Is there going to be any sort of wall or dividing barrier between the general public and the vault door (not to mention our bathroom)?

It’s almost like nobody stopped to think this through. But hindsight is 20/20 as they say. Which brings us to today’s word.

vigesimal, adj. – base-20, as in a numeric system

Learned from: Subject 13 (Playstation 4, Mac, PC, XBox One)

Developed by Microids

Published by Microids (2015)

Subject 13 is an adventure game that came out during a time when that particular genre seemed to largely be dead, or at least forgotten. Thankfully, the genre is experiencing something of a renaissance these days, but there was a span of a good 20 years when any adventure game that actually got released was worth checking out, just for the novelty of it.

At a glance, Subject 13 paints a decent picture of itself: attractive, pre-rendered environments; a mysterious sci-fi setting; varied and creative puzzles. Seeing it in motion is…less impressive, as the animations leave something to be desired. Hearing it also doesn’t do it any favors; the sound effects feel almost public domain, and the voice acting is flat-out bad (though, I understand the developer is French, so English dubbing might’ve been lower on their budget list than the rest of it. Not every small French game studio can have the production values of the folks at Sandfall). But again, pickings were slim in those days, so any port in a storm. Speaking of…

The real issues I had with the game though, are with the console port. I played this on PS4, and in converting it for that console (and presumably the XBone), Microids made some of the most baffling decisions I’ve ever seen. Some of it’s understandable: There’s no mouse interface (and nobody programmed for that touchpad thing on the PS4 controllers). So rather than just clicking where you want your character to go, you have to stumble around the not-as-big-as-they-look pre-rendered backdrops like a drunken orangutan, trying to get your guy to go up a flight of stairs or whatever. That’s…acceptable. The baffling part is pretty much everything else.

See, a lot of the puzzles require you to manipulate objects in ways that, again, would’ve been intuitive with a mouse. But for the console release, virtually everything requires you to hold down a trigger, and then rotate a thumbstick, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not. Turning a dial? Rotate the thumbstick. Sliding a panel? Rotate the thumbstick. Trying to enter a number into a device? Rotate the damn thumbstick! And it’s even worse, because the sensitivity on this interface is all over the damn map. You could be trying to move some device one notch to the left, but have to rotate the thumbstick in the opposite direction you’d expect, only to have it whip past half a dozen notches before you can stop. It is legitimately one of the worst control schemes I’ve ever come across, and when you combine it with the awful navigation to get your guy from point A to point B, it made some of the otherwise inventive puzzles almost unplayable.

I realize I haven’t talked about the story yet, and while it’s also a bit of a mess, I should at least do broad strokes. You play as Franklin Fargo, a professor who’s tried to end his own life by driving his car off a bridge, for reasons that become clearer as the game goes on. But your plan is foiled when you find yourself waking up in a futuristic pod, with no idea of where you are, how you got there, or if you can trust the disembodied voice that starts talking to you. But the voice eventually leads you, GLADoS-style, through an abandoned research facility and into a bizarre plot involving the nature of consciousness, multiverse theory, and Mayan prophecies (heavily leaning into puzzles based on their vigesimal number system). It’s…weird. Nowhere near as unhinged as, say, Indigo Prophecy, but it really does try to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. And in an adventure this short, that’s a pretty tall order.

All in all, Subject 13 isn’t a bad game, per se, but it’s certainly rough around the edges–even without the limitations of the console versions. If you’re curious, I can only in good conscience tell you to pick it up on Steam, and avoid the awful PS4/XBox ports.

Speaking of awful, just *look* at this, and tell me you see anything but the concrete floor of a steel mill that’s been abandoned for years. The other carpeting jobs are nowhere near this bad.

