I've finished my replay of "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"!

How devious of me...

After playing through both the Wits and the Fists path in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, I reloaded my game to the point where you choose your path, and continued on the Team Path. This time, Sophia tags along for the ride, though it once again takes us through the same locations, although the experience is a bit different. It feels like it combines elements from the two other paths a bit, while still adding some new things as well.

Around Algiers in 80 days...

I often wondered what a movie adaptation or novelization would be like, how it would combine elements from all three paths, especially when it comes to Sophia since she always shows up somewhere. There actually is a novelization out there, a fanmade project you can read for free. But I own a whole bunch of Indy books and I would very much like to add a physical copy of a genuine "Fate of Atlantis" book.

I imagine the real world location to be a kind of theme park now...

After dealing once again with Trottier and Al-Jabbar, the adventure takes us back to Crete. While most of this path you keep doing things on your own as Indy, I'm glad there are several instances where you actually need Sophia to continue. Of course that's what the Team Path is about. I'm guessing it was a tough balancing act, though. Naturally gamers want to play as Indy as much as possible, but you need to make sure Sophia is essential as well.

Up, up, and away!

As I reached Atlantis, this time I continued playing and searched the second maze in this game. I didn't realize it before, but now they remind me of the mazes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: the catacombs in Venice, the castle and the zeppelin. Thankfully the mazes in Atlantis are far more forgivable and put more focus on exploration instead of trial and error surival.

A game of hide and seek...

I like how the rooms in Atlantis are randomized each playthrough, except for the dungeon of course. This is where your actions also define which ending you get; I didn't try them out for my playthrough, but if my memory serves me correctly, I think there are three of them.

Be careful what you say, now...

I finished this playthrough of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis in rougly 4,5 hours - playing through all three Paths, of course, and remembering most of the puzzles. It's still quite a fun game which I think really captures the essence of an Indy story without making it too much into an action game. It also reminds me that I still need to finish Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on the PS5... Hopefully in the new year!

The End!

My next playthrough will be a game released in 2025 but I didn't get around to yet; there are still a couple of those I want to finish before we're bombarded with loads of amazing new releases again. I think I'll finally go looking for a bunch of long-lost relatives in a particular family...

You can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam and on GOG!

My Adventure Game Top Ten of 2025

My top 10 of 2025!

Here are my top ten adventure games of 2025. This list is based on my personal enjoyment of all 28 games I've played this year - not all point 'n clicks, but one and all great narrative experiences! We had a crazy year and it's actually impossible to make a ranking like this, because all these games are SO good in their own field, it really just comes down to how much fun I had playing them. So even the lower ones are still top notch!

10. Slender Threads

The nightmarish journey in Slender Threads isn’t for the faint of heart, but those with a morbid sense of humor will love the fun of unraveling the delightfully quirky goings-on in the strange town of Villa Ventana. 

9. Rosewater

Its obstacles may not put up much of a fight, but Rosewater’s sharpshooting lies with its wonderful production value and freedom of choice in this character-driven Western, earning itself a big “Yeehaw!” for fun and replayability.

8. The End of The Sun

Exploring the magnificent mythological world of The End of the Sun rivals any vacation you could ever take deep into Central Europe yourself, especially when travelling through time to uncover the Slavic valley dwellers’ intimate personal stories.

7. Blue Prince

The immense puzzle game that is Blue Prince is so multi-layered, it keeps you busy for well over 100 hours as almost every detail matters in one way or another. You're in the position to inherit a huge mansion, but its rooms change daily and puzzling your way to the grand prize is no easy feat! I still haven't "really" finished it, and I'll probably never will...

6. Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer

Our hopes for a wonderful sequel have come true, as Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer balances a great dialogue-based serial killer mystery with entertaining puzzles in another sublime point-and-click pixel art adventure game. 

5. The Drifter

The Drifter is an action thriller with supernatural elements, and the game does an excellent job to translate that into an interactive experience, where we put in a sense of urgency which makes the game feel extremely fast-paced. 

4. Dispatch

Dispatch is an interactive animated superhero series filled with dialogue choices and mission management. You play as Robert Robertson, former superhero Mecha Man, who gets recruited by the Superhero Dispatch Network, where he becomes the man in the chair.

3. The Séance Of Blake Manor

The Séance of Blake Manor is one big investigation game where you have to make deductions and decisions and choose how to spend your time. The initial nervousness quickly made place for elation and the accompanying adrenaline rush, causing the search for a missing young woman in supernatural circumstances to become quite addictive.

