Was that me complaining
not long ago about the “death” of the classic adventure
game? Yeah, I think it was. What was I thinking? I guess what had
me upset was the abandonment of the adventure game in the late Nineties
by some of its fabled founders, most notably LucasArts and Sierra
Online. Lucas is now doing all those Star Wars shoot-em-ups where
you get to play the Dark Lord or something. And earn a lot of RPG
type points in the process. Yeah, that’s why evil sorcerers go into
the world domination biz — to collect game points. You know what
RPG games should give away instead? Green stamps. About a half century
ago every largish food outlet in the country gave away pages of stamps
when you bought groceries. Then you ran home, laboriously pasted them
into books and used them to buy mostly cheesy stuff at what they called
reclamation centers. I think they retrofitted the reclamation centers
into rehab centers for substance abusers, but otherwise the whole
green stamp thing was stamped out decades ago. I think it’s well past
time to bring ’em back. Only the modern innovation would be that you
earn points to buy stuff on eBay. So you blast a whole bunch of rebels
or jedis in the latest Star Wars game and you get a bunch of points
you can redeem to buy used toaster ovens online. Everybody wins.

Anyway, getting back to
my original point, I’ve suddenly realized there’s now a wealth of
adventure games out there. Not only that, but a wealth of excellent
adventure games. Not only that, but a veritable cornucopia of free,
excellent adventure games. The game that most recently drove this
point into my pointy little head goes by the name of Ben
There, Dan That.

BTDT
is a “pointy-clicky” adventure that follows the zany, vaguely
sci-fi exploits of Ben and Dan, two struggling independent game designers
who room together somewhere in London. The plot has a couple of boxy,
buggy aliens conspiring to take over the world, but first feel it
imperative to get roomies Dan and Ben out of the way. Actually, the
plot, though fun, isn’t really the point in this game. What’s really
going on here is the game designers, coincidentally named Dan and
Ben, are having a whale of a good time reliving all their favorite
LucasArts adventure games. Lest anyone miss the inspiration for this
romp, the game proper begins in a living room dominated by huge posters
of LucasArts’ greatest adventure hits. BTDT
most closely cleaves to the shenanigans of Day
of the Tentacle, with time travel and other astrophysical
goings on going on. Dan and Ben are, in real life, respectively, Dan
Marshall and Ben Ward. Mr. Marshall would appear to be the mad genius
primarily behind BTDT. The game’s website
provides all you could wish to know about Dan and his gaming exploits.

The game’s graphics more
resemble late Looney Tunes than late LucasArts, but are more than
adequate. All the characters look like postage stamps with matchstick
legs and the animations have been, as the characters in the game themselves
point out, restrained by budget. But you’re not going to be playing
this game for the cutting-edge technology. What shines here is the
writing and, of course, all the inside jokes about independent gamers
and all things LucasArtsy. Be forewarned, however, as the one quality
Dan and Ben have not carried over from the best of Lucas is the PG
rating. BTDT borders, in fact, on being
R rated, I’d say. There’s a fair amount of genuine cussing and an
awful lot of talk about wanking and other generally unacceptable behavior.
Being, apparently, British, Ben and Dan also frequently indulge their
fondness for bashing all things American. For a couple of guys who
obviously grew up insanely addicted to Star Wars and American television
it does seem odd that they don’t cut the USA a bit more slack culturally.
Oh well. Apparently our movies and TV are great but our beer is unforgivable.
On the other hand, there’s so much snarking around in this game about
everything, including religion, that I don’t suppose any of the victims
should feel too singled out.

The BTDT
website itself describes the gameplay as easy to average difficulty,
and I agree with that. They do also provide an equally well-written
“hint-through,” which I applaud as walkthroughs are not
my thing. It took me about a half dozen hours to complete the game,
and I am extremely methodical. You might get through it in half that
time. Which means you’ll probably have missed what’s most amusing
here — reading the blurbs. One of the things that made the LucasArts’
adventure games great was, of course, the hilarious writing in such
classics as Day
of the Tentacle, Sam and Max
and the Monkey Island series. Some of the
best jokes were to be found by doing the most improbable of game activities.
Ben and Dan have, if anything, upped the ante. In fact, my only complaint
with this game is that some of the dialog balloon exchanges, while
amusing, carry on way too long. That is, Ben and Dan often get off
a little too much on their own cleverness. Someone actually trying
to progress through the game, as a game, is going to have to do a
lot of clicking away of multi-colored dialog blurbs.

