Many people can't get enough of the old Sierra and LucasArts adventure games. Pixel art or 2.5D, one-click interface or verb system, it all revolves around talking to people, picking up everything that's not nailed down, or looking for something to remove those nails with. Fetch quests, item combinations, finding or fabricating keys to open doors, moon logic or down to earth, inventory or mechanical puzzles; modern developers still love telling their stories through these means, without feeling the need to completely redesign the gameplay or user interface.
Here's a list of my favorite traditional adventure games released in the past couple of years, that I feel capture best the look and feel of the classics, but also succeed in telling a memorable story you might want to revisit some day.
*In no particular order*
Lucy Dreaming - (2022)I had the honor of beta-testing
Lucy Dreaming and so helping
fine-tune this beautiful work of point ‘n click art and storytelling. There’s a clear love of adventure gaming
shining through in every second you spend in this world, and this game
is good for 12 hours of puzzling fun!
I’m Lucy, troubled by
recurring nightmares depriving me of some well needed night’s rest. My
goal is obvious: find a way to take control of my dreams and combat
those nightmares. A psychology book of my dad advises me on how to do
this, so the first part of the game is getting set up for this.
In
this way, it 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! I estimate a regular playthrough time of 12 hours.
Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit (2022)Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit is a light and colourful game with beautiful backgrounds, a movie or good TV show quality soundtrack, and a fun to play with main character whose outfit you can even customise. One puzzle I encountered even involved putting together the right pieces of clothing.
I'm Milda Kovas, freelance photographer (I chose that profession from three options at the start of the game) and I just inherited a house from my grandfather in Lithuania. Once there, I discover some people are after a secret gramps seemed to've been hiding, so of course I want to go after it myself first!
The game takes elements from
Broken Sword and
Secret Files to build a mystery drenched in history. I've encountered a couple of logic puzzles but the others are mostly inventory based. There is some level of interactivity added to interaction of NPC's by offering multiple ways to respond in conversations (not only in person but also by phone; calls ánd text messages), building your version of Milda's personality along the way. The quality of the game is top notch, it's everything what I expected. I finished it in 7 hours.
The Excavation of Hob's Barrow (2022)I'm Thomasina Bateman, antiquarian, and I've been invited to the town of Bewlay to investigate Hob's Barrow, a local burial mound. Once arrived, my host is nowhere to be found, the local townsfolk are keeping mum about both him and the barrow in question, and it doesn't take long to realise there's more than one mystery surrounding the area.
It's a slow game and I took my time to look at everything, talk to everyone, gather information and clues and just following the storyline as it unfolds. It's not a puzzle heavy game but it's a great story. I loved walking around Bewlay figuring things out. I don't think I used the in-game map function even once; I always walked there myself. I finished the game in 7,5 hours, and I'm really curious to see what the next brain child of Cloak and Dagger Games will be!
The Will of Arthur Flabbington (2023)
The Will of Arthur Flabbingon is a game by Fabio "Guga" Guggeri. I've helped beta test it a bit and I played through it again after it was officially released. I had only played the unvoiced version before that, so I was very keen on hearing all the characters speak for the first time! I Finished it in roughly 9 hours!
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.
This game is amazing. You have to pay attention to so many details to figure out the puzzle solutions. It's all inventory puzzles mostly, but then I suddenly discovered Arthur, the ghost, can POSSESS people! Yes indeed, you need to take over other people's bodies to get them to do stuff for you! This is ingenious! Not to mention funny! This also means that you actually have TWO playable characters in this game, which also means you have TWO sets of descriptions for every hotspot you encounter! Now that's what I call a very creative attention to detail and love for the job of decent game development!
Darkestville Castle (2017)I finished
Darkestville Castle in 8,5 hours! It seems to be heavily influenced by
Curse of Monkey Island. The graphic style, the chapter titles, the inventory system, especially the music, well, mostly the music, I mean, put this music in a quiz and I think every gamer will say it's from
Curse...
I'm Cid, a demon come to the town of Darkestville on a falling star. He plays a bit like Guybrush Threepwood but mixed with Megamind, although in general he doesn't come over all that villainous. One day my old "nemesis" Dan Teapot (who reminds me a bit of Wally B. Feed) locks me up in my castle, awaiting a trio of demon hunters to catch me and take me away. Of course I succeed in getting rid of Dan, only to have the demon hunters take off with my pet fish instead, which I'm adamant in getting back!
I like the puzzles, which are pretty straightforward. The game works with a verb coin, giving you the option to "look", "talk to" and "grab/use/open" stuff. There are lots of hotspots with often funny commentary, making this a well-packed game. It's not THAT long of a game, but I took my time exploring this detailed world, looking at everything and trying out stuff just to see what it does.
Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard (2022)I'm Finn, a roebuck returning home to the land of Velehill to celebrate an annual festival, only to find his parental home completely destroyed. Monsters roam the land, and the nearby villagers are convinced it's the wolves, once banished to the other side of the forest. But Finn encounters some weird elements while looking for his parents that makes him believe a lot more is going on than just a pack of vengeful wolves...