2. Foolish Mortals

Foolish Mortals  is going to be right up there with old classics. It features beautiful artwork filled with small animations, excellent voice-overs and straightforward inventory puzzles. The story is very engaging, with lots of characters and great dialogue combining background information with clues to the puzzles.

1. Old Skies 

If you are a fan of Wadjet Eye Games, your zeal will be transformed into divine adoration after playing Old Skies. This is just instant classic to me, and it should be instant buy for anyone who's serious about playing adventure games. It doesn't feel like a game; it feels like a work of art. It's entertainment of a whole other level.

Played through two of the "paths" in "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"

Typical Indy-travel view

When I first played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, I spent hours on figuring out all the puzzles. Mostly the dialogue ones gave me trouble, not being as fluent in English back in the day, and of course not as experienced in adventure gaming. This replay, however, is going very smoothly, even after so many years.

Follow the little red dot...

After the first part of my replay, I continued onto the Wits Path. This took me to Algiers and Monte Carlo, getting in touch with Sophia's contacts. I had to find a way to follow Omar Al-Jabbar's assistent to the home of his boss, locate a dig site deep in the desert on camelback, then save Alain Trottier from his kidnappers in a chase sequence you'd actually expect for the Fists Path.

High speed chase through the streets of Monte Carlo...

Finally I ended up in the Greek isles, first on Thera - or Santorini - and then on Crete and the labyrinth of Knossos. I think this is one of the rare in-game labyrinths I actually enjoy. It's been so long since I played this game, most of it I still remembered but navigating the labyrinth felt like it was the first time again, and it took some searching around.

Finish him!

Finally I found my way into Atlantis, and that's when I reloaded my game to the point where I get to choose which path to take, and this time I continued onto the Fists path. At first this felt like some kind of Easy Mode, visiting all of the same locations, but a bit further on the path's difference became very much apparent when I had to fight some soldiers and actually met up with Sophia again, which you'd only expect on the Team Path.

Did this inspire that Dial of Destiny scene?

After two hours and forty-five minutes of total playing time, I had completed both the Wits and Fists path up to the point where I reached Atlantis. Now it's time to reload again and finish the game following the Team Path!

You can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam and on GOG!

Classic Replay: "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis"

Replay time!

When I bought a copy of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis when I was fourteen years old, a whole new world opened up to me. I was already a fan of point 'n click adventure games, but never before did I lose myself so truly in an interactive story. To be honest, I wasn't even that big of an Indy fan yet; this game changed it all.

Gorgeous close-ups in this game!

I've actually bought this game twice: first I had the floppy version. I believe it came on five disks. Then later on, I bought the LucasArts Archives box to get a copy of Sam 'n Max Hit the Road, and it also contained the CD-ROM version of Fate of Atlantis; the exact same game, only fully voiced this time, with Doug Lee doing quite a good Indy impression.

I actually started keeping an "Atlantis Diary" after this game...

When I first played it, I loved this game's hilarious, slapstick opening sequence, with Indy searching through the Barnett College collections for a rare Atlantean artefact Marcus Brody stashed away somewhere. Only afterwards, I thought this part wasn't very dignified for a hero of Indy's calibre. And I also didn't know why Marcus would hide it away for Indy to find, nor why Indy would need to whip his way inside, breaking an attic window in the process. It just didn't make much sense anymore. Then again, knowing scatterbrained Marcus, perhaps it's not so surprising... 

Always wanted such a necklace of my own...

After that opening sequence, Indy travels to New York to meet up with Sophia Hapgood, who he worked with on a previous archeological expedition and is basically an expert on everything Atlantis. After that, they travel to Iceland, Central America and the Azores in order to find enough information about The Lost Dialogue of Plato, a book the philosopher presumably wrote filled with details about Atlantis.

Jungles and temples, that's so Indy...

Forty-five minutes into this replay, I saved my game at a key spot: choosing your path! Depending on how you solved the first puzzles, Indy's sidekick Sophia Hapgood will do a reading and advise a course of action: either fight his way through (the Fists Path), puzzle his way through (the Wits Path), or take Sophia herself along as backup (the Teams Path). I'm going to follow the path Sophia has suggested for this playthrough: the Wits Path. After I reach Atlantis - the place where all three paths converge again - I will reload and play the other paths.

Always hated Ubermann's voice...

Sophia gave me a couple of leads to start my first search for Atlantis. So now I'll have to decide where to try my luck: Monte Carlo or Algiers.

You can find Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on Steam and on GOG!

My "Dispatch" job is done...

I had this weird "bad girl" fascination with Invisigal...

Dispatch is a tough game to take screenshots from. Since it's basically an interactive animation series, every scene has the potential to spoil stuff. And usually I was also too busy actually playing the game to hit the screenshot button. So I stopped taking screenshots after episode four. And now that I finished the game, I won't comment too much on the story, either.

