Do you by any chance plan on releasing an open source engine someday so people can make their own MacVenture-style games?

Hey GrahfMetal, this might be asking for too much, but I think it would be cool if you made for your Infested and Spectacle games make them look like Mac, Apple II, and Windows 3.1x Screens for them like the graphics and also user interface, I even wonder what the Items would look like in the Inventory Window if that was ever implemented.

Just a reminder that Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequal to NES Shadowgate, is now available on Steam and GOG.
I really hope you enjoy this love letter to the franchise and hopefully a console port is on the horizon.

Was craving something Macventure-ish, and someone in a classic gaming group on Facebook mentioned your games. Started with this one and thoroughly enjoyed the experience! Going to check out Infested next and look forward to your Shadowgate sequel!

I know you're busy with a billion other things and this one's pretty minor, but if you use EXAMINE on either of the Genie's options, it will give you the descriptor text and then send you off to the choice you looked at.  I'm not sure if this was intentional?

Hi Grahft.  Are you still working on that macventure game that was announce back in 2020-2021 (forgot the year) started with a T i think? haven't heard anything about that game lately.

Is this game as hard as Uninvited or Shadowgate? Just wondering because I had to use a guide throughout each of those and even though I loved the vibe, needing the guide the whole time kind of sucked the joy out of it for me.

Hey grahf can you make more games just like point and click games but are easier? I'm new to Spectacle btw so i'm just asking if you can, thanks

Hello  I really like very much your 2 games, I would like just make some minor comments (minor bugs I think but which for me are unlogical) :

- there is a bug that often happen at the Gate of Xor, there is sound continuing of writing text until the end of game, the only way to end of the sound is to quit.

- You can't travel to desert and go South if you don't read the book even if you know how to. Same for oasis, if you don't examine the map. Why ?

- If you freeze time on a Cicada screen after he flies away, if you go back when the times is still freezed to the screen it reappears. 

Otherelse I'm very fan and for your next game I will make a donation :)

I just finished both games and I can't stop smiling. I played Infested first and it's amazing to see the jump in quality, especially considering I was already enamored with Infested. The visuals and music are absolutely enchanting in Spectacle and I loved the story. It played out like a short, classic book I would have read over and over as a kid. There is so much love and skill poured into these.

Infested is a ton of fun, but this is something else. It's a complete, polished package and now I'm so much more excited for Beyond Shadowgate! Jeff, Orie, and Jason should all be incredibly proud. You guys are still fools for not charging me anything! Thank you for these experiences and I wish you all the best.

I can FINALLY announce the project I've been secretly working on: Beyond Shadowgate, the official sequel to Shadowgate on NES. We'll be launching a KickStarter soon, so stay tuned!

Are you working on a new game or anything?

Oh man, another great game. I loved Infested and then this??!! This game is a masterpiece. Keep making these MacVenture style games!!

Love this game! It and Infested capture the atmosphere of the old Kemco games perfectly.

First, let me say how much I LOVED the keyboard hotkeys to select actions. This little quality-of-life tweak makes playing the game much more enjoyable. Much as I loved Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and Uninvited, the slowness of having to move the cursor around and click on verbs definitely made actual gameplay more cumbersome, so this was a really welcome feature.

I'm also really impressed with how well you succeeded in coming up with a completely original story while still capturing the feel of the NES Kemco games. Well done!

I do have a couple of pieces of hopefully constructive criticism for future projects: [SPOILERS]

• I completely missed the fact that the fruit regrows in the same spot over time. Unless I'm overlooking something, there wasn't any hint that this was the case in-game. After obtaining the first piece, I wandered around for ages trying to find the second piece – I figured there was another tree south of the desert or something. It never occurred to me to revisit the screen with the fruit tree since I thought I'd collected everything that screen had to offer, which led to a lot of frustrated wandering around. I eventually had to check out a walkthrough video on YouTube to find the solution. Maybe a bit of text along the lines of "You notice a bud already beginning to regrow from where you cut off the fruit. Perhaps fruit trees grow faster in this magical land?" after you take the first fruit?
• The cicada puzzle was also a bit opaque. I could tell it was supposed to be a clock face, but I thought the solution must require a specific time, since that was the case with the earlier puzzles for the sun and moon. I eventually managed to brute force the solution, but didn't realize that the solution is the current time whenever you happen to be trying to open the lock. A cryptic inscription hinting in that direction would have been a good addition. I'll acknowledge that this one is more subjective, though – perhaps the solution was more obvious to other players, and just didn't click for me.

All in all, though, I thought the puzzles were generally very well balanced – just enough hints in-game to point the player in the right direction without holding their hand completely and making the game boring.

Looking forward to your next project!

