JA Staff

Harriet Gurganus

Hey there. I hate to admit this but I am a "tiny" bit older than most of the Just Adventure crew. But the "JA children" are very nice to me, they speak loudly to me so that I can hear them, they type in large fonts so that I can read them, and they stopped throwing things at me when I slipped on that darn tomato. I am the grandmother of the team (3 grandsons) and I love every minute of it.

I discovered Just Adventure about three years ago. I was frustrated that my paper magazines had so little adventure game material. Who wants to pay $20.00 a year to read about shoot-em-up-bang-bangs. Maybe someone does but I don't. I must have done something intelligent like entering "adventure games" in my search engine and the rest is history. I was hooked and JA was my daily fix. I started communicating with Randy about various things, not the least of which was the Schedule of Releases. It was a little "dated" at that time. The next thing that I knew, Big R asked if I would like to take over the column. I said "yes" in my most dainty and dignified ladylike terms - and then did screaming cartwheels all over the house. And I have been with JA ever since. And what fun it is. Shouldn't work be painful and dull? Not when you write for JA.

I love playing computer games (90% adventure/10% strategy), writing about adventure games, exploring the Internet, and most things that are computer related. I live on the coast of North Carolina with my husband, our dog (Thomas) and our three cats. Our children and grandchildren live in the Washington DC metropolitan area - close enough for frequent visits. My hobbies/interests, other than the PC things, are cooking, watercolors, history of Egypt and Europe, and building a doll house that I will finish someday. I have a special spot in my heart for British murder mysteries that have lots of red herrings.

I have written articles for several other websites but my home is at JA. I am very serious about keeping the Schedule of Upcoming Releases as up to date as possible. It's a treat when I can find a new game to add to the list. I also enjoy writing previews and the occasional review. The gaming world is so vibrant and dynamic that I never get bored with it. It is filled with hopes for success and regrets of failure, beautiful graphic art, technological developments, wonderful stories that stretch the imagination and grand people to deal with. The search for new material for Just Adventure is an adventure/quest with a life of it's own. Who can ask for more?

Jennifer Miller

Jennifer Miller is a contributing writer to the walkthrough department of Just Adventure. Although she graduated with a degree in music, Jennifer counts writing and computers among her many loved hobbies. Aside from her work with Just Adventure, she is a full time singer/songwriter, part time fiction author, and part time computer geek. She adores U2 (evident in her supposed "headshots") and in no way grooves out to Britney Spears. The X-Files has been known to keep her attention longer than the latest episode of 24, and she makes sure to watch the Redskins every Sunday with her dad.

Jennifer discovered the Atari when she was just six years old. Her best friend had gotten one for Christmas, along with a batch of games that included Pong, Pac-Man, Frogger, Pitfall, and The Empire Strikes Back. From there on it was baby-steps to a Texas Instruments monstrosity that ran on cartridges and cassette tapes, to the original 8-bit Nintendo, to the full-fledged PC gamer she is today. Jennifer first found the graphic adventure when she was 16. A complementary copy of the Presto's The Journeyman Project Turbo was included with her family's new Packard-Bell. After meeting Agent 5 and out-witting a crazed scientist with the help of the Pegasus time machine, Jennifer never looked at gaming the same way again. Myst was given to her for Christmas a short time later, followed by Riven. Now into her twenties, Jennifer is still chasing through the Ages to stop Gehn and Saavedro, freeing lost souls with the help of her Amber device, and unraveling plots against history with Gage Blackwood (Agent 5) and Arthur.

Michal Necasek

Michal Necasek, called Mike or Michael by people who can't properly pronounce his first, let alone last name (that includes over 99% of Earth's population) is an experienced gamer and prefers adventure games to other genres. He started playing computer games a lot about 13 years ago when he got his first computer, a Commodore 64. But in the early nineties he switched to to more powerful machines - IBM PC compatibles. Being a very inquisitive person, he always wanted to know what made PCs tick. Now, after ten years, he has fairly good idea - good enough to earn him a salary as a software engineer specialized in low level graphics programming. Although he received considerable amount of education, his computer skills are largely self-taught. As far as his writing skills are concerned, he is an amateur but that doesn't stop him from trying.

