Over the years we have had the privilege of working with so many incredibly talented writers and creators who share our love and passion for Adventure Games. Continue reading below for a bit about who they are and what they have to say.
I've been with JA in one capacity or other since 2003. I'm currently website administrator. I'm also a digital artist (my avatar is one of my creations). I write reviews and articles, create graphics and basically help tend the site. It's work I enjoy very much. I love playing games of all kinds, but adventure and RPGs are my favorites (particularly scary/dark/unsettling ones). At the top of my list are The Cat Lady, The Longest Journey, Dreamfall, Still Life (first one only), Scratches and Culpa Innata. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool recluse and prefer the company of animals, hardware and ghosts to human beings (no offense). And no bio would be complete without my saying that I do NOT care for phones of ANY sort. Further, I think Dell computers are garbage and that Microsoft has become megalomaniacal. "I put my heart and soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process." - Vincent Van Gogh "I need solitude for my writing; not like a hermit - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man." - Franz Kafka "I've been to hell and back, my boy." - Susan Ashworth, The Cat Lady
A gaming freakazoid, Ray enjoys games on all platforms. Also loves board games, mind games, and all puzzles. Co-wrote the Entertainment Tonight trivia game and designed puzzles for two Law & Order PC games. Also a movie freak, bookworm, and travel bug. Thinks games of all kinds are a highly underappreciated force for social good, not to mention mental and psychological health. Ray's favorite adventures include the "Broken Sword" and "Journeyman Project" franchises, "The Dark Eye," "The Feeble Files," "Sanitarium," "Limbo," "Machinarium," "Riven," "The Neverhood," and "Azrael's Tear." His favorite non-adventures include the "Thief," "Uncharted," and "Ratchet & Clank" franchises, all of the Bioware RPGs, Skyrim, and Final Fantasy XII. Ray writes about the movies for the Bryan/College Station Daily Eagle, which is the old-fashioned thing called a "newspaper." He's been on eight game shows. He's taught in seven countries and has visited twenty-one. His favorite classic movie star is Barbara Stanwyck and his favorite novel is "The Hotel New Hampshire" by John Irving.
Cindy’s love affair with gaming began when she opened a mailbox in front of a white house and took the first step in a long series of adventures. ‘Back in the day,’ Cindy was a regular contributor to JA and an active member of the online gaming community. She has attended several E3s and has had the pleasure of spending time in person with both Ray and Randy. Her all- time favorite adventures include the Tex Murphy series, the Gabriel Knight series, and The Longest Journey. She also enjoys RPGs and her list of ‘best ever’ includes Fallout, Asheron’s Call, and Planescape Torment. Â Frustrated with the cost of rising PC system requirements, Cindy decided to switch to console and tablet gaming. Although you can teach some old dogs new tricks, she discovered that console controller dexterity is a skill set that she is lacking. Her results with tablet gaming were not much better. With the exception of a few gems such as The Room and Forever Lost, there is a limit to how much one can play Candy Crush and Hidden Object Adventures. Having proved that pure escapism is worth the investment, she has a new gaming laptop and is back to her search for the perfect adventure. Â After spending most of her life in Los Angeles and Atlanta, Cindy escaped the stress of urban life and moved to rural Arkansas. To show that she has become a true Arkansan, she has taken up deer hunting, wears pink camo, and put a chicken coop in her backyard. On a stressful day, she can be heard yelling ‘Woo Pig Sooie’ when all else fails.
I have been playing adventure games since 1979 when I played "Adventure" on the DEC PDP minicomputer at work. The first adventure game I ever purchased was "Zork 1" for CP/M. I can remember the introduction of the IBM PC. I remember the invention of the microcomputer (actually, it was discovered rather than invented). I remember the invention of the minicomputer. Yes, I am an old fart. I have written 80 reviews and articles for JustAdventure starting with my review of "Bioscopia" in February of 2004. I currently own more adventure games than I will ever be able to play, let alone review. And I want more!