The hacking mini-games could be quite tricky

But what an amazing story experience it was! The first two episodes were chill, but after that I was bombarded with several difficult choices, even some I regretted later on and I'm of a mind to restart those respective chapters to see what the different outcomes would be. I let myself be influenced by the events too much, I think. I had a clear goal in my head, but then I got tempted to go the other way. Which is often the case in real life, as well...

The dispatching jobs still hold some mysteries to me...

I was sorry to notice there weren't that many QTE's after the first episode. There was one scene about halfway through but it didn't have the same feel to it. I did feel like I got better at the dispatching job itself, even though lots of missions still failed because I had a hard time matching their descriptions and criteria to the correct hero characteristic, and the hacking mini-games could get tough as well. I also noticed that I was so busy concentrating on the dispatching that I missed tons of dialogue; looks like I really can't do two things at once... 

There's no "I" in Team!

Each episode follow the same formula: first a couple of scenes where you make dialogue choices, then a dispatching session, a mid-scene with dialogues, a second dispatching shift, and then a final scene with dialogue choices. There's an overarching story which is great, but sometimes I wished the dispatching game would last longer, but then again perhaps it's a good enough balance because who knows, it might get boring if you do it for too long. Thankfully, the final episode had a lot more dispatching jobs to get through. It suddenly brought back the QTE's in full force as well, which without decent training throughout the rest of the game, went a bit rough...

The cool hero shot...

So while Dispatch isn't a regular adventure game, and definitely nothing like a classic point 'n click, the sheer amount of fun I had with it grants it a place in my top ten.

And now it's finally time, after four recent releases, to go back to a replay of one of those classics point 'n clicks! Just let me grab my fedora...

"Scott Whiskers in: The Search of the Golden Cat", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "Scott Whiskers in: The Search for the Golden Cat is everything a sequel is supposed to be, keeping what already worked while improving on the first game’s weaknesses. Scott is a fun, well-voiced character who perhaps sticks his nose into other people’s business a little too much, but that’s precisely what gets him into positions where you need to use your wits to overcome all kinds of adventure gamey obstacles. The jungle is a fairly typical sort of setting for pulpy adventure stories, but developer Funny Factory cleverly fuses it with the modern world, turning it into a vacation resort of sorts without being over-the-top touristy. There’s no fortune and glory in it, but whether or not you believe the Golden Cat really has supernatural powers, some good fun is reward enough to search for solutions to help a downtrodden Guatemalan community become prosperous once again."

New game: "Dispatch"!

New game!

I've heard so many good things about Dispatch, but even if I hadn't, I was definitely going to play this game. I'm a Marvel fan, and Dispatch is basically an interactive animated superhero series. Just a couple of seconds into the trailer I knew this would be great, and preferably to be played on a big screen, so cinematic are the scenes.

This guy's in for a beating!

And two hours into it, having finished two of eight episodes or chapters, the game has proven itself. I just love it. Can you really call it a game? Well, there's definitely gameplay to it, though most of it feels more like a visual novel. You play as Robert Robertson, former superhero Mecha Man, who has retired after losing a fight with a villain which led to his suit to be destroyed, and who gets recruited by the SDN, the Superhero Dispatch Network, where he becomes the man in the chair, dividing up heroic jobs amongst the available superheroes and sending them around the city, sometimes needing to hack something to help them out of a bend.

I'm calling bullshit!

During the cutscenes, you also have to make dialogue choices, which shapes Robert's personality and steers the narrative into a certain direction, and perform QTE's during action scenes which give the game a bit more interactivity (though you can choose to simply watch those scenes without needing any player input). 

My hero!

Of course there's an obvious love interest in the form of one Blonde Blazer, who actually recruits you for the SDN. But this isn't the only relationship which is fun to watch develop. There are also Roberts co-workers, and of course all the villains-turned-heroes he needs to get on his side so they'll listen to him better and successfully complete their missions.

The dispatching part will take some getting used to...

Personally I have a hard time looking at Dispatch as a real game, let alone a point 'n click game (I've actually traded in the mouse for a controller, since it still required the WASD-keys for some sequences, which are counter-intuitive on my Azerty-keyboard) but I'm simply enjoying the heck out of this animated series. And so far, the dispatching sections (I've only done two of them at this point, though) are less difficult than I had imagined. So far there aren't any real puzzles: there's the hacking mini-game, and of course which hero is best suited for which job. It's more about the story, and with each episode about an hour long, is a great chance from passively watching some television show.

On to episode three, now!

