Often I hear people say that adventure games made today are too easy. They call them "walking simulators" or "visual novels"; you simply click through the narratives and see the stories unfold almost automatically. There's too much handholding, and obstacles you face have the accompanying inventory item to get past them almost literally lying next to them for a quick and easy grab. They are devoid of puzzles, and playing these games requires no genuine THINKING anymore.
But there are still games being made in the (often frustrating) style of the 80s and 90s. Games with loads of inventory items you don't know what to do with, plenty of different locations to explore and figure out their importance, and many eccentric characters blocking your way in need of persuasion.
Here are ten games I definitely DIDN'T waltz through easily, that had me stumped on several occasions, and which I hope will keep you occupied for a long enough time too (but don't be mad if you happen to have a higher IQ or more street smarts than me...).
Some of these games were actually too difficult to be truly enjoyable for me, but perhaps they can satisfy your thirst for a true challenge. Others you might recognize from my previous lists of favorite games, but what can I do? Those really are excellent, and the puzzles are a huge part of that!
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Back in 2022, I played The Hand of Glory, a point 'n click adventure game that - to be honest - didn't look like much at first view, but once I got past the rather simple character designs I discovered it was an amazing story filled with intuitive puzzles that could definitely compete with the likes of Broken Sword and Gabriel Knight. Now, Madit Games is back with a 14,5 hour sequel!
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Whirlight: No Time To Trip (2026)
If
you love lengthy point-and-click adventures with loads of stunning locations,
interesting characters and fairly challenging inventory puzzles, you’ll find
Whirlight: No Time To Trip a joy to play. Its unique graphical style, combining
almost photorealistic backgrounds with more cartoonish characters, depicts many
gorgeous settings in various time periods to explore at your heart’s desire.
Hector and Margaret’s antics in the past, present and future provide both fun
gameplay and a captivating story (if you can ignore the occasional paradox),
reminding me how much fun time-traveling adventures can be. I would have
preferred some better signposting when you are supposed to repeat certain
actions, and it’s also a shame that shortcuts were taken with inventory
animation. But ultimately these are minor blemishes in a game that will
delightfully suck you into its thoroughly entertaining time-hopping vortex.
Many
of the puzzles revolve around the extra characters. Most of them will have
something to trade, be it an actual item or a particular service. You are then
sent on a fetch quest for something they want in exchange. Yet these aren’t
arbitrary puzzles, simply there to throw another obstacle in your face. They
always fit the character’s own story. There’s a tailor who will help you if you
bring him some fur to make a new coat; a fisherman who will only hand over his
rod if you give him some coffee; and a certain dog will only relinquish its toy
if you provide some other means of entertainment. In order to accomplish
the main goal in each part of Whirlight, there are dozens of
smaller quests to complete first – some even consisting of several layers of
their own – before everything comes together in the end. It certainly takes
time to play through it all, making the game much longer than I first expected,
but I very much enjoyed every minute of its 15 hours. Everything you have to do makes
sense, even if you might have to think about it for a while to reach the right
conclusion.
Wildwood Down’s hero Daniel is such a kind and endearing character, so concerned for his sister and friends that he always wants to do the right thing, though he’s not afraid to bend the rules once in a while when necessary. After all, sometimes the end justifies the means! This leads to 10 hours of great adventure puzzling and (skippable) mini-games as you try to hunt down the serial killer menacing the boardwalk. While its choice of graphical design might not be to everyone’s taste, the many other fun elements of Daniel’s amusing adventure more than make up for that. Everyone who wants to get down with this wildly comedic thriller will be wonderfully surprised at every turn.
Other than a few minor rough cuts, THE BRiLLiANT COUP is a fun, old-school opportunity to see if you have the makings of a master burglar to steal the largest diamond in the world. While it doesn’t allow you to actively plan the heist of the Arctic Star, playing assistant to Uncle Briggs is certainly a satisfying foray into a life of crime. The game is decidedly old-school in its approach, and still has a few rough edges left to smooth, but it’s sure to steal your heart with its funky music and loads of subtle animations that bring the late-80s British streets to life. And it definitely achieves what it sets out to do: tricking people to get your hands on blueprints, convincing accomplices to join you, and then coordinating them to do their part of the job will keep you busy for a decent 8 hours of traditional-style adventure gaming. While there’s never any true sense of danger or getting caught, there is a point of no return that determines how successful you are in the heist. While I didn’t manage to get the most loot, I did make off with a fair amount and was able to escape abroad for some well-deserved time off – hopefully with more irresistible future targets still to come.
Using multiple personalities to examine everything can be entertaining until it becomes tiresome, so you’ll need to take your time if you hope to succeed in the Spanish point-and-click comic adventure Ramas’ Call: Twisted Timing. For all my criticisms, it isn't a bad game per se. It's not brilliant, obviously, and it lacks a decent payoff, but it’s presented in a charming art style and takes you through a collection of inventory puzzles and NPC questioning in a story filled to the brim with unique responses. That makes for a solid bit of adventuring, if disappointingly unintuitive at times, with the added clever premise of having multiple personas available. It’s very slow paced as a result, taking 10 hours to finish, but I do believe there's an audience among those who love to take their time exploring and trying out everything instead of rushing through to the end – which is just as well, as all you’ll get is the setup for a sequel here instead. There are certainly much better games of its kind, but if you find yourself in that mellow mood for a traditional and mildly amusing point-and-click adventure, there are some fun stretches to be found, and you may just pick up some Spanish while you’re at it.