It's a fairy tale world filled with talking animals. There are many characters with great voice actors and several different locations all easily accessible through a world map. It all looks very cheerful but the place got its darker side too. Sometimes you're even warned of approaching danger by a flashing save (floppy disk) icon. And indeed, if you slip up, you get one of those classic death scenes the old Sierra games used to be filled with. Only here it's funnier than being simply annoying.
I really like how this story is written, everything makes sense, there's danger lurking all over the place, there's a general feeling of urgency, you really want to achieve all goals and, well, save the world basically. Usually you get a general "okay, that was fun, let's see what I'll play next!" feeling, but here I'm really quite immersed in this world and really wanted to celebrate the good ending. It's a gritty fairy tale that's about more than just cute talking animals. Very good story, I really hope it becomes the success it deserves to be!
Unusual Findings (2022)I had been looking forward to
Unusual Findings, being an 80s child myself. I love everything about it. Finished it in 13 hours. You control Vinny, who is followed by his friends Nick and Tony to explore their hometown and make up a plan after they find something unusual...
It's a beautiful pixel art adventure game using a verb coin to interact with the world (look, use and talk). Some well-designed puzzles; it was usually apparent what I had to do but not HOW I had to do it. Some misdirection, extra elements, but also some hidden objects; you really need to not only inspect but also try to use everything in this game because you never know where a necessary inventory item might be stashed away.
I really loved it when the domino effect happened, with one thing leading to another in solving the puzzles. I really like the structure of the game, and how we have three
protagonists; it makes it far more believable when each of them does
something they excel at, than having one main character capable of doing
it all. Also the dynamic between the boys adds to the fun, I really
liked their diverse personalities.
Whispers of a Machine (2019)I'm pleasantly surprised by Whispers of a Machine. I love the character portraits, the voices, the setting doesn't have too many screens so my mental map of the place was under control. I enjoyed this investigation.
You play as Vera, a cybernetically altered detective investigating a series of murders in a post-apocalyptic world. Puzzles are of perfect difficulty level. I was always looking forward to see where the story would take me.
As you play, you unlock new abilities, or "augmentations". Which ones you get depends on your playing style, and of course this also changes the puzzle solutions. Finished the game in 8,5 hours, though I have a feeling I could've handled the ending "battle" differently. I got the "Path of Tyr", finishing the game assertively, I "unleashed the wolf" and went "careerist". So turns out there are different endings, and from what I hear from other players, there are also different augmentations to get, depending on how you play.
The Night Is Grey (2024)The “grown man meets little girl and vows to protect her” theme is part of what made games like
The Walking Dead and
The Last of Us so great, as it’s highly effective at stirring up powerful emotions. And that’s exactly what Whalestork Interactive does with
The Night Is Grey, their very first point-and-click brainchild. This side-scrolling cinematic thriller brings two contrasting characters together and takes you on a creepy ride through dark forests and abandoned mines, where you’ll thoroughly (if tensely) enjoy puzzling your way past all kinds of physical obstacles to bring your young charge to her grandparents’ house while keeping her safe from a band of roving wolves.
The Night Is Grey constantly kept me on my toes. It challenged me with some doozy logic puzzles I was able to solve just before frustration set in, but thankfully its more straightforward inventory puzzles were able to balance the difficulty. The gorgeous scenery and frame-by-frame animation blew me away, and the chemistry between man and child, so well presented through their dialogue, made me forget they weren’t even voiced. There’s tension throughout the journey, and the quest to keep Hannah safe really makes you feel responsible, motivating you to hurry up and find your way out of danger. And then there are the story twists, the constant hinting at Graham’s past, the strange occurrences with the wolves, and a memorable ending that is sure to make you do a double take. Overall, it’s a wonderful journey that combines all of the elements that I enjoy most, and I consider it a must-play for other fans of traditional adventure games.
A Twisted Tale (2024)Wow, what a ride this was! What a feeling of accomplishment every time I made some headway! There are some nifty puzzles in this game, lots of funny stuff. I was really stumped a couple of times, but never too long to get frustrated. Really looking forward to chapter two!
My name's Vio. One day I'm minding my own business, cleaning up the café where I work, when suddenly I find this small Rubic cube left on one of the tables. As soon as I pick it up for a closer inspection, a vortex appears and it sucks me right in, only to spit me back out in some forest with strange looking plants and trees. The cube follows me through the portal and falls to the ground, glowing hot!
While I wait for it to cool down, I walk to the edge of the forest only to find a floating town in the clouds! I explore the town and meet a fisherman trying to catch birds, his wife Betty waiting for him as she constantly paints over her nails, a very enthusiastic turkey loving chef in a restaurant and his old lady customer needing to clean her teeth, a couple of road workers trying to keep the crumbling town together, a tattoo artist, and a very pedantic antique shop owner who just happens to have stolen my magic cube as soon as I'd turned my back!
I love this game's style: one-click user interface to either talk, examine or pick up items. An inventory you click open with the other mouse button. A hand-drawn classic-style adventure game with great voice acting and cool music every step of the way. While there aren't THAT many locations to visit in this chapter (nine screen in all I believe, some of them scroll sideways...) I must've walked for miles in this game! It's almost like, people don't stay where they are, and other conditions and environments change over time as well, as you progress through the story and puzzles. So I was constantly exploring, looking for new things, talking to people again and again.
