![Two Of A Kind (2004) Ending [WINDOWS] @StormSpirit86](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Tpcfo4BTi9c/sddefault.jpg)
Uploaded February 2013 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Bluff City is a town of unusual people, with unusual abilitles. Tim and Tiffany Walters are fraternal twins, born and raised in Bluff City. After a traumatic childhood (which they don't talk about), they became extremely close and depend on each other for everything. To pay the bills, they have opened a Private Investigator business. Their current case is to locate a mysterious crystal. The price of failure? Only the end of the world. (more details on the game page)
Characters:
--------------
Timothy Walters - Special Power: Levitation
Tim acts like an older brother to his sister Tiffany, despite the fact that he was born three minutes after her. He is strangely overprotective of her, and is constantly making sure that she's okay. He is very moody, often depressed, and looks at the world through jaded, cynical eyes. His one joy comes from listening to rock music. He is particularly fond of KISS; he has all their CDs and has even met some of the members.
Tiffany Walters - Special Power: Talking to Animals
Tiffany is cheerful, happy-go-lucky and childish. Not only is the glass constantly half full for her, but it's also pink with smiley faces drawn on it. She is obsessed with stuffed animals, of which she has many, and believes that she can always get her way by saying "Please!" often enough. Tiffany is always trying to get her brother Tim to have fun, which usually consists of a game of Candy-Land.
Notes
-------
This game was originally made for the AGS Team Competition, which ran for six weeks in the summer of 2004. The team consisted of BerserkerTails, Dart, Scotch, Yoke and myself. We managed to make the deadline, but decided that the game was still too empty and full of bugs to justify an official release. Three-and-a-half months later, it's sweet and sparkly and ready for public consumption. Creating this game has been a fantastic experience. We all hope you enjoy it.
Bluff City is a town of unusual people, with unusual abilitles. Tim and Tiffany Walters are fraternal twins, born and raised in Bluff City. After a traumatic childhood (which they don't talk about), they became extremely close and depend on each other for everything. To pay the bills, they have opened a Private Investigator business. Their current case is to locate a mysterious crystal. The price of failure? Only the end of the world. (more details on the game page)
Characters:
--------------
Timothy Walters - Special Power: Levitation
Tim acts like an older brother to his sister Tiffany, despite the fact that he was born three minutes after her. He is strangely overprotective of her, and is constantly making sure that she's okay. He is very moody, often depressed, and looks at the world through jaded, cynical eyes. His one joy comes from listening to rock music. He is particularly fond of KISS; he has all their CDs and has even met some of the members.
Tiffany Walters - Special Power: Talking to Animals
Tiffany is cheerful, happy-go-lucky and childish. Not only is the glass constantly half full for her, but it's also pink with smiley faces drawn on it. She is obsessed with stuffed animals, of which she has many, and believes that she can always get her way by saying "Please!" often enough. Tiffany is always trying to get her brother Tim to have fun, which usually consists of a game of Candy-Land.
Notes
-------
This game was originally made for the AGS Team Competition, which ran for six weeks in the summer of 2004. The team consisted of BerserkerTails, Dart, Scotch, Yoke and myself. We managed to make the deadline, but decided that the game was still too empty and full of bugs to justify an official release. Three-and-a-half months later, it's sweet and sparkly and ready for public consumption. Creating this game has been a fantastic experience. We all hope you enjoy it.
![Two Of A Kind (2004) Ending [WINDOWS]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Tpcfo4BTi9c/mqdefault.jpg "Two Of A Kind (2004) Ending [WINDOWS]
Bluff City is a town of unusual people, with unusual abilitles. Tim and Tiffany Walters are fraternal twins, born and raised in Bluff City. After a traumatic childhood (which they dont talk about), they became extremely close and depend on each other for everything. To pay the bills, they have opened a Private Investigator business. Their current case is to locate a mysterious crystal. The price of failure? Only the end of the world. (more details on the game page)
Characters:
Timothy Walters - Special Power: Levitation
Tim acts like an older brother to his sister Tiffany, despite the fact that he was born three minutes after her. He is strangely overprotective of her, and is constantly making sure that shes okay. He is very moody, often depressed, and looks at the world through jaded, cynical eyes. His one joy comes from listening to rock music. He is particularly fond of KISS; he has all their CDs and has even met some of the members.
Tiffany Walters - Special Power: Talking to Animals
Tiffany is cheerful, happy-go-lucky and childish. Not only is the glass constantly half full for her, but its also pink with smiley faces drawn on it. She is obsessed with stuffed animals, of which she has many, and believes that she can always get her way by saying Please! often enough. Tiffany is always trying to get her brother Tim to have fun, which usually consists of a game of Candy-Land.
Notes
This game was originally made for the AGS Team Competition, which ran for six weeks in the summer of 2004. The team consisted of BerserkerTails, Dart, Scotch, Yoke and myself. We managed to make the deadline, but decided that the game was still too empty and full of bugs to justify an official release. Three-and-a-half months later, its sweet and sparkly and ready for public consumption. Creating this game has been a fantastic experience. We all hope you enjoy it.")
![Ancient Empires 1 (2004) Ending [MOBILE]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UZzf56jqPJU/mqdefault.jpg "Ancient Empires 1 (2004) Ending [MOBILE]
Ancient Empires is a fantasy turn-based tactics game series developed by Macrospace for cell phones. The first game Ancient Empires was published by Macrospace on March 4, 2004; its immediate sequel Ancient Empires II was published by Sorrent on June 17, 2005.")