David Kim is a self-professed gamer geek who's whiled away countless hours on Adventure, RPG, and RTS games. Topping his recommended Adventure Games list for recent releases are Grim Fandango Remastered, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and The Walking Dead.When he's not playing adventure games, expect to find David laddering in StarCraft II or doing another arena run on Hearthstone. David is best playing Terran but wishes he could play Zerg competently. His favorite class in Hearthstone is Mage.David moved to Tampa, FL in 2010 from NYC, and is glad he doesn't have to deal with NE weather and the outrageous costs of living in the city.
Randy Sluganski was a true adventure gamer and his passion for these games made him just as important as the developers and publishers of these games. Randy passed away after battling lung cancer for over 10 years. Randy can never be replaced but we would like to light a torch in his memory for what he did for us with his love of adventure gaming.We dedicate this site to the Memory of Randy Sluganski and his love for adventure games.
Jeffry's first memory of gaming was blowing himself up in Zork by walking into the gas room with a torch. Then he tried King's Quest on a PCjr and has been a fan of the genre ever since.Jeffry Houser is a technical entrepreneur that likes to share cool stuff with other people. In his professional career, Jeffry runs an IT Consulting form. He has a Computer Science degree from the days before the business met the Internet and has built a career around using technology to solve business problems. He has written four technical books, over 30 articles and hundreds of podcasts. Jeffry has published a casual game on Android, titled Igor Knots and the Magonda Maze.In his spare time Jeffry is a musician, writer, podcaster, and recording engineer. His first table top game should come to Kickstarter in early 2015. You can read his personal blog at www.jeffryhouser.com.
Bailey’s lifelong love of adventure games began with the Nancy Drew game Message in a Haunted Mansion, when she learned that you can drop chandeliers on bad people without getting in trouble, and has since expanded to include a panoply of other favorites like the Myst games, the Monkey Island series, any game involving Sherlock Holmes, the Tomb Raider franchise, and the all-time best adventure game ever created, Grim Fandango. She's added more recent releases like Firewatch and Life is Strange to her list but nonetheless loves diving into the old classics. She still spends large amounts of time searching for secret passages in the hope of finding an unsolved mystery lurking out of sight. Bailey graduated from Oberlin College and lived in New York City for three years before returning to her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is a business development representative for a trucking software company. In addition to hoarding adventure games, her other interests include film, cooking, running, writing fiction, and eating copiously.
Ian is a video game addict with no hope for recovery. He spends his days trapped inside JRPGs, platformers, and adventure games. His favorite games include the Borderlands series, The Walking Dead, Final Fantasy Tactics, Super Meat Boy, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Given his penchant for emotional games and the horror genre, he hopes Oculus is developing a VR system that is resistant to his tears.Ian graduated from The Ohio State University and now works in Wisconsin as an Implementation Consultant at a software company. He is the Editor ‘n Chef of SilverSporkNews.com, a millennial food website. Ian owns a Virtual Boy and hopes that someday someone will actually care.
I was born during the golden years of adventure games. My first foray into gaming was with Broderbund's revised version "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" That was around 1995, on my Compaq Presario that my dad wouldn’t let me use every day. Eventually, I captured all 40 criminals and moved on to collecting all other games in the series. That’s when my obsession with mysteries started! :-)Then, when I got a gift card to CompUSA, I found "Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion." Having been turned on to the books by my first cousin (a bad idea on her part, for sure), I eagerly snatched it up and spent hours playing with it. I remember having to order the strategy guide because I missed seeing a vital clue. Regardless, I was hooked on adventure games for good. I got my start at JA when I stumbled upon the site and enjoyed Ray and Randy's hilarious reviews. I emailed Randy and told him I was interested in ‘joining the JA community’ and attached a review of Cameron Files 2 as a resume of sorts. After brief correspondence, my big break came in October of 2003 when Randy asked him to review the latest Nancy Drew game, "Danger on Deception Island."I think my early reviews lacked substance as I tried to figure out how best to go about reviewing, but I believe that I have mastered my own style and take pleasure in reviewing the occasional detective game that comes along. Despite the fact that I cannot find a lot of time for adventure games nowadays, I have played and enjoyed “Scratches,” “Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express,” “Jack Orlando: Director’s Cut,” “Clue Chronicles,” “Tony Tough,” and others. I may be the youngest of the JA crew (not out of high school just yet!), but I still enjoy what I do; my only wish is that I had been born maybe ten years earlier so I could've seen more of the genre's golden age.
