Ilmari Jauhiainen – The Retro Gaming Treasury

Gobliiins – Final Rating

On March 26, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari Gobliiins is one of those games, which definitely have flaws, but still manage to be, on the whole, charming and fun to play. It will be interesting to see whether the good parts will manage to outweigh the weaknesses or not. There’s something immensely enjoyable in scenes like […]

Game 107 : Curse of Enchantia – Introduction

On March 23, 2019March 24, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Alfred n’ the Fettuc The English game development studio Core Design is first and foremost known for the Tomb Raider series, being the creator of one of the biggest franchises in video game history (and solely responsible for the rise of Eidos Interactive, their parent company, that would […]

Missed Classic: Spellbreaker – The Incredible Shrinking Man

On March 21, 2019March 21, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Joe Pranevich Welcome back! Last week, I was able to puzzle my way past a splash-down with a hungry fish, bring a statue to life just long enough to steal something from its mouth, shrink a snake, and insult The Phantom Menace. As I have mentioned before, the […]

Gobliiins – Won!

On March 19, 2019March 19, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari Elves? I thought these were goblins It was quite easy to find the exit – Hooter could magic the gate open – but that was still far from completing the level. Time to again get the full story from the manual. The hooded creature was the librarian Carbonek, […]

Gobliiins – Into the Fire

On March 16, 2019March 17, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari Statue of Serenity – made by Joss Whedon? Or maybe it is a statue OF him? The level with the Buddha-look-alike was another one where I had to proceed by trial and error. I’ll just quickly run through the essentials. If you really squint your eyes, you might […]

Missed Classic: Spellbreaker – Romancing the Stone

On March 14, 2019March 14, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Joe Pranevich A few years back, I spent some time studying Shakespeare. I’m not going to claim some amazing insight into the bard, but as I read each play I was always struck by a moment of realization when I saw what he was up to. It’s not […]

Gobliiins: Underneath a carrot patch

On March 12, 2019March 12, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari I had managed to get in wizard’s house, but then I had no idea what I was expected to achieve. Time for plan B, that is, random clicking around. What I soon found out was that the big skeleton was very ticklish and dropped a skeleton key, if […]

Gobliiins – The Great Escape

On March 8, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari Where we left off last time The dungeon may look like an easy place to escape, what with the enormous cave mouth leading outside, but it’s full of all sorts of tricks. The hole on the left wall has some monster guarding the pathway, the snake is obviously […]

Missed Classic: Spellbreaker – Avalanche!

On March 6, 2019March 6, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Joe Pranevich Wow! It’s been a while. How have you been? Family good? Any of you have children who grew up, went to college, started a family, and then had children of their own still waiting for a Spellbreaker update? I am sorry about that, but life has […]

Gobliiins – Collecting reagents

On March 3, 2019March 3, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari Happened last time: the goblins were asked to collect three magical reagents – Airain’s Mushroom, Arachnide’s Elixir and Bald Plant – which the wizard needed for curing the goblin king. I hope his ears are waxless In this level the obvious goal was to get past the Igor […]

Gobliiins – No Lemmings Here

On March 1, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari Rumors of this being a Lemmings clone were highly exaggerated. When I wrote in the intro post that Gobliiins had been compared with Lemmings, I didn’t expect to raise so much controversy and even many skeptical glances – could anyone ever have confused these two games? Luckily, some commenters […]

Game 106: Gobliiins (1992) – Introduction

On February 23, 2019February 23, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari Best thing about democracies is that you won’t have to worry too long about raving rulers You probably expected another Rome-post from Reiko, but unfortunately she has had to take a break from playing the game. Rome is now on hiatus, and we’ll return to it later, when […]

Missed Classic 65: Spellbreaker (1985) – Introduction

On February 9, 2019February 9, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Joe Pranevich From the earliest days of the company, Infocom had one tradition: a new Zork title released every fall. After Zork III, the baton was passed to the Enchanter series which, as patient and dedicated readers know was just the second Zork trilogy. October of 1985 was […]

Rome: Pathway to Power – Out of the Fire

On February 5, 2019February 5, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Reiko Hector’s Journal #1: “Someone’s going to want to know eventually how a simple slave managed to get so far. I am hardly a simple slave, at least now, but I’d like to think that I was never ordinary. Yet you could say that I just got lucky, […]

Game 105: Rome: Pathway to Power – Introduction (1992)

On February 1, 2019February 1, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Reiko Rome: Pathway to Power is a bit of an odd duck. It’s a historical adventure set in Rome, of course, in AD 92, which was also its other sub-title. But its main screen uses an isometric perspective, and at least one level involves controlling whole armies rather […]

Interview with Brian Cody, Co-Creator of Fooblitzky

On January 30, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Joe Pranevich From time to time, it has been our pleasure to not only play and explore the classic games, but to discuss them with their creators. We’ve spoken to game designers and game illustrators, but I am pleased to have been able to spend some virtual time with […]

Infocom Marathon: Fooblitzky (1985)

On January 22, 2019January 22, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Joe Pranevich When it came to text adventures, Infocom appeared to have the golden touch. And yet, there were dark clouds looming if you knew where to look. The earliest “Zork” games still sold like hotcakes, regularly appearing on top sales charts, while newer releases packed a punch […]

Island of Dr. Brain – Final Rating

On January 18, 2019January 18, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

Written by Reiko Island of Dr. Brain was quite the puzzle-fest, and of course, for a puzzle-lover like me, it was fun to play. However, I suspect that the parts don’t add up quite the same way they did for its predecessor. Let’s see how the categories compare. Puzzles and […]

Putt-Putt Joins the Parade – Final Rating

On January 13, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari So they included almost everything from the game on the front cover It will definitely be difficult to give a fair rating to Putt-Putt -games. Clearly they were beloved by many in their target group, but since PISSED-rating has not been calibrated with children’s games in mind, I […]

Putt-Putt Joins the Parade – Won!

On January 8, 2019 By Ilmari Jauhiainen

By Ilmari What keeps those eyebrows linked to the car? Daddy of the Teletubbies Sun? That yawn is just plain creepy And there are teeth. He even washes them The game wastes no time in introducing my main goal: Putt-Putt hears from the radio that there’s a parade to be […]