Infinite Lives

• Adventure Gamers – Top 20 Adventure Games of All-Time
  Just so you know, this list, published in 2002, is still up-to-date and correct. (There are people in the comments section who are so wrongheaded I could scream. Myst? Just, no.)
• DOS Nostalgia – "Loom" review
  In this edition of DOS Nostalgia, Anatoly explains why the CD-ROM version of Loom is stupid. Oh, no! He might be right! The floppy version (1990) compensates for its limited EGA graphics with more story and much more Tchaikovsky (the "talkie" reissue, though prettier to look at and listen to, is sparse in comparison).

  The Steam network only distributes the latter, unfortch, so after I totally paid for it (I did!), I downloaded the Amiga original. I’d like to talk more about Loom later, but my initial reaction is how contemporary the game mechanics are. Startlingly, Loom is played with a single unchanging cursor, in lieu of the point-and-click parser that adventure games used until about 1996, maybe 1997. There’s no inventory to manage at all. The hero casts spells by playing notes in sequence. (Similarly, Tao’s Adventure and Lost Magic—two DS titles from ~2006—use "runes" for spellcasting, forcing the player to memorize and reproduce simple drawings on the touchscreen.)

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