The State of Adventure Gaming–September 1998

The State of Adventure Gaming

By Randy Sluganski
September 1998

Hello fellow adventure gamers! (Many thanks to Evan for suggesting I make that phrase my trademark!)

Okay, enough of the in-jokes already. Oftentimes you can’t help but wonder if any thought is given to the columns and articles you have written. Sure, I know from the page impressions that we have many readers, but are we making an impact? Well, a few days ago I had occasion to visit my local Best Buy (my hard drive decided to do a Princess Di) and–lo and behold–there was now an area devoted to and clearly designated as the adventure games section! Is it mere coincidence that I write about Best Buy’s (and others) neglect of the genre and a month later find that this small miracle has occurred? Of course, at least half of the games in this new adventure section did not belong there–Nightmare Creatures and Fallout among others–and games like Riven and X-Files were still in the action section. But, hey, it’s a start! Just remember, be a pest (like yours truly) and gently remind the store managers in your area that adventure games do exist.

The response to our survey so far has been phenomenal (except for one reader who seems to have misplaced her sense of humor)! If you have not filled it out, please do so now! I am truly amazed not only by the large amount of female adventure gamers but am also greatly encouraged by the enormous contingent of younger adventure gamers. This can only bode well for the future of adventure gaming. We will let the survey run for a few more weeks so that those of you who were on summer vacation or have just returned to your college dorm can voice your much needed opinion. Don’t be surprised if the input from the survey makes JA an even better site than it is now.

What’s in the works for JA this month? Well, this is the time of year that all gamers, not just adventure, love the most. For the next four months we will be deluged with new game releases. Good games, bad games, games we never even heard of until they are released. Just this month alone the adventure fan can expect Morpheus, Redjack, Quest for Glory V, Heart of Darkness, Grim Fandango and Redguard. Rest assured that we will have reviews and maybe even walkthroughs of every one of these new releases. Also, check those new adventure release box covers and print ads closely, ’cause I have a sneaking suspicion you may find some quotes from JA on them! Plus, we are all hard at work on new Blast from the Past reviews and I am currently having my armor cleaned for another visit to the perversely popular Dungeon of Shame. Andy will dig up some more “dirt” on Sierra, Evan’s busy burrowing deep into those clearance bins, Peter is always busy redoing the graphic quality of the site and don’t forget to visit Matt’s excellent new “Daily News” page. Plus, we have a new member, Linda Shaw, who is an expert on the “puzzle” type adventure games and will, I’m sure, be contributing many helpful walkthroughs to the site. She will surely be a rose among many thorns.

I hear many of you asking though, what about JA’s fearless founder, Craig White? When will we be reading some output from his skillful pen? This is where I need your help, dear reader. If each and every one of you reading this column were to send Craig an e-mail and put in the header “Write Darn You,” then I am sure that with this type of encouragement we would once again begin to see a plethora of articles from Mr. White!

Finally, some have advised that we be careful and not delude ourselves into thinking that we are the second coming. I am sure that none of us here believe that, but I would like to think that we are the first, coming your way every day with our best effort to give you the scoop in adventure land. We want this to be the site that brings together adventure gamers from all over the world to share their experiences. We can, with our continued support of new releases and web sites such as Just Adventure, once again bring the adventure game to the forefront of the industry.

‘Til next month.