Toonstruck is currently free on GOG

[St_Eddie]

Link

Get it while you can, as the offer will expire within the next 24 hours.

Toonstruck is one of my favourite adventure games.  It's a blend of live action and animation, with a human being exploring a world of cartoon characters (much like the last act of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - when Eddie Valentine enters Toontown).  It stars Christopher Lloyd and features the vocal talents of Dan Castellaneta, Tim Curry and Tress MacNeille.  It's a well designed adventure game and full of great humour.  Grab a copy and see for yourself.

[Timothy]

Man. This was my favorite game back in the days. Listen to Eddie and redeem your copy. Its absolutely brilliant.

[Shaky]

Ta, don't mind if I do!

[NoSleep]

I've grabbed Toonstruck for free but it looks like it's a lure to install GOG Galaxy on my computer. The only other game I have downloaded from GOG before now was Deus Ex GOTY, which must have been a direct download as it's a PC game and I'm running it via Crossover on a Mac. Toonstruck doesn't seem to offer the same direct download; I have to install GOG Galaxy to play the game.

[Zetetic]

Do you not have the "Download Offline Backup Game Installers" bit?

This link might work if you're logged into GOG. (Apologies if this turns out just to bundle Galaxy or something.)

I'd be a bit surprised if Galaxy really is mandatory, because they still haven't released a version of Galaxy for Linux.

[NoSleep]

It's downloading direct from your link (dunno if it will work like that). I didn't see any alternative links, which were obviously there when I downloaded Deus Ex. I'll take another look and report back if there's an issue running the game that I'm downloading from the link right now.

[NoSleep]

Do you not have the "Download Offline Backup Game Installers" bit?

Found it, thanks. I don't remember this being hidden like that before. Looks like GOG Galaxy is their new thing; looks a bit like they're moving towards a Steam-like model (which removes any preference for GOG over Steam in the first place). No bother as long as the download option remains at the back door.

[Zetetic]

I think they're unlikely to introduce the DRM that, at the very least, Steam encourages.

Part of the problem is that Windows (and indeed Mac OS) don't really have coherent approaches for third-parties to provide updates (other than through the Windows Store and App Store). Unless you're sticking to games that were last patched 20 years ago (and even then you have to hope that nothing breaks your emulators/virtualisers...), you probably have to build some sort of update mechanism yourself.

And then there's some pressure - from users and developers - to start offering some feature parity with Steam when it comes to achievements, modding and so on.

[St_Eddie]

Aye, GOG Galaxy is a platform they've introduced but it isn't mandatory, as they still offer an offline installer option.  I doubt they'll be going in a DRM direction any time soon, as a staunch anti-DRM philosophy is one of the main foundations upon which the site was built and marketed.  I know that I'd stop buying games from them if they ever implemented DRM.  I pirate any game that uses DRM because I don't support anti-consumer practices and vote with my wallet (which is preciously why 90% of my gaming purchases come from GOG).

Part of the problem is that Windows (and indeed Mac OS) don't really have coherent approaches for third-parties to provide updates (other than through the Windows Store and App Store). Unless you're sticking to games that were last patched 20 years ago (and even then you have to hope that nothing breaks your emulators/virtualisers...), you probably have to build some sort of update mechanism yourself.

Developers are able to submit patches to GOG for newer games.  You can click on your games library and if there's a blue circle next to any given title within your library, it means that an update is available, be it a patch or some kind of supplementary material (for example, a 'making of' document).

[Zetetic]

That's not an update mechanism, you're describing, that's the lack of an update mechanism. If I have to manually check a bulletin board stand-in, transfer some data by hand, and then spend a non-zero amount of time interacting with a patch-installer then I may as well play games on an abacus and be done with it.

(Galaxy of course avoids that, having a sane auto-patching mechanism in place.)

[St_Eddie]

That's not an update mechanism, you're describing, that's the lack of an update mechanism. If I have to manually check a bulletin board stand-in, transfer some data by hand, and then spend a non-zero amount of time interacting with a patch-installer then I may as well play games on an abacus and be done with it.

(Galaxy of course avoids that, having a sane auto-patching mechanism in place.)

Ah, okay.  It doesn't bother me at all personally to have to manually check for patches.  In fact, I prefer it that way, as I use mobile data to connect to the Internet, so it would be a terrible thing for my games to auto-patch.

[Zetetic]

I think Galaxy actually lets you toggle it - universally, and on a per-game basis. (And so do Steam and Itch's desktop client, I believe.) Which is handy for managing total data use or bandwidth.

[St_Eddie]

I think Galaxy actually lets you toggle it - universally, and on a per-game basis. (And so do Steam and Itch's desktop client, I believe.) Which is handy for managing total data use or bandwidth.

That's cool.  I prefer not to use a client myself though.  I like doing things the old fashioned way, hence my devotion to Good Old Games.

[madhair60]

Removed

[Default to the negative]

Toonstruck was a bit of a mixed bag. Much of the humour falls on the wrong side of the 'zany' line and is just annoying. At the same time, it's quite well-made and has good cartoon artwork. I didn't complete the game, I got stuck somewhere. There are three adventure games I never completed due to their frustrating levels of difficulty: Fate of Atlantis, The Dig and Toonstruck. Getting permanently stuck sours my opinion of a game. I'm usually quite good at this genre and I tend to blame the game design if I can't solve a puzzle after ten hours of trying.

Still, it might be worth returning to Toonstruck now that I can use an online guide to get past that puzzle.