Upside down

As I write this, it’s May 2nd, 2025. If you’re in the United States, that means it’s 5/2/25: a number that looks the same if you flip it upside down, at least in certain typefaces, and so long as you ignore the slashes and the first two digits of the year. If you’re in other, saner parts of the world that list the date in a more sensible day/month/year order, then this happened back in February. Sorry, we Americans do a lot of things in the stupidest way possible. Anyway, this brings us to today’s word.

strobogrammatic, adj. – something, as a number, that appears the same upside down as it does right-side up

Learned from: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch)

Developed by Simogo

Published by Annapurna Interactive (2024)

I’d always thought that numbers that looked the same upside down were neat–I mean, who didn’t spell out “BOOBIES” on a calculator at some point as a kid? Though in that case, it’s not a true strobogrammatic number, since the result isn’t identical to how it looks right-side up. Or like when we got a verification key fob for one of the stations at work, and I inadvertently read it upside down and got us locked out of the system.

Anyway, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes pulls a lot from real-life escape rooms, being full of number and word puzzles, some of which are strobogrammatic. The game, itself, is…weird. It’s like if you threw Twin Peaks, The Twilight Zone, Clue, and an international film festival into a blender, and topped it with a dash of The King in Yellow. It casts you as an artist(?) called to a remote mansion at the behest of an eccentric filmmaker, who wants to use your talents to create a truly transcendental work of art that may unmake reality itself…maybe.

Or maybe not. It’s a very surreal game that’s open to interpretation nearly every step of the way. I don’t want to say much else, because it’s very much worth playing. It’s a very unique, memorable narrative that stands out among…pretty much anything else out there.

It works with words sometimes, too! Turn this upside down, and it spells “abpa.”

Always look for the humour

We are certainly living through interesting times–in the Chinese curse sense of the term–here in the US. It’s barely been a week into the new administration, and from one day to the next, you can pick a random group of people, and there’s a good chance that the status of their employment, healthcare, liberty, etc. will be anything but certain. Entire swathes of our society are already being reworked, and by this time next year, our cars are probably going to be running on coal, and doctors are going to be relegated to diagnosing illnesses as imbalances of the four humours. Which brings us to today’s word.

splenetic, adj. – spiteful, ill-tempered, or melancholic

Learned from: Astrologaster (PC, Mac, mobile, Nintendo Switch)

Developed by Nyamyam

Published by Nyamyam (2019)

Astrologaster is an odd little adventure game, where you play as a freelance physician in Elizabethan England, who believes that superior medical treatment can be provided by consulting the stars. You go through the story meeting various (sometimes famous and powerful) clients, listening to their complaints and symptoms, and after consulting your star charts, offering what astrology claims is the proper diagnosis and cure, like prescribing cherries to a particularly splenetic individual…or warning them away from cherries; I don’t exactly remember what the stars said, but I remember cherries were involved in the consultation.

Along the way, you can lie and try to screw over clients you don’t like, have love affairs, dodge draconian regulations, try to get rich by nefarious means, and more. Your character isn’t a particularly good person, as you come to learn over time (spoilers), and my main gripe with the game is that you have very little say in this. As far as I can tell, certain events play out regardless of what you do, and whether you’d want your character to act in certain ways or not. Still, it’s an interesting, and quite different narrative adventure game, and worth a look if you can find it on sale.

If nothing else, it’s funny to diagnose someone with the plague, and tell them their only hope lies in daily enemas of honey and prune juice or whatever.

Hey, whatever helps you get through the day

Well, 2025 is here, and I’m actually going to give a bit more focus to my New Year’s resolutions than normal, because that’s at least something to distract me from, well *gestures broadly*. One of those resolutions is overcoming my backlog paralysis by having friends help me choose which games to play next with random numbers. And wouldn’t you know it? The first game I landed on ended up teaching me a word or two already; and perhaps a more drastic way of escaping reality. Which brings us to today’s word.

entheogenic, adj. – hallucinogenic, psychoactive

Learned from: Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder (PC)

Developed by Zoetrope Interactive

Published by Iceberg Interactive (formerly: Lighthouse Interactive) (2007)