Alexander Tait was born in Kobe, Japan, the son of Australian diplomats and has a degree in Speech Pathology. He works at an outpatient hospital in Newcastle, two hours north of Sydney, where he helps people with strokes and other neurological conditions recover their communication and swallowing.Alex lives with his wife, Juanita, sons Dakota Sioux and Kiowa, and dogs, Suleiman and India. He and his wife became involved with adventure gaming in 1998, with Juanita primarily playing the "quality" games. Alex enjoys seeking out and writing walkthroughs for the more obscure adventure games. He has, to date, infected his mother-in-law, mother, sister, and brother-in-law with the adventure game virus. AND HE'LL GET YOU TOO!
Kyle enjoys all things games. From video games to pen and paper games, his interests span the mecca of gaming. When he isn't playing games, he can often be found making them. Kyle is currently in the Game Development specialization at Michigan State University, and he hopes to turn it into a career in the games industry. Â Kyle's favorite adventure games are The Walking Dead Season 1, Danganronpa, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Tales from the Borderlands, and Machinarium. His gaming interests aren't focused exclusively on adventure games, however. Some of his favorite non-adventure games are Final Fantasy VI, VII, and XII, Mass Effect, Dark Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last of Us, and The Unfinished Swan. Â When not gaming, Kyle loves to watch movies and read in his spare time. His favorite movie is currently not known, as he cannot pick from his growing list of favorites. His favorite book is Ender's Game, with Ready Player One as a close second. Kyle is currently trying to bring back the word 'radical', and his friends wish that he would stop.
Michal Necasek, called Mike or Michael by people who can't properly pronounce his first, let alone last name (that includes over 99% of Earth's population) is an experienced gamer and prefers adventure games to other genres. He started playing computer games a lot about 13 years ago when he got his first computer, a Commodore 64.Being a very inquisitive person, he always wanted to know what made PCs tick. Now, after ten years, he has a fairly good idea - good enough to earn him a salary as a software engineer specialized in low level graphics programming. Although he received considerable amount of education, his computer skills are largely self-taught. Born in then Communist Czechoslovakia, Michal is now earning dollars in California and enjoying it.
Music by day, adventure games by night, Randall Rigdon Jr is a music composer with an affinity for interactive entertainment. Having discovered favorites such as Riven, Obsidian and Blade Runner from the Just Adventure publication, Randall is thrilled to be a part of the team!
Kemal Ure is an avid adventure gaming fan, artificial intelligence nerd and death metal bass player. He got hooked on adventure games at 1998 when he first played Grim Fandango. Later he discovered Myst and Gabriel Knight, which led him to start a personal quest on playing all the adventure games ever published. After years of gaming he discovered that he has a lot to say about adventure games and started writing reviews at his personal blog. Eventually he started writing for JustAdventure at 2014. He mostly prefers games with challenging puzzles and dark stories.He is currently a professor of aerospace engineering at Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. He got his PhD degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at 2015. When he is not teaching at the university or playing adventure games, he spends most of his time playing bass for various metal bands and composing music. He publishes bass playthrough videos regularly at his YouTube channel.
Born in Greece, 1975. Started gaming almost as soon as talking and walking! First adventure experience: Deja Vu, on my brand new Amiga 500, on September 1988 - a game that changed my life forever! Played and finished a 3-digit number of adventure games since then! Favorite adventure game: The Colonel's Bequest (coincidentally based on favorite book, Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (aka And Then There Were None)). Also, big fan of Survival Horror games, with Parasite Eve being my favorite (surprise!). Favorite game ever: Kick Off 2 on Amiga!The two most important people in my adventuring and reviewing career:Andreas Tsourinakis: Adventure grand master and reviewer on the greek magazine PC Master. Andreas personally took me by the hand during my first adventuring baby steps, and to him I owe a lot of my adventuring experience! Randy Sluganski: One of the greatest adventure personas worldwide! The genre would certainly not have been the same without him. Randy gave me the opportunity to be a reviewer on the biggest adventure site in the world!