Born in then Communist Czechoslovakia, Michal is now earning dollars in California and enjoying it. At the age of 26 he is still single and not firmly decided what he'll do in future, convinced that plans look great on paper but reality usually has its own mind. Besides tinkering with PC hardware and software he enjoys reading; since he loves British humour, he is a big fan of Terry Pratchett (the Discworld adventures were good but books are better) but has other favorite authors as well - Neil Gaiman and H.P. Lovecraft among others. As far as games are concerned, high on his top ten list are Fallout, Betrayal at Krondor, Civilization, The Longest Journey and Deus Ex. He enjoys playing older games because they seem somehow more real, more fun and just better (and less buggy), although he by no means avoids new releases.

Alexander Tait

Alexander Tait was born in Kobe, Japan, the son of Australian diplomats. He spent the first 15 years of his life living variously in Japan, Canada, and the Philippines. In 1987, his father retired from the diplomatic corps. Following graduation, Alex gained a degree in Speech Pathology. He works at an outpatient hospital in Newcastle, two hours north of Sydney, where he helps people with strokes and other neurological conditions recover their communication and swallowing.

Alex lives with his wife, Juanita, sons Dakota Sioux and Kiowa, and dogs, Suleiman and India. He and his wife became involved with adventure gaming in 1998, with Juanita primarily playing the "quality" games. Alex enjoys seeking out and writing walkthroughs for the more obscure adventure games. He has, to date, infected his mother-in-law, mother, sister, and brother-in-law with the adventure game virus. AND HE'LL GET YOU TOO!

When not gaming, Alex is a keen cinema-phile, enjoys reading thriller novels, and an obsessive fan of hard rock and heavy metal music. He is an amateur comedian (unfortunately for those around him, he thinks he is a pro) and can annoy anyone in world record time.

He joined the JA+ team in 2001 as Walkthrough Editor.

Valerie Davis

Valerie's entry into the world of Adventure Games began with King's Quest VI Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow. She did not, however, become an avid gamer until a few years later. Now, when not performing her various webmaster duties for Just Adventure +, she games whenever possible.

She first came in contact with Just Adventure while visiting a forum looking for game hints. She visited the Just Adventure website out of curiosity and became instantly addicted. Through contact with Randy she discovered his desire to start The Just Adventure Virtual Encyclopedia and convinced him that she was the right person for the job. It was not too much longer before she also acquired the JA webmaster position.

Valerie used to work for a government contractor as an Operation Finance Coordinator. She happened upon website design and graphics quite by accident but really loves it. She has no desire to return to "corporate America" anytime soon. Edit - July 2004: unfortunately, eating and keeping electricity forced Valerie back into the dreaded "corporate America". :-( So she now works for yet another government contractor as a Senior SGML/XML Analyst.

On a good note, she met and fell in love with a JA+ Forum member from Greece (Aya). They are now happily married and living in Alabama. Aya is now doing reviews for JA+ and generally giving Randy grief.

Ray Ivey

Born in Baton Rouge, Ray grew up in the Lone Star State in the shadow of Texas A&M University, now home of the George Bush Presidential Library, thank you VERY much. A wimpy nerd from the get-go, Ray was excruciatingly fit to become a computer game geek years before he even realized it.

He spent all of the 80s in New York, where after graduating from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he had an acting career unmarked by spectacular success. After several lengthy stints in regional theater, Ray decided to embrace his naturally shallow nature and relocated to the best place on the planet, Los Angeles.

Though he's been an enthusiast of games of all kinds for his entire life (the Full-Contact Spoons game at the annual Ivey-Hart Reunion has been featured on "Cops" several years running), and though he spent most of the 80s in Times Square video arcades (Q*Bert! Joust! Crystal Castles! Arkanoid!), Ray came quite late to actual PC gaming. He uses the "I've got to catch up" excuse whenever someone is unkind enough to point out
the obsessive way Ray plays games.

In addition to writing about games for JustAdventure+, Ray also writes a weekly newspaper column about old movies on cable. He's also published two children's plays (yes, he brought rap to the children's musical) and has co-written several trivia games. A thoroughly trivial person, he's also appeared on six game shows where such arcane knowledge actually pays off.

Matthew Desmond

Matthew Desmond, born April 16th, 1984 (mark this date on your calendars, it's a very important date, folks) in Augusta, Maine, was introduced to the world of games at the age of 3. His grandparents bought him an Atari for Christmas (spoiled to the core you say? Nah!) He graduated into the world of the NES at the age of 6. Of course, it was for six more years until he graduated into the SNES era. Two years after getting his first SNES game, Matthew's family bought a second-hand computer, which now collects dust in the basement. Of course, this was not his first experience playing computer games. When he was in the sixth grade, the school computer teacher encouraged learning by playing games on the school computers such as Oregon Trail (which totally rocks) and Carmen San Diego (Matthew was the only student in the school to make it to the last case of the game and track down Carmen San Diego.)

