This month you can delve into a load of classic adventures within one game, take a role in a traditional horror story or investigate a more modern sort of terror. For those preferring less conventional player characters, you can become a helpful crow, a crack-addled lunatic or a creature that is half-man/half-mosquito. If escape scenarios are more to your liking, you can find yourself trapped in an ancient treasure room, the government containment facility Zone 5.1 or an abandoned military base where your hibernation lasted a little longer than planned. Finally, you can experience a new chapter in a multi-part story that has seen a long development time. All these await you in this month’s round-up of releases on the freeware scene.

Adventure: All in the Game

If you thought that game characters were happy to stay where they are when no one’s looking, you thought wrong. Sometimes characters cut from the final design try to reinstate their role. Sometimes characters escape from their own games and run amok in others. When these actions threaten game stability, it’s time for the Computer Game Maintenance Squad to step in. As an agent for the 2D, 3rd Person adventure branch of the CGMS, Thalia James has been instrumental in protecting many of the classics. Now she faces what may be her toughest assignment, mentoring a new agent, Sledge Rockfist, from the action-adventure genre. With her supervisor dealing with something big, will she be able to overcome the historic animosity between genres?

Akril’s sequel to Adventure: The Inside Job continues to take players through a variety of adventure games, both classic and obscure. Control is point-and-click using the standard AGS four-action cursor with customised graphics. Most of the graphics and sound are taken from these older adventures, usually from material that didn’t make it into the original game. These art and music styles represent a wide range, including the various Space Quest games, Grim Fandango and Toonstruck, as well as a host of others. Whilst the graphic style of the characters usually varies to match the current background environment, their main features remain unchanged, making them recognisable regardless of the setting. To allow for varying levels of gaming knowledge, there is also a setting, adjustable throughout the game, that determines how much game references are explained.

With its constantly changing look, this game is undoubtedly an unusual experience. However, as the characters you meet are clued in on the central premise, these disparate scenes do hold together as a cohesive whole. The behind-the-scenes nature of the overall setting is further reinforced by the need for Thalia to hide from the games’ protagonists in order to not disturb the original story. The puzzles are intelligently thought out, with a certain amount of game-hopping necessary to proceed. Sledge’s more action-oriented abilities are also put to good puzzle-solving use. There is a tendency for Thalia to harp on the 2D era of adventure games, but those inclined to play this game are more likely to find themselves in agreement with her views.

Adventure: All in the Game can be downloaded from the AGS website.

Riddle Transfer

Having saved Earth from the evil machinations of the alien leader Viz, Phil and his friends were looking forward to returning to their peaceful lives. But the UFO they are using is spotted by the mysterious men in black and a tractor beam carries them into Zone 5.1. Locked up in separate cells, it looks like it is up to Phil to free his companions and get them all away from their government incarcerators. Maybe the fact that it's the guards’ "Annual Day Off" will help.

This humorous game from JonBro starts a new series from where the previous one, Riddle School, finished off. Control is point-and-click, with the names of generously-sized hotspots appearing when you point the cursor at them. Items are kept in an ever-visible inventory, ready for dragging into the environment. Prominent red arrows indicate available exits from the current area, and there is a small on-screen map which indicates your current location. The graphics are done in a bright cartoon style with stylised characters, such as Phil’s round bald head with large black dots for eyes and no visible mouth. The backgrounds, whilst still cartoon-like in colouring, adopt a more detailed realistic look with proper perspective. Both characters and background (where appropriate) are well animated. The music adopts the style of a grand space opera-type film, fitting well with the subject matter, and machinery has appropriate sound effects.

The game’s tone is light and humorous. The guard holiday is an early indication of this, further reinforced by the other prisoners in the complex, such as Bigtoe and The Negotiable Snowman. There is plenty to look at, with Phil having an amusing or sarcastic remark about even the most irrelevant background object. Inventory plays its part in puzzle-solving, with object use being logical and not generally requiring the player to resort to random combinations. This is not to say the puzzles are simplistic, as you will need to pay attention during conversations and think about the relationships between different rooms in the complex to progress. You must also solve some standalone puzzles, and as you rescue your friends you will even need to use their abilities to help you. Whilst familiarity with the Riddle School games is not required to play this one, links to all five games in the series are accessible from the main menu for those wishing to know the full backstory.

Riddle Transfer can be played online at Newgrounds.

Less Than Three

When three adventurers finally discover the treasure room of the Emperor Kemal, a wealth of artefacts from his life faces them. But grabbing the most valuable item, the jewel of Kemal, triggers a magical trap that seals the door. When Othello the bard temporarily disables the trap, Edme the mage makes good her escape, abandoning her companions. Now Othello and priestess Vani must find their own way out. Perhaps Othello’s knowledge of the history of Kemal’s treasures will help, and maybe he will discover something new along the way.

This game from Ben304 won the May MAGS “Tension”-themed competition by default as the sole entry. However, this is a game that could easily have been a deserving winner entirely on its own merits. The graphics are a detailed cartoon style, reminiscent of the Day of the Tentacle-era LucasArts games. As in his previous game in this style, Airwave , the characters have eyes that are ovals of a single colour, though here they also have pointy ears to accentuate the fantasy setting. The character animations are all smoothly done. The background music is a soothing piece featuring piano and woodwind, which evokes a sense of places long undisturbed. Control is simple point-and-click, using left-click to interact and right to look.

With the wealth of history on display, examining many of the objects results in a brief tale of the items’ past, creating a backstory to the game’s single room. Examining inventory items produces a full-screen description with illustration, presented as if scribed on a scroll. These descriptions also reveal unique properties of the items in question. The key to solving the game is working out how each item’s unique property can be used to further the goal of escaping the treasure chamber. As you progress, you will also have extensive conversations with your companion, Vani, which shed light on your previous travels and, depending on your choices, affect your ongoing relationship. This, together with the tales of Kemal’s life, creates a real sense that this small adventure is just one story in a large and fantastical world.

Less Than Three can be downloaded from the AGS website.