Darkness Within is Myst-style point & click adventure game with an emphasis on Lovecraftian horror, before Lovecraftian horror became all the rage. You play as a police detective on the trail of a man named Loath Nolder (yes, seriously), a private eye, who’s suspected of murder. During your investigation of the victim’s house, you discover that he was into some weird stuff: exotic drugs, mystic rites, bizarre local folklore, etc. I personally also learned that it was apparently somewhat common for people to have wells inside their homes in the 19th century (a discovery I’m simultaneously relieved and a little disappointed not to have made in my own house, which is rather old).

I’m not finished with it yet, as the year is still young, but so far Darkness Within is a fairly standard adventure game, with graphics that would’ve been decent at the time, and at least one gameplay feature I’ve never seen before.

As is common with games of this type, there’s a lot of reading to do: newspaper clippings, journals, notes, police reports, etc. But here, there’s a mechanic that has you underlining pertinent information in these documents to find leads and clues. The problem (if you’re playing on the hardest difficulty, like I am), is that there’s an awful lot to read through, and it’s not always clear what you should be underlining–or if there’s anything in a passage worth underlining at all. Add to that, the fact that you can’t take certain papers with you, and it leads to a fair amount of backtracking and frustration, as you underline something about strange statues that seem almost alive, only to have the game tell you, “Nothing particularly interesting.” I could lower the difficulty, sure, but we’ll see how much of a roadblock this ends up being.

7 seems a bit young for something like this. Not for any explicit content (so far), but I can’t imagine kids’ attention spans back in 2007 were that much longer. This game is a slow burn.

Hope you enjoy the series finale

It’s July 4th (Independence Day, for those of you outside the US), as I write this, and I find myself in a rather melancholy state of mind. This has always been one of my least-favorite holidays to begin with–it’s loud, the events are always crowded, and most of the festivities take place outside during the hottest stretch of the year–but given recent events, I feel like there isn’t much reason to celebrate at all. Er…I mean, everything is totally fine here, and we definitely haven’t just handed the president the powers of a king, which the felonious maniac whose cult will probably elect him in November will wield to punish any opposition once he’s back in office, and never abdicate the throne. Everything is great. Just great. How are you? Let’s talk about eagles.

eyrie, noun – an eagle’s nest

Learned from: Shivers (PC, Mac)

Developed by Sierra On-Line

Published by Sierra On-Line (1995)

I really kind of miss Sierra On-Line. You could argue that their adventure games weren’t as polished as the ones made by Lucas Arts (also RIP), but man, were they memorable. Take Shivers, for example. The game starts with you, a teenager, being dared to spend the night inside Professor Windlenot’s Museum of the Strange and Unusual–a Ripley’s Believe It or Not type of place, that never finished construction after the eponymous Prof. Windlenot disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Being that it was abandoned, you have to get creative about finding a way in, and once you’re inside, you find yourself trapped with the evil spirits from one of the exhibits that likely killed the professor. From there, it’s a struggle for survival as you make your way through all the weird (sometimes cursed) stuff Windlenot collected over the years, searching for a way to contain the spirits and get out alive.

Part of the fun of Shivers was never quite knowing what you’d find in the next room. You’ll go from exhibits about torture devices, to ancient Egypt, to an entire section devoted to optical illusions, to strange things found in nature–like the world’s biggest eyrie. As I remember, it takes up most of the room it’s in, and I was always worried something was going to reach/jump out from inside it, as I edged my way around its massive bulk. But it was just one memorable scene from a game that was full of them. Sure, it’s a bit dated at this point, but it’s still worth a play.