Writing reviews of computer games started in his Sophomore year of high school when the family computer could actually run something without having a hissy fit. The first site he reviewed for, PCGaming.com is now defunct. Matthew came onboard the JA Staff in the fall of 2000 when he needed to get an internship for his journalism class. Randy was more than happy to let him onboard.

Matthew spends most of his time either reading or playing computer games. Currently on his play list are games like Grim Fandango, FIFA 2001, Deus Ex, Sub Command, The Sims series, the Rainbow Six series and B-17 Flying Fortress. In the fall of 2002, Matthew will be studying U.S. History at the University of Maine at Orono and reviewing games on the side.

When Matthew is not doing any of the above, he usually gets together with a group of his friends to play pen and paper RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons and occassionaly the Star Wars RPG.

Agustín Cordes

Did you ever have that feeling when you realize something that will never change? I mean, do you remember when you realized your girlfriend would be your wife for the rest of your life? Oh, you're not married, I see - me neither. But anyway, my point is: the first day I played King's Quest back in 1987, I knew I'd be forever in love with the genre. Seriously, after entering a castle, climbing up a tree, exploring a cave and finding all kinds of treasures, I realized that was the kind of game I loved - with King's Quest I felt the sense of adventure in all its splendour and, while now it seems a bit bland after all these years, I still remember it as an enlightening experience. That's right - after King's Quest, I was an avid adventure gamer.

Years passed, more adventures were played and the internet appeared. Somehow, I needed to find a place where I could gather more information about adventures, where I could satisfy my adventuring needs. Of the small bunch of sites dedicated to the genre, only one stood above the rest with loads of info and quality. Even better, where in most sites adventures were covered like a mere day-job, in this site the staff showed a whole-hearted love for the genre, just like me - that's how I knew about Just Adventure.

More years passed, even more adventures were played and lots of visits to JA were payed. One day, the JA forum opened and, without intention, I was sucked in. Next, I could write a line like "less games were played, lots of posts were made" but I guess that's getting pretty tiresome by now. Cut to the chase: one day I started a topic about unfinished adventures with several comments, Randy liked it, he asked if I wanted to write an article about it and that's it - I'm in!

Now a little about me. I'm 23 years old. As you may have guessed from my spelling mistakes, English isn't my native language. I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Right now I'm working as a programmer in a communications-oriented company. Also, I'm carrying on my Electronic Engineering career, which I'm liking a lot. When I'm not working and studying, I usually try to sleep - when I'm not sleeping it's because I'm playing games. I'm a huge fan of sci-fi and horror, genres I love on books, movies and games. Lovecraft is my most favorite writer. I'm a weird guy - people close to me know I'm a slightly deranged person. I often enjoy things most normal people don’t, like Monty Python (I really love British humour) and bizarre, low-budget, badly-acted horror movies.

As for my favorite games - Wasteland, Fallout and System Shock are right at the top of my list. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "after that initial speech, this guy is telling me his favorite games are RPG's?!". Well, while those are the games I most enjoyed for several reasons (being a post-apocaliptic nut for two of them), that doesn't mean the adventure genre isn't the most I like. In fact, I've played and enjoyed so many adventures that it's very difficult for me to pick a few single favorites.

Karla Munger

Karla walked through -- or perhaps more accurately, backed through -- the door of adventure gaming just a few years ago. As with many things in her life, it was quite by accident.

One day, motivated solely by impulse, Karla bought the game Schizm (when it was actually called Schizm, and nothing else). Why? Because the box art looked nice and she was tired of FPS games, which she'd been stuck in longer than she now cares to admit. Pretty good reasons, huh?

She had seen none of the online info about Schizm when she purchased it. In fact, she'd never even heard of the game. Little did she know that she was about to unwittingly begin her journey into the land of adventure with a game that boasted some of the most difficult puzzles in history.

But no matter! Despite the fact that Schizm ended up tying her brain in knots, she was bitten hard by the adventure bug.

Since then, she's been backtracking to pick up some of the adventure classics she missed while stuck in those silly first-person shooters. Along with doing things accidentally, Karla also has a knack for doing things backwards. Go figure.