Sudeep Pasricha has been an avid adventure gamer ever since he stumbled upon the LucasArts classic Day of the Tentacle, back in 1993. Since then he has whiled away possibly several years of his life in the pursuit of popular and offbeat adventure games. His dedication to gaming often transmogrifies him into a hermit, compelling him to spend several sleepless nights until he finishes a game. And then he likes to enthusiastically discuss it with anyone who's unfortunate enough to wander into his path. Which is probably why his therapist suggested he take recourse in writing, to vent his suppressed passion. Over the last decade, he has written articles and columns for several computer magazines, on topics such as games, technology and the internet.Born in New Delhi, India, he currently resides in California where he is pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science. Before coming to California, he lived briefly in Southern France, where he worked for a semiconductor research and development lab. He loves to wander the world and has spent inordinate amounts of time (and an obscene amount of money) traveling across Europe, Asia and America. Sometimes he feels a desire to disconnect from worldly pleasures and just meditate peacefully in solitude. When he returns to the earthly realm, he indulges in his other favorite pastimes of watching movies, listening to music (he loves Radiohead), reading books (Terry Pratchett is his favorite author) and spending time outdoors either on the beach or hiking on mountains.
My love of video games began back in the 80s with my parents' arcade business and took a professional turn when I went to work for LucasArts in 2002. After working on more Star Wars titles than you could shake a stick at, I became a freelance video game critic, a job that more fully enabled my full-on video game obsession.My favorite games are Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey and Deus Ex, which goes to show I love good stories, strong heroines and black leather trenchcoats.
My name is Erik Parkin. I like iced coffee. I graduated Suma Cum Latte from Seattle University. I enjoy a good story and have been telling them since kindergarten. When I’m not playing adventure games, I volunteer at a non-profit organization in Seattle, work on my fantasy novel, and write in my blog, Fantasy's Gate, at http://parkin.silverfir.net/wordpress/?page_id=87.
Dawn is an active gamer, with her favorite platform MMORPGs. Â Since the earliest Pong and written choose your own adventure style games on the Commodore 64, she has been a part of the gaming community since before it was mainstream. While she does play console, most of her gaming preferences is computer based. A retired army veteran, Dawn lives in Washington State with her husband and three kids. She homeschools her kids, runs a national homeschooling network, earned two Bachelors (Psychology and Criminal Justice) and is now working on her Masters in Constitutional Law. She also is the Executive Officer for a sports complex and runs the nonprofit which works with it. On the side, she works with radio personalities to find sponsorships that meet their audience target.
My name is Daniel Deitrick, and I'm a writer for JustAdventure.com with a focus on adventure and and action adventure games for the Xbox One. I graduated American University in 2014 with a political science degree and am currently living and working in the great non-state of Washington D.C.I've enjoyed computer games ever since the Living Books games when I was three years old, playing on my parents' old Mac. Since then I've played everything from FPS to RTS, and have collected a lot of adventure games on a platform where they're seeing new life - the Xbox One. My favorite adventure games include Brothers A Tale of Two Sons, Gone Home: Console Edition, Life is Strange, and Valiant Hearts The Great War.
Ugur was introduced to adventure games playing Monkey Island at a friend's house. Immediately falling in love with the genre, Ugur started avidly collecting and playing adventure games. Expanding his horizons to include many other genres, Ugur has a bigger collection of games than he cares to count. He can be frequenly sighted at game stores sifting through bargain bins or used games looking for hidden gems to add to his collection.A passionate fan of adventure games, Ugur enjoys having the opportunity to talk about his favorite genre here at Just Adventure. When he is not in front of the computer trying to solve a puzzle, come up with creative combinations for inventory items, leveling up one of his many role-playing characters, or figuring out a way to get past a tough boss fight, Ugur works as a business programmer. He currently resides with his wife in Oklahoma City.
Graham is old enough to remember when adventure games came on floppy disks and a 15 mb install meant you were in for a sweet fully-voiced (albeit scratchy) intro sequence. His first claim to fame was finishing Monkey Island on a monochrome monitor, then having his tiny mind blown when he saw it in VGA for the first time. He’s been hooked since. He now spends a disproportionate amount of his time revelling in all the amazing new adventure games coming out, but you’ll still sometimes find him in the darkened corner of the bar, mumbling something about lacklustre puzzle design in to his beer. When he’s not playing adventure games, he’s working on a PhD thesis in Philosophy and trying to figure out how he can squeeze adventure games in to it.