And, it’s like six bucks on GOG.com: https://www.gog.com/en/game/shivers

Put some spring in your step

It’s April, which means for most places in the northern hemisphere, it’s springtime. And while that’s technically true where I live as well, you’d never know it. The snow is starting to melt, but it’s still easily a foot deep in a lot of places, and it’ll be some time before we start seeing flowers come up. Which brings us to today’s word.

hippeastrum, noun – a genus of evergreen plants with large, red flowers, native to tropical and subtropical regions

Learned from: The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow (PC, Mac)

Developed by Cloak and Dagger Games

Published by Wadjet Eye Games (2022)

The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is a slow-burn horror adventure game, where you play archaeologist, Thomasina Bateman as she arrives in the remote English town of Bewlay, hoping to excavate the titular barrow. Things quickly go wrong, but in ways that are only subtly insidious at first: the person you’re supposed to meet is nowhere to be found, your partner never arrives with your supplies…or the money you need to even pay for lodging, and everyone in town seems just a little…off. But maybe they’re just not used to strangers; yeah, that’s probably it.

What develops is a rather impressive bit of folk horror that’s heavy on atmosphere and light on any straight-up scares for most of it. Instead, you quickly find yourself wondering just who you can trust, what’s going on behind the scenes, and how far you’re willing to go to achieve your goals. And of course, there are some convoluted puzzles to solve as you go–if you’ve played The Secret of Monkey Island, or King’s Quest, you’ve got an idea of what you’re in store for.

For instance, you need to get your hands on some hippeastrum flowers, so you can convince an old lady to bake puddings for a stuck-up aristocrat. But before you can do that, you need to track down a missing milk man, so that the maid who’s in love with him might look the other way when you go to procure them, and…you know, standard adventure game stuff.

Still, despite how absurd some of the puzzles can get, there’s a solid Gothic mystery to enjoy here, with elements of isolation and creeping dread that seep in from the get-go, and never really leave. Plus, it’s all voice acted (and competently at that), so if you like old-school adventure games with an aesthetic to match, there’s a lot to enjoy here.

The pixel art really doesn’t do these flowers justice.

Trundling through life

So, there’s a little game called Dredge, that’s coming out in just a few days. It’s kind of like if H.P. Lovecraft wrote Animal Crossing: You find yourself on an island, and your boat is wrecked. The townsfolk there are willing to loan you another vessel, on the condition that you pay for it by fishing…totally normal fishing, and not trawling the seas for unnamable horrors that might drive you mad before your debt is squared away. It sounds like fun. And to try and get in the best mindset for it, I’ve spent the past week or so reading classics like “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” watching movies like The Lighthouse, and digging through my Steam library for nautical-themed horror games. Which brings us to today’s word.

lollop, verb – to move in an unsteady, clumsy fashion

Learned from: Hunter’s Journals: Pale Harbour (PC)

Developed by Grindwheel Games

Published by Grindwheel Games (2019)

The Hunter’s Journals series apparently comprises five games, casting you as a monster hunter in a variety of different settings–a monster hunter who, despite the game’s assurances of your skill and renown, seems quite likely to die at the slightest misstep or lapse in judgment. At least, if Pale Harbour is any indication. This one tasks you with discovering the source of the abominations from the sea that have driven the inhabitants of a small fishing village from their homes. One such encounter with one of these beasts has it lolloping out of a house in pursuit of you, after you’ve wounded it.

I know this is the exact thing that it does, because this game (and series, I’d imagine), is more or less a digital Choose Your Own Adventure-style book, with some light RPG mechanics thrown in to give it some replayability. Aside from Stamina, your character really only has one stat: Skill. On most difficulties, these are determined randomly at the start of the game. Stamina is health, and Skill is your base competency at most things, which you roll two six-sided dice and add them to this value for your result. Both of these attributes will diminish as you play, but neither of them will save you from the instant-death dead ends you’ll find yourself at before you die in combat, most of the time. The story’s interesting enough, and it’s all narrated…though the voice actor’s delivery sometimes leaves a little to be desired.

The sudden deaths may be off-putting to some, but if you grew up with these kinds of books, there’s a lot to like here.