Be that as it may, she had never realized that activities like thinking and solving puzzles could be so much more enjoyable than, say, blowing things up and having hoards of nasty creatures, machines, and/or God-knows-what trying to kill you. What a difference. Wow.

While still getting her adventure game "legs," Karla came across the Just Adventure site. It literally reached out and grabbed her. (Ooooooh!) Returning the friendly gesture, she grabbed it back -- and they've been together ever since.

Then, Karla bopped over to the JAVE site one day and saw a "help needed" blurb which, for some reason, she'd never noticed before. Whoa!! She was immediately all over it like a cheap suit, which led to her great good fortune of meeting Valerie and becoming part of the JA Staff. And what an adventure (yes, pun intended) it's been so far!

Aya

Born in Greece, 1975. Started gaming almost as soon as talking and walking! First adventure experience: Deja Vu, on my brand new Amiga 500, on September 1988 - a game that changed my life forever! Played and finished a 3-digit number of adventure games since then! Favorite adventure game: The Colonel's Bequest (coincidentally based on favorite book, Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (aka And Then There Were None)). Also, big fan of Survival Horror games, with Parasite Eve being my favorite (surprise!). Favorite game ever: Kick Off 2 on Amiga!

The three most important people in my adventuring and reviewing career:

Andreas Tsourinakis: Adventure grand master and reviewer on the greek magazine PC Master. Andreas personally took me by the hand during my first adventuring baby steps, and to him I owe a lot of my adventuring experience!
My wife Valerie: JA+ webmistress. Met on the JA+ Forums, fell in love, got married and living together in Alabama! Valerie is the one that convinced me that i could actually write reviews!
Randy Sluganski: One of the greatest adventure personas worldwide! The genre would certainly not have been the same without him. Randy gave me the opportunity to be a reviewer on the biggest adventure site in the world!

Ryan Casey

I was born during the golden years of adventure games. My first foray into gaming was with Broderbund's revised version "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" That was around 1995, on my Compaq Presario that my dad wouldn’t let me use every day. Eventually, I captured all 40 criminals and moved on to collecting all other games in the series. That’s when my obsession with mysteries started! :-)

Then, when I got a gift card to CompUSA, I found "Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion." Having been turned on to the books by my first cousin (a bad idea on her part, for sure), I eagerly snatched it up and spent hours playing with it. I remember having to order the strategy guide because I missed seeing a vital clue. Regardless, I was hooked on adventure games for good. I got my start at JA when I stumbled upon the site and enjoyed Ray and Randy's hilarious reviews. I emailed Randy and told him I was interested in ‘joining the JA community’ and attached a review of Cameron Files 2 as a resume of sorts. After brief correspondence, my big break came in October of 2003 when Randy asked him to review the latest Nancy Drew game, "Danger on Deception Island."

I think my early reviews lacked substance as I tried to figure out how best to go about reviewing, but I believe that I have mastered my own style and take pleasure in reviewing the occasional detective game that comes along. Despite the fact that I cannot find a lot of time for adventure games nowadays, I have played and enjoyed “Scratches,” “Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express,” “Jack Orlando: Director’s Cut,” “Clue Chronicles,” “Tony Tough,” and others. I may be the youngest of the JA crew (not out of high school just yet!), but I still enjoy what I do; my only wish is that I had been born maybe ten years earlier so I could've seen more of the genre's golden age.

Shannon Hall

Like a significant portion of the population, my gaming career began with the ubiquitous Atari console. Yes, Donkey Kong and a forgotten game called MegaMania took control of my life, and I could think of nothing else. Reaching ever-higher scores, beating more levels, and getting a serious case of “joy-stick thumb” along the way became my single life’s goal. I know you old-time gamers know what I’m talking about.

Fast forward to the Sega Channel (Anyone remember that short period of bliss? All the games you could stand for a monthly fee?), and I became addicted to Maniac Mansion in all it’s low-res glory. I later graduated to full-on computer adventure games, generally preferring ones that infiltrated secret societies and investigated strange happenings. I still revel in the memories of Black Dahlia as though they were my own, and I ate up the Broken Sword series like it was candy.

Following in my father’s footsteps, I enjoyed a brief run of RPG games. Diablo, Baldur’s Gate, and Icewind Dale took me away from true adventure games, but I quickly realized I didn’t have the fortitude for all that violence. After suffering a week-long bout of guilt over – I swear I’m not making this up-- killing a giant grub-worm that was a man’s only friend simply to procure an irritating talking sword I didn’t like, I had to admit that RPG’s weren’t for me.