The SCUMM-style interface and some poorly clued objectives might not appeal to modern players used to easier games, but for old-school genre fans, The Legend of Skye provides a wonderful dose of nostalgia, transporting you back to the golden days of point-and-click classics. Lovers of nostalgia will adore both the lovely pixel art graphics and (at least for a while) verb-based user interface of this fantasy journey, but some puzzle designs seem to stem from the 80s and 90s as well. You’ll often have to think long and hard about how to use your huge collection of inventory items, and you’ll find yourself searching everywhere and talking to everyone more than once before the penny drops – if you don’t stumble upon the solution accidentally through trial and error first.
The puzzles can be quite daunting at times, since it's often unclear what you're supposed to do. You’ll wander around collecting a bunch of inventory items quite easily, but without a clear idea of where to use them exactly. Indeed, the signposting leaves something to be desired. Since there are many little steps you need to take in order to accomplish the three main goals, it’s easy to feel a little aimless along the way. While I enjoyed the humor and had lots of fun throughout, especially during the second half of this 8 hour quest, by which point the game’s expectations had started to become a bit more intuitive to me, it also came with its share of frustrations. This too will be very familiar to all those who tried to solve adventure game puzzles in the era before the internet, which appears to be the point. At least this time you don’t need to call a hotline to pay for your hints, with a walkthrough always close at hand. I wish I didn’t need to use it as often as I did, but I gladly accept some old-school gameplay frustrations for the chance to feel transported back in time with a funny, entertaining adventure experience like I remember from my childhood.
Jack Flabbington's uncle, Arthur, has passed away and Jack is upset he doesn't inherit anything. Arthur is supposed to have a treasure stashed away somewhere, so Jack calls in the help of a medium to bring back Arthur's spirit so he can ask where it is. Something goes wrong, though, and the medium brings back the wrong Arthur. Jack is now stuck with an unknown spirit, and there's nothing left to do than search for Arthur's old friends Ada and John who, according to his will, are the only ones who can access the fabled treasure.
Yes indeed, you need to take over other people's bodies to get them to do stuff for you. Quite ingenious, not to mention funny! In hindsight, the puzzles are always so brilliant, but it always seems to take some thinking out of the box.
The gritty, realistic urban setting is stunning, but the story of The Safe Place is so drearily centered on poverty, crime and abuse that succeeding in cracking the more difficult inventory puzzles becomes more of a struggle than a pleasure just to progress and see more misery unfold. True life isn’t all fun and games, which is clearly reflected in this story of poverty, domestic abuse and crime; of struggling to overcome being a victim of others or simply of circumstance. It’s an unapologetically dark story set in a realistic world and filled with misery. Some of the pain is inflicted by inventory puzzles that even experienced adventure gamers will find needlessly tricky, although at least there’s a hint feature this time around, clocking out the game at 5,5 hours. The main character makes loads of bad decisions along the way, over which you as the player have disappointingly little control, making him very unsympathetic and draining away any feeling of satisfaction from what might otherwise be an emotionally gut-wrenching story. There is much to appreciate here, but it can feel more like work to get to the good parts sometimes. I’d probably appreciate it more as a novel or movie, but as a game it falls a bit short in granting a memorable gaming experience.
While playing, it’s easy to imagine the flow chart the developer had in mind; there’s real structure between the puzzles and the story. But the difficulty level of the solutions is all over the place. For instance, at one point, you need to light a certain object on fire. You already have something that burns, but apparently it’s not enough to do the job. Instead there’s another whole step involved for no reason besides making the puzzle harder. There’s only ever one way to solve a puzzle, and often I found myself not thinking about it as the game’s player or even as the main character, but actually wondering in my head, “What would the developer of this game want me to do at this point?” Which sadly breaks the illusion.
Lucy is troubled by recurring nightmares depriving her of some well needed night’s rest. Her goal is obvious: find a way to take control of her dreams and combat those nightmares. A psychology book of her dad advises her on how to do this, so the first part of the game is getting set up for this. Nothing is easy in this 12 hour game, and every goal you need to achieve will only be met by finding the necessary items, talking to the right people, and performing the right tasks. You roam around Lucy’s house, with loads of hotspots generating funny remarks depending on what you do with them.
Half of the game is spent in the real world, while in the other half you fight your way through the dream world. You will often need information from one world in order to move ahead in the other. There are several dreams to overcome, but the real world isn’t without its obstacles either. Lucy Dreaming combines travelling through fantasy (dream) worlds with solving a murder mystery, all in a nostalgic 90s setting with excellent, very detailed writing, great voicework (including Dominic Armato, whom Tom succeeded in acquiring for this job even long before anyone ever talked about him returning to a particular island), clever puzzles and nerdy coolness overall!
Mike Melkout is a bellboy at Hotel 404, with a hidden agenda. He has two days' time to clear the hotel of all guests and staff and complete his secret mission. But he also has a job to do, being the bellboy. His boss, the guests and other staff members will often beep him on his pager with one task or other. If he wants to stay at the hotel, he'll have to please them as well as try to get them to leave the place themselves.
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