Hey there.
I played this and Infested. Really good job.
I had lots of nostalgia playing both. And loved the particular reference to Uninvited.
Found little bugs in both games, but not a big problem.
I'm also curious about your third game. Can't wait to play it.

You are a real source of inspiration to create retro or pixel games

HUGE news coming soon regarding our next game. I'll post it on here and on my Twitter @GrahfMetal

Playing through this again after about a year and a half to see what I can and can't remember.

The "CRASH" death (to prevent any spoilers) is still one of the funniest things to date. Well done. XD

I really liked this game until you got to the part where you were tested for the Magic Lamp and when you attempted to take any of the treasures in the vault. You ended up spending the remaining of your ending of life trapped and surrounded by treasures but there is more to this review. The main core of this review is after you got the Magic Lamp the genie came out and would grant you a wish and both of them meant a "GAME OVER" If you chose to be a ruler you ended up being the ruler of a sad dead kingdom with a useless life. Also if you chose wealth you ended up trapped in a vault surrounded by treasures that you could not take with you. 

Hey GrahfMetal, I downloaded the game when I was an unregistered guest a couple of days or weeks ago, so I couldn't post a comment until now.  I very much  enjoyed it. I have gotten all of the Challenges except for the Well Traveled one.  Can you post a step by step Walkthrough or Guide for the Well Travelled Challenge? It is the Last Challenge I Need to 100% the Game. 

I thought I was searching all of the Mystical Land Thoroughly and examining every area of each screen and dying every death, but as the Challenge was neither unlocked nor completed, I don't know what I am doing wrong to not accomplish it. Do I also have to explore the parts of the desert that only lead to death or is that part not necessary for the Challenge?

any idea for a ballpark estimate release of the new game?

This is one of the most fun games I've played in quite a while, I'm definitely enjoying it. It's quite difficult but that's fun, and the artstyle is always on point. 

I finished playing this game today and much like with Infested, it is fantastic to see a solid, well-made game in this style.  The art is even better this time around, the music is fantastic again, and the game difficulty is higher, about on par with Uninvited.  The whole thing took me about ten hours, and I was really stuck three times and had to go around clicking on everything. 

As far as bugs go, I only encountered one, and it was quite early in the game.  There is a loose object that opens with the "Use" command and not the "Open" command, and so even after finding out that it was loose, I walked away and didn't figure out how to get into it until much later.  I only figured out how to open it up when I misclicked while trying to use an object on it.

This game's graphics are really good for its low resolution. Every scene is colourful and object distinct without appearing cartoonish. Secrets are subtle enough to blend in at first glance but don't require a pixel hunt to locate (and often come with contextual clues). Plus there's the visible day-night cycle that ties into several puzzles. The atmosphere and readability is seriously better than a lot of paid point and click games.

I haven't finished Spectacle yet so I can't comment as strongly on the puzzles; so far they're good. I'm just happy to find another polished adventure game that's focused on exploration and intuitive puzzles rather than NPC dialogue and pipe mazes or whatever. Thank you, devs, for your work.

Minor gripe: Please allow text writing to be sped up or automatically skipped in your next project. Double clicking everything to read at a comfortable pace is a nuisance.

Will there be a demo for Themeire?

First off, I love playing this game. It is a fantastic concept will amazing graphics, wonderful music, and a game that makes one feel they are in the game! I have to ask one thing... I have almost completed all achievements that the game has to offer. I'm puzzled by an accomplishment titled, Nice Try. I have tried everything and, I still come up short. Please help..., What am I missing why this reward hasn't been completed? Above all, this game is wonderful! As always, have a fantastic day!

Awesome game dude!

Do you have another games in the works or something coming soon?

Hi. I loved the game, the art, the mechanics, the sound and the gameplay.

But something that has fascinated me has been the cursor that is used in the game. Is there any chance that I can get it so that I can adapt it for use in windows 10? Thanks.

I've completed this game (also wrote an article on it on TV Tropes: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Spectacle) and I'd say it's amazing, feels just like the NES ports of MacVentures without the hardware limitations affecting the graphics/sound/gameplay and with more modern design principles. 

Kinda wish there were some extra lines for stupid actions like "TAKE SELF", though, just for laughs. Also kinda disappointed there's only one savefile, but I get it was done to not make the challenges too easy. I will play Infested as well. It'd be interesting to see how a third GrahfVenture could top this one someday.

Hey, I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your games.  They are absolutely pitch perfect pastiches of the classic ICOM NES adventures.  This one reminded me a lot of Uninvited, which was my personal favorite of the three.  I can really tell a lot of love went into this.  Do you have any plans for sequels or a third game?

Are you still planning on posting a walkthrough and/or giving hints through this page?

Are you planning on releasing Linux version? I'd love to play it. It looks very unique and reminds me of my childhood at the same time.

any walkthroughs or hints?

Is there a 32 bit?