So now here I am, happily immersing myself in the adventure genre once again and very glad to see that it’s alive and well. “Bring on the Knights Templar,” I say! I’ll unearth your sinister secrets time and time again! And along the way, I’ll be more than happy to share my journeys with readers of the greatest adventure game site on the planet.

Ugur Sener

Ugur was introduced to adventure games playing Monkey Island at a friend's house. Immediately falling in love with the genre, Ugur started avidly collecting and playing adventure games. Expanding his horizons to include many other genres, Ugur has a bigger collection of games than he cares to count. He can be frequenly sighted at game stores sifting through bargain bins or used games looking for hidden gems to add to his collection.

A passionate fan of adventure games, Ugur enjoys having the opportunity to talk about his favorite genre here at Just Adventure. When he is not in front of the computer trying to solve a puzzle, come up with creative combinations for inventory items, leveling up one of his many role-playing characters, or figuring out a way to get past a tough boss fight, Ugur works as a business programmer. He currently resides with his wife in Oklahoma City.

Ricardo Pautassi

Even tough I had spent countless hours of my childhood spending my hard-earned money in arcade machines; I had always considered computer games mind-numbing and pointless. In fact, had I been asked, I would have never said that I could end up literally being sucked by computer games, let alone that I would be actually writing reviews about them. When did things change? Well, it was a cold winterly afternoon and I had been surfing the web for a while looking for free stuff when I stumbled upon Larry Vales’s review on JA+ (hey, if you haven’t played that game yet, please stop reading this and start downloading it, should be just a couple of clicks away from this page). I was really hit by the adventure bug that time. And guess what..., Gabriel Knight I was my next one. Couldn’t have chosen a better one. Interestingly enough, after many hard disk crashes, computer and OS changes and even a long trip from Central Argentina to to my actual residence in America’s east coast, GKI has always remained in my computer (thanks DosBox!!), and hopefully will be there for the ages to come, discussing with Mosley and flirting with Grace.

For an avid reader like me adventure games have what other genres not: plot, thought-provoking gameplay and, most important, characters. Characters you could take care of, identify with and experience the world through his/her eyes. I agree with Bill Tiller (see the full interview in The Inventory, No.5, p 8) in that when I play games I don’t want to be me. I want to be the anti-hero Roger Wilco or the noisy reporter Laura Bow trying to solve a chain of murders, the clumsy Rincewind in a world that moves in the shoulders of four elephants or the detective Ben Jordan looking for paranormal activity across America. To sum it up, I want to be someone else for a while, and that’s what separate waters between adventure from other genres.

After all the previous rambling, a few words about me. As you may have guessed from my awful grammar, I’m not an English native speaker. I was born in Argentina, the country where I lived for the last 28 years. On February 2006 I moved to America (Binghamton, NY) and I am currently working at Binghamton University as a post-graduate researcher in the field of animal learning and behavior, specifically in regards to the effects of early experiences with alcohol. What do I do in JA+? Well, I write reviews for text-adventure games, a sub-genre that is well alive and kicking. My favorite txt games are A mind Forever Vogaying, Anchorhead, Phototopia, City of Secrets, Babel and I’m a big fan of all Rob Sherwin’s games (i.e, A Crimson Spring).

Sudeep Pasricha

Sudeep Pasricha has been an avid adventure gamer ever since he stumbled upon the LucasArts classic Day of the Tentacle, back in 1993. Since then he has whiled away possibly several years of his life in the pursuit of popular and offbeat adventure games. His dedication to gaming often transmogrifies him into a hermit, compelling him to spend several sleepless nights until he finishes a game. And then he likes to enthusiastically discuss it with anyone who's unfortunate enough to wander into his path. Which is probably why his therapist suggested he take recourse in writing, to vent his suppressed passion. Over the last decade, he has written articles and columns for several computer magazines, on topics such as games, technology and the internet.

Born in New Delhi, India, he currently resides in California where he is pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science. Before coming to California, he lived briefly in Southern France, where he worked for a semiconductor research and development lab. He loves to wander the world and has spent inordinate amounts of time (and an obscene amount of money) traveling across Europe, Asia and America. Sometimes he feels a desire to disconnect from worldly pleasures and just meditate peacefully in solitude. When he returns to the earthly realm, he indulges in his other favorite pastimes of watching movies, listening to music (he loves Radiohead), reading books (Terry Pratchett is his favorite author) and spending time outdoors either on the beach or hiking on mountains.