Jennifer Miller is a contributing writer to the walkthrough department of Just Adventure. Although she graduated with a degree in music, Jennifer counts writing and computers among her many loved hobbies. Aside from her work with Just Adventure, she is a full time singer/songwriter, part time fiction author, and part time computer geek.Jennifer first found the graphic adventure when she was 16. A complementary copy of the Presto's The Journeyman Project Turbo was included with her family's new Packard-Bell. After meeting Agent 5 and out-witting a crazed scientist with the help of the Pegasus time machine, Jennifer never looked at gaming the same way again.
Did you ever have that feeling when you realize something that will never change? I mean, do you remember when you realized your girlfriend would be your wife for the rest of your life? Oh, you're not married, I see - me neither. But anyway, my point is: the first day I played King's Quest back in 1987, I knew I'd be forever in love with the genre. Seriously, after entering a castle, climbing up a tree, exploring a cave and finding all kinds of treasures, I realized that was the kind of game I loved - with King's Quest I felt the sense of adventure in all its splendour and, while now it seems a bit bland after all these years, I still remember it as an enlightening experience. That's right - after King's Quest, I was an avid adventure gamer.Years passed, more adventures were played and the internet appeared. Somehow, I needed to find a place where I could gather more information about adventures, where I could satisfy my adventuring needs. Of the small bunch of sites dedicated to the genre, only one stood above the rest with loads of info and quality. Even better, where in most sites adventures were covered like a mere day-job, in this site the staff showed a whole-hearted love for the genre, just like me - that's how I knew about Just Adventure.More years passed, even more adventures were played and lots of visits to JA were payed. One day, the JA forum opened and, without intention, I was sucked in. Next, I could write a line like "less games were played, lots of posts were made" but I guess that's getting pretty tiresome by now. Cut to the chase: one day I started a topic about unfinished adventures with several comments, Randy liked it, he asked if I wanted to write an article about it and that's it - I'm in!Now a little about me. I'm 23 years old. As you may have guessed from my spelling mistakes, English isn't my native language. I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Right now I'm working as a programmer in a communications-oriented company. Also, I'm carrying on my Electronic Engineering career, which I'm liking a lot. When I'm not working and studying, I usually try to sleep - when I'm not sleeping it's because I'm playing games. I'm a huge fan of sci-fi and horror, genres I love on books, movies and games. Lovecraft is my most favorite writer. I'm a weird guy - people close to me know I'm a slightly deranged person. I often enjoy things most normal people don’t, like Monty Python (I really love British humour) and bizarre, low-budget, badly-acted horror movies.As for my favorite games - Wasteland, Fallout and System Shock are right at the top of my list. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "after that initial speech, this guy is telling me his favorite games are RPG's?!". Well, while those are the games I most enjoyed for several reasons (being a post-apocaliptic nut for two of them), that doesn't mean the adventure genre isn't the most I like. In fact, I've played and enjoyed so many adventures that it's very difficult for me to pick a few single favorites.
Spending hours playing Escape from Monkey Island, Nancy Drew and Frogger as a child really helped prepare Molly for her adult life. Weaving through pedestrian traffic and solving the mystery of "Where did all my money go?" is the reality of life in New York City. Molly is continuing her life-long adventure game education, and hopes you will too. Molly also loves comics, and currently works in book production and design. Check out mollyjohanson.com to learn a little more.
Jonathan Boakes is an English game designer, born in November 7, 1973 in Kent, UK. He majors in writing adventure/psychological horror games such as the Dark Fall series and The Lost Crown. He is the CEO and founder of Darkling Room.
Hey there. I hate to admit this but I am a "tiny" bit older than most of the Just Adventure crew. But the "JA children" are very nice to me, they speak loudly to me so that I can hear them, they type in large fonts so that I can read them, and they stopped throwing things at me when I slipped on that darn tomato. I am the grandmother of the team (3 grandsons) and I love every minute of it.I love playing computer games (90% adventure/10% strategy), writing about adventure games, exploring the Internet, and most things that are computer related. I have written articles for several other websites but my home is at JA. I live on the coast of North Carolina with my husband, our dog (Thomas) and our three cats.