The Séance of Blake Manor is over!

Nothing says gothic horror more than an dreary graveyard...

When I first started playing The Séance of Blake Manor, I wasn't sure I would be able to do the job well. The time limit really bothered me. You can't play this game like you would any regular point 'n click adventure game, both regarding dialogue options and examining hotspots. Everything costs time. It's an investigation game, a deduction game, but also a time management game.

I bet the Ark of the Covenant is in here somewhere...

After I finished the second in-game day, however, and I started to experience a kind of snowballing effect, finally putting things together succesfully, solving mysteries and "saving" people from harm during the eponymous séance, nervousness made place for elation and the accompanying adrenaline rush, causing the game to become quite addictive.

Fill in the blanks!

I was astounded by the amount of detail in this game. Not only graphically; the manor is indeed an amazing setting to roam around in, the characters are very recognizable, and each dialogue topic has its own little icon. But that dialogue as well; you can talk to almost everybody about almost each topic. Not everything is voiced, though: only the important bits show some great acting talent from the entire cast.

A whole lot a lecturing going on...

I started Sunday morning at 11 am, which was pretty late thinking of all the things I still wanted to do that day. So I went about my business, at first much more smoothly than on the Saturday, but then right after lunch I found myself once more standing in the middle of the manor's atrium thinking where I was supposed to go next. While a moment before I was never lost for leads, and more importantly, clear ideas on how to actually follow up on them, with everything starting to make sense to me, there were still a couple of not-so-obvious secrets to uncover, which took some extra snooping and questioning and peering a bit closer in a couple of dark corners of the manor.

We're all in the red now!

Then suddenly I had about three in-game hours to kill, because after I finally succeeded in figuring out each character's backstory, for the last mysteries I needed special access to a location that would only be opened up to me at a designated time. I was scared that I might have missed something earlier, so I went around asking people all the questions I thought weren't important and would only suck up precious time. But in the end that didn't really provide me with any new info, except for some extra topics I could read up on in the library but weren't essential for the investigation.

Great job, Spooky Doorway!

The game's final in-game hours blew me away, once again going smoothly. And as the credits rolled after an astounding 25 hours of gaming, I sat staring at my screen feeling sad, because the game was over. The investigation was done. I had figured it all out. And even though it was a tough job in places, and kind of stressfull as well keeping an eye on the time, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This was an amazing game with captivating gameplay, and if Declan Ward ever goes on another investigation, a new mystery but in the same style as this one, it will be an immediate buy for me!

Sunday morning at "The Séance of Blake Manor"

When in doubt...

After the quick Friday evening arrival, I woke up Saturday morning at The Séance of Blake Manor, surrounded by a coachload of suspects, one of whom is supposedly responsible for the disappearance of Evelyn Deane. So I went around questioning them. Until I found a key. And then another. And suddenly I had access to a whole bunch of rooms of the other guests. And people who read my blog and reviews probably know how much I love snooping around in places I shouldn't be.

Yay, maps!

I felt a bit like Grace Nakimura sneaking into each and every Rennes-le-Château hotel room in Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. I found lots of documents and clues, but I didn't feel like I was making much progress. After "saving" the first two people, nothing much happened, for a very long time. The game did urge me to investigate rooms and suspects even further, but I didn't know where to go, what to do or who to talk to in order to succesfully complete those tasks. It is indeed one big investigation game where you have to make those deductions and decisions and choose how to spend your time. And I had this constant feeling that I wasn't very good at it. Probably because all other mystery games often hold your hand and guide you along a bit too much.

I often feel so lost in this game...

Then finally, I made some headway near the end of Saturday when I could connect some dots and uncovered some secrets. With five people "saved", either by them chosen not to attend the séance or protected from its evil effects one way or another, and with a bunch of mysteries solved, I feel like I'm getting the hang of this game. I even "cracked" some codes, but still not enough to my liking; there are at least two more locked places which I hope contain the final clues I need to wrap up some of the mysteries.

Lots of stuff hidden in and around this mansion...

Right when I was finally able to search Evelyn Deane's room, the clock struck 9 pm and the game automatically transported me to the masked ball. I was kinda bummed out by that, and seemed once again proof that I was being too slow. I had hoped to skip out on the ball and burgle some more rooms instead, but at least the whole scene took a Lynchian turn, and I saw some of my assumptions about the supernatural goings-on in this manor confirmed. 

Things are getting kinda weird here...

So after 14,5 hours of gaming, it's now 11 am on Sunday morning, a brand new day, and I got lots of new leads to follow. I also know one extra location will upon up to me soon, so I hope I can finally go "save" the majority of the guests now!