ICOM MacVentures

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/icom/icom.htm

You all may know these as Shadowgate, Deja Vu and Uninvited. They are mostly popular from their NES incarnations, but they originated on the Macintosh, hence their names.

This main points I wanted to focus on in this article were:

-lots of comparisons and screenshots between the NES and computer versions
-the sequels to Shadowgate for the TG16 CD and N64
-Deja Vu II, which was never released on the NES, even though it was reportedly complete

There are still some bits missing, including some comparison shots from Deja Vu II, and I need to grab a few more death pics from Uninvited. Also, I need to put up the comic and Worlds of Power novel that was on the old Shadowgate website. It took an hour or two to grab all of this stuff off Archive.org so I wanted to have it more easily accessible.

[Shellshock]

Great. I was positive this article already existed here and went crazy trying to find it, but it was actually over at GameSpite. I came across a complete copy of Deja Vu 1 & 2 for GBC and was wondering if it was worth the premium price of $40.

[Bobinator]

There's this one game the people who made ZenoClash did in this kind of style I found. It even has a little Mac OS simulation before you start the game, which is cool.

I haven't got that far into the game, because I suck at adventure games and there's no way to save, but still: www.aceteam.cl/retro/

Even though I think Hudson did it, there's this one game for the NES called 'Adventures of Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom' that has the same kind of gameplay, although the setting is obviously a lot lighter.

[derboo]

Awesome! These games needed a good overview of all the versions.

Apr 15, 2010 20:43:51 GMT -5 Discoalucard said:

It took an hour or two to grab all of this stuff off Archive.org so I wanted to have it more easily accessible.

That is like the greatest site on the web, btw. I discovered when I was writing the Realms of Arkania article, as it was the only place on the web to get the screenshots for LMK. I use it on a steady basis now for my current article. Only a shame that they often don't store all the images. And sometimes you need to hack your way through flash based sites...

[jorpho]

Apr 15, 2010 23:09:13 GMT -5 Bobinator said:

Even though I think Hudson did it, there's this one game for the NES called 'Adventures of Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom' that has the same kind of gameplay, although the setting is obviously a lot lighter.

I think someone expressed a desire to do an article on that one. It was part of a more extensive series whose other games never made it to the NES, y'know.

[Strider]

From the Shadowgate article, a dangling comma:

The general weirdness of the castle, along with the overwhelmingly silly ways to meet the reaper, have elevated Shadowgate to the level of a classic,

A classic what?

Also, I think the red tomato thing in Uninvited is supposed to be a Langolier?

- HC

[dire51]

(Uninvited): In the computer versions, you'll occasionally see the crazy red monster regardless of what you're room you're in, where he only appears in the parlor in the NES version.

Not true. He does pop up in other areas from time to time. I think it depends on how much time you spend wandering.

[cj iwakura]

That is one comprehensive article. Those games got away with some creepy stuff for the time.

[starscream]

Shadowgate was also ported to Pocket/Handheld PCs, probably very difficult to get original screenshots in those cases. (See www.rothberger.net/pages/software/shadowgate.shtml
and this for some www.mobiletechreview.com/games/shadowgate.htm)

Deja Vu (and maybe 2, though I can't completly confirm this - it does appear in a release list) was ported to the PC98, but it looks rather disappointing:
www.pc98.org/dejavu.html

[TheChosen]

Hey, thats a great site. *booksmarks*

I really like these games and the computer versions are cool as you can drag lot of useless stuff with you. Kind of realistic.

And Deja Vu has some of the best music on NES.

[bioniccommando83]

Apr 16, 2010 12:44:52 GMT -5 dire51 said:

(Uninvited): In the computer versions, you'll occasionally see the crazy red monster regardless of what you're room you're in, where he only appears in the parlor in the NES version.

Not true. He does pop up in other areas from time to time. I think it depends on how much time you spend wandering.

If it's the crazy red dancing monster that you need to give the cookie to, then he does appear at random in certain rooms through the game.

[Gendo Ikari]

I'll have to give a more thorough try to the series. I played only small bits of them and I was probably put off rapidly by the many ways to die, but I admit that even in those few minutes I could feel they managed to pack some good atmosphere in. Pity that the Shadowgate series (must have been quite popular in Japan if ICOM decided to develop for the PC Engine!) fell down. First-person adventures in realtime 3D are still rare today, or maybe the genre is still too conservative.

[kyouki]

Love the music in Shadowgate! What a soundtrack.

[Shellshock]

Any opinions on the GBC ports? I'm looking into buying mint copies. Thanks.

[jorpho]

How long has infiniteventures.com been down, anyway? They seemed quite enthusiastic about continuing to sell their products at one point.

It seems to me that the NES version loses a lot without the nifty interface of the other versions.