![Heroes Of Might & Magic 5 (2006) Ending [WINDOWS]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/V04_hgB4OEI/mqdefault.jpg "Heroes Of Might & Magic 5 (2006) Ending [WINDOWS]
Heroes of Might and Magic V (sometimes referred to as Heroes V or HoMM5) is the fifth installment of the Heroes of Might and Magic fantasy turn-based strategy video game series. It was developed by Nival Interactive, under the guidance of franchise-owner Ubisoft. It was released in Europe on May 16 and the United States and Canada on May 24, 2006.")
![Chick Chaser (2005) Ending [WINDOWS]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VQOeMzIBVR0/mqdefault.jpg "Chick Chaser (2005) Ending [WINDOWS]
Andys just been dumped by his girlfriend. Your task in this tearful romantic comedy is to help him get her back.")
![Absolute Blue - Planet Surface [MUSIC]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VQryrGgU1BM/mqdefault.jpg "Absolute Blue - Planet Surface [MUSIC]
Absolute Blue is a free shoot em up, in the style of classics like R-Type and Gradius.
This is quite a big game, considering its freeware, with 12 levels set over four worlds. Absolute Blue features a tutorial, one of very few for this genre! You control a ship, and as you fly through space, scrolling right avoiding scenery and shooting down waves of enemies and the occasional boss.
The sound effects in Absolute Blue are very 16-bit era, which is fine. Graphically it is also reminiscent of that time, but a little more polished and with some great explosion effects. There are three difficulty levels, to suit most players.
What sets Absolute Blue apart is its over the top power-up system. When you start off, your ship is useless, but pick up a few power-ups and the tables are soon turned on the army of alien invaders. While you lose everything if you lose a life, once your power ups reach a certain level you will be firing so much around the screen enemies will barely have a moment to fight back! Of course, some may find this makes the game too easy, though its a lot of fun.
Absolute Blue is a great free shoot em up that looks and sounds good, and plays even better.")
![Dragon Ball Z (1993) [ARCADE]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W5qsPIf2sVY/mqdefault.jpg "Dragon Ball Z (1993) [ARCADE]
Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボールZ, Doragon Bōru Zetto) is a video game for arcades based on the Dragon Ball Z series. It was designed and manufactured exclusively in Japan by Banpresto in 1993.")
![Apprentice 1 (2003) Ending [WINDOWS]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WDBEq_91EHo/mqdefault.jpg "Apprentice 1 (2003) Ending [WINDOWS]
Some months ago, I found an old zip file on my hard drive, containing an AGS-hit from the past: Permanent Daylight by Intoxicated Little Bunny. I loaded it up, wanting to reminisce the good old days when AGS games were still DOS-compatible by default. I was filled with a sense of nostalgia, memories from my early youth, and the feeling I had the first time I played Permanent Daylight - of playing, for the first time, an amateur adventure game that didnt feel too much like an amateur effort. Expectant, I waited for the title screen.
And boy did Permanent Daylight suck. My memories from the days of my innocent youth had apparently been just that: innocent. No wonder, there wasnt much contest back then for amateur adventure games - creating something like Permanent Daylight was considered a great achievement then, by me at least. Not until Apprentice did I play an amateur adventure game that really got something important right, a game that seems to have passed the test of time.
I no longer remember how I found out about the original, non-deluxe, Apprentice. Perhaps it was through some list of AGS game developers I was clicking through, opening new tabs (did tabbed browsing already exist back then?) and trying to pick out the game developers and projects to take note of. Apprentice had been released a while ago, and I downloaded it. And my view of amateur adventure games changed forever.
First of all, I was captivated by the music. The composer later admitted that he wasnt satisfied with the soundtrack. In retrospect I think he was right, but I was thrilled, having finally found someone in the amateur scene who can make music. But as I played on, I noticed that the important thing the developers of Herculean Effort got right was that the player felt as if there was something more behind those pixelated sprites. Pib was a living character, and so was Master, and so was Navy Joe. In fact, even though we never saw Navy Joe until Apprentice II, he still felt real even in the first game. Willowbean felt like an actual place with a history and its own customs. This game had found that something special, that something the classics like Monkey Island had, and I thought it was only a matter of time until the amateur community would take over the commercial side.
It would happen by 2005 at the latest, I thought.
But the revolution wasnt as abrupt as I had thought. These days the quality of games is somewhat higher than three years ago, due to years of practice starting to pay off, but few freeware games would be eligible for their own Wikipedia articles. Apprentice II, 5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic...? My list ends there, but it might be that I should be less demanding and embrace the amateur genre despite its shortcomings.
But back to the Apprentice.
The surprising thing is that when you think about it, you notice that the story of Apprentice is negligible at best. There is the dream sequence in the beginning, sure, but the story ends and begins with it. Theres no villain, and the only tension there is the fear of being drafted by Lord Ironcrow. Theres no conflict to solve, nothing that would in any way be traditional storytelling as such. Apprentice is a prime example of how much adventure games depend on exploration, and how important a carefully crafted game world and back stories are in adventure games!
This is rather amusing, as many adventure gamers have separated themselves into strict categories, either proclaiming that adventure games are all about puzzles or that they are all about the story, when what I liked most about Apprentice was the fact that I could have conversations with the crystal ball. (Okay, so maybe its just me.) The only reason I was motivated to solve any puzzles was that eventually I ran out of things to do, and my adventure gamers logic told me that solving some of them would make something in the game world change and let me do more exploring.
What about the Deluxe -version, then? At first the deluxe treatment felt a bit like watching a colored black film. I had grown to like the 70s hippie music, and imagining the character voices in my head. And it feels funny to think like this because Apprentice Deluxe is not a fan effort but an extension created by Herculean Effort themselves.")