In short, Ben
There, Dan That is really more of an homage than a game.
While both aspects have been well done, I would say that this game
is primarily geared for LucasArts and classic computer gaming fans.
Newer players are likely to be perplexed at about half of what’s going
on.

There is some music in
this game, modest though its specs are, and it is not only good but
appropriate. I also thought the somewhat sparse sound effects were
also well done. As I say, the game is on the short side, but it’s
also free. Well, sort of. It is what the designers themselves have
dubbed “donationware.” I suppose this differs from shareware
in the sense that the authors really don’t expect to get paid, whereas
the shareware guys do. I do wish there were a simpler way to remunerate
hard-working, inventive independent gamemakers like Dan and Ben other
than through PayPal. It’s not that I don’t trust PayPal, it’s just
that the whole payment scheme is too haphazard. One might even label
this sort of thing “guiltware.” That is, only the super-guilty
(or super-honest) people ever fork over any cash. But when a game
is downloaded by, as the BTDT website claims, over ten thousand people,
there should be some sort of unavoidable cash reward for that. Other
than in-game advertising banners I’m not sure what this should be.
Bill Gates once floated the idea of everyone paying pennies for email.
His idea was that this would be an insignificant cost for most of
us, but would be prohibitive for spammers, who send out millions of
emails. It seems to me something similar could be worked out for web
surfing, and for downloading. If Dan (and Ben) got even a few pennies
each time their terrific game was downloaded, it would eventually
add up to significant dough.

Dan, Ben and their cohorts
should certainly be applauded for their efforts, but I think perhaps
the real hero here is a guy named Chris Jones. Mr. Jones is the one
responsible for AGS, Adventure Game Studio, which is the game-making
software that BTDT was composed in. AGS, somewhat miraculously, allows
talented folks like Dan and Ben to skip most of the expense and drudgery
of coding an adventure game. As I understand it, one basically supplies
one’s own artwork, character sprites and sounds, while AGS largely
takes care of the game underpinnings. So, you say, so what? Well,
take a gander at the AGS games now available, all for free, on the
games pages. Full-sized games, medium-sized, small-sized. I must have
played a couple dozen of these things over the past few years myself.
BTDT, as excellent as it is, is only one
of a hundred or more equally, or almost equally, well-crafted AGS
classic adventures. Just to mention a few, there are the many Yahtzee
games (5
Days a Stranger, etc.), there are the marvelous
remakes of King’s Quest I, II, and III. There are the Ben Jordan paranormal
games. The list goes on and on. While I was looking over the site
while researching this review I noticed an Indiana Jones “homage”
game demo that I downloaded and played, Indiana Jones and the Fountain
of Youth. It’s terrific.

The classic adventure may
be dead at LucasArts and at Sierra Online, but it is more than alive
and well at the AGS site and many other places. Advances in technology
led George Lucas and other pioneers to abandon the adventure game
for the richer realms of the RPG and the FPS, but computer advances
also permitted talented, hard-working folks like Dan Marshall and
Ben Ward to take up the dropped baton.

By the way, I’m giving
Ben There, Dan That a final score of B. You may be thinking, how can
you lavish all this praise on these guys and cough up a measly B?
Frankly, this is a game that is going to strike different constituencies
quite differently. If you are a Maniac Mansion maniac, you are going
to love BTDT. If you’re easily offended, you’re going to hate it.
So, to be fair to all, the game gets a mean of B. However, you gamers
all know who you are, and can judge your interest in BTDT appropriately.
Just remember — Green stamps. In the new green economy they’re going
to be even huger. And greener.