crazy and proud of it
Yes. Especially if you like point & click adventure games.
The games are not Zero Punctuation: The Game Series, but still well-written, and in some cases extremely scary despite the simple graphics.
Das kann doch nicht sein!
The games are not Zero Punctuation: The Game Series, but still well-writtenMy favorite game of the Chzo Mythos is Trilby's Quest. It's, without a doubt, the scariest thing of the entire series.
The last game, on the other hand, is quite lacking.
People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.
Always 3:00am in the Filth
I'm giving them a go myself. I grew tired of Yahtzee's humor quite a long time ago, and since his running "joke" is "99.9% of all games are garbage because YOU are idiots" I want to see the man do better.
"But don't give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you." - O'Brien, 1984
Noodle Implements FTW!
The last one's as good as the rest, it's just that Trilby's Notes are so awesome, it sort of pales in comparison. It is, without a doubt, the best freeware adventure game series I've ever played, and despite the numerous glaring problems the author himself is willingly lampshading in the comments to the extended versions (which, IIRC, have been recently made freely available), they hold water much better than many commercial adventure games. The mere fact that it has a convincingly terrifying mythos actually built for it (complete with separate tie-in stories) already speaks volumes.
Videogames do not make you a worse person... Than you already are.
Das kann doch nicht sein!
The last one's as good as the rest
The Ant King
The last game is the best one.
Kill all math nerds
Noodle Implements FTW!
Okay, let's agree to disagree and call a YMMV on it. I liked the last one as much as the first one.
Bonus points - The Welder's shenanigans in Skeptic are reminiscent (this also works in the other direction) with Dead Space - a dude in a welding mask goes butcher-shop on everything he can reach... IN SPACE!
edited 17th Jan '11 7:08:02 AM by Noelemahc
Videogames do not make you a worse person... Than you already are.
cuter, cuddlier Edmond
Dude, why do you have to ask? It's not like the games aren't free or something.
If you really can't be effed to play them though, then read this liveblog of it
instead. Interestingly, Yahtzee himself followed this and added his own comments at points (for the curious:Yahtzee doesn't really think better of his own games than he does of most commercial releases).
Well I have tried it :P and finished 5 days a stranger.
Overall pretty good game. I found at times the dialogue to be a bit forced and the clues to be very vague, but it was a good experience. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
The Blood God's design consultant.
Jamais vu
Necroing this thread to bring an important question:
HOW THE FUCK IS THAT SALTY BEAR PUZZLE SUPPOSED TO MAKE SENSE?
UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI
rrrrrrrrr
Well, the bear was something the boy owned, and logically it could be used as a sympathetic link to detect the location of the person it belonged to — or in this case, what's left of them. Meanwhile, salt is something that occult practices hold has power over spirit beings, and...
Y'know what? I got nothing.
Sakamoto demands an explanation for this shit.
Green-haired Tesla
It sure as crap didn't make any sense, and violated a rational mindset in so many different ways, but on the other hand, I had no trouble figuring it out after reading the black magic book. From the way people were talking about it, you'd think it was something that wasn't even sort of hinted at.
I'm pretty Yahtzee mentioned it in that LP Dantes linked at the beginning of this thread. I think he says he included just to have an esoteric puzzle in an adventure game like other games of the genre had.
Mighty No. 51345
Oh, if you decide to watch an LP, watch the ones by Deceased Crab. Pretty good stuff.
Mega Man fanatic extraordinaire
Galen, Galnare, Galnast
The series is horrifying. Play it now, and despair. 
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I watched DC's LP first, but that was because the other one hadn't existed yet. My only problem with his LP is that he seems a little too in love with the series and overreacted too much at the stuff going on in the final game. I do recommend watching it first before reading the screenshot LP, since DC provides decent atmosphere until around the last game.
Quovak's screenshot LP is more critical of the game, but you're able to tell that he enjoyed the series. Plus it has Yahtzee's commentary in it.
Speaking of which, I found where he talks about the salty bear thing (prior to this, he was discussing improvements he felt he could have made to the series, or at least to Five Days):
So the bear thing was an attempt to put an alternative kind of puzzle together, and introduce a signal-following gameplay mechanic (like the orichalcum dowsing in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis) to mix things up a bit and add suspense.
That was my thought process at the time. I assumed that telling a ghost story automatically opened the door for any other supernatural shit I could think of, and even more crazy shit happens later in the series. On reflection, it's a bit of a lurch.
I still like the signal-following mechanic, but today I'd probably make it a bit less like a voodoo recipe and a bit more makeshift. Like, say, shaking the teddy bear makes Matthew's ghost appear and indicate where to go.
Another thing I'd probably do is bring Roderick DeFoe's story forward to a more recent time, like the 1950s. As you say, there have probably been a lot of different residents since the early 19th century. I guess I told myself that the books and the teddy bear would be considered family heirlooms and hung onto, while the easel could be explained away as Matthew's ghost affecting the newer residents of the room and making them artistically inclined. Shaky, I know. A few more documents authored by the more recent residents might have helped.
Actually getting back to the teddy bear thing, I'm suddenly reminded of why I didn't like a lot of the new Tales of Monkey Island games: because it seemed like an awful lot of the puzzles involved following baffling voodoo recipes to create magical Maguffins that sort everything out, rather than any kind of tool-based logic.
edited 7th Apr '11 4:41:20 AM by Customer
Jamais vu
I wanna tell you all that Trilby's Notes is a lot less scary if you listen to Queen instead of the stock music.
UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI
Das kann doch nicht sein!
"Trilby's Notes"? "A lot less scary"?
Who would ever want that?
People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.
Jamais vu
It's even less scary if you imagine Cabadath as a Lounge lizard.
Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they)
YEAH
◊
In retrospect, I think 5 Days and Trilby's Notes are must-plays; the other two don't add much to the story (except for the resolution of 6 Days).
The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable
rrrrrrrrr
It's amusing to me that my old thread on this got buried so far that a new one cropped up. Of course, with how old said thread was, it might have gotten circular filed.
It's a neat series, but more for the writing than the gameplay. I'm very much a fan of Notes.
Sakamoto demands an explanation for this shit.
Jamais vu
I thought the text parser was an interesting gameplay mechanic.
Just got two questions that bugged me.
1. How does a rock scare the Tall Man off?
2. Why was the Tall Man carrying traitor guy along with Trilby's jacket in the end cutscene? And more important, what did the Tall Man do to the traitor guy to make him look so pale?
UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI
rrrrrrrrr
Don't know what you mean by #1. #2 ties into 6 Days.
Sakamoto demands an explanation for this shit.
Jamais vu
Lumberjack's kid scaring off the Tall Man with The Power of Rock.
UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI
Should I try it?
The Blood God's design consultant.