And that's how we got our multicultural society here...
When playing Shadows of the Afterland last time, I left Carolina in a sticky situation. Having saved the game, I was ready to investigate and figure my way out of it. But when I reloaded and watched the recap of my previous playing session, I thought the game glitched and the recap kept showing, no longer past conversations, but future ones as well! Trapped by the villain, I expected a good puzzle but instead the game kept going from cutscene to cutscene. The recap wasn't glitched, because I loaded an older saved game to test it and the conversations kept coming this time as well. I didn't even have to switch Afterlife locations manually anymore.
The travel map.
Finally I was given control again and I could do a couple of actions, but they didn't amount to much. Half an hour after reloading, I finished the game, bringing my total playing time to just under five hours. It was only partly a satisfying ending, since I was expecting more answers to the mysteries. I was left with the same questions I had at the start of the game.
This woman looks at least 20 years older than she says she is!
I did discover another handy feature besides the recap system the devs added to Shadows of the Afterland: saving during conversations, and even during cutscenes! You simply pause the game in the middle of talking, click on the menu icon and save! Oh, how long have I wished for this to be implemented! The conversations here aren't that long, but there are games where they can stretch out for a long time and sometimes, when you have to go, you don't have the time to sit through all that, and in many games quitting a conversation early doesn't always guarantee you can continue the conversation later on.
Portal hopping to the land of the living...
So, other than the rather hurried and pretty much un-interactive finale, I really enjoyed Shadows of the Afterland with its quirky characters, fun pixel art, and interesting take on the afterlife, mixing the drama of death with humor and adding a very slight whiff of some Grim Fandango crime. And of course that brilliant recap system, and the ability to save during conversations.
Next up I'll be going back in time to a 90s classic. With a trembling heart I'm going to attempt the Les Manley sequel, Lost in L.A.After the disaster of the first game, I'm hoping this one will be a bit more forgiving, though that will probably not be the case since it's I've heard it makes the first game look like Monkey Island 2...
You can find Shadows of the Afterland on Steam and on itch.io.
Okay, hold up! Why don't more adventure games use this technique? Previously I had simply loaded up my Shadows of the Afterland save file, but then I tried the Continue button on the main menu, and I was suddenly treated to a recap of my previous gaming session! How marvelous is that! It might not seem that way, but I often days pass before I get a chance to continue a game, and often I'll feel lost with no idea what I was supposed to be doing. A recap like this (almost) beats an in-game notebook!
I get a slight Soylent Green vibe from this scene...
Carolina has been giving a task by the former spectral agent to prepare her journey back to the land of the living. This meant exploring the land of the dead even further, solving some easy puzzles, fetching some items for people so they'd help me. It all comes down to remembering the things you saw earlier which might be able to help you, or talking to someone who might know more. Nothing to break your brain over.
Valencia looked more like Westworld's Delos HQ when I was there...
Finally I reached the advertised part of the game I've been looking forward to: possessing people! Because that was such a blast in The Will of Arthur Flabbington by Guga Games. And indeed, it finally adds an extra layer to the puzzles. Though it also feels quite uncomfortable doing so...
A nice little family to use to my advantage...
I've also learned something very important, which has given me an inkling of what exactly happened to Pilar/Carolina. But I'm still very curious to see the motivation behind it all.
You can find Shadows of the Afterland on Steam and on itch.io.
Here's one I've been looking forward to for a while now! Shadows of the Afterland by Aruma Studios is a perfect fit for everyone who loves classic style pixel art point 'n click adventure games. After their previous title, Intruder in Antiquonia, I was hoping for something with a bit more meat on its bones. Well... It's still kinda missing that, since it's a game about ghosts... But anyway, you know what I mean!
Oh, the bureaucracy...
The premise is a bit difficult to explain... You play as Carolina, a detective from the year 1988, who is somehow transported into the astral body of a maid named Pilar, who for some unknown reason was pulled out of her body in 1960 and watched her rogue vessel get struck by lightning and fall into the polar bear pit at the Madrid zoo. Carolina, in the shape of Pilar's ghost, is now stuck in the afterlife, and it's your job to figure out what exactly happened to her. It's a very strange mystery and I'm really curious how they will explain it all.
That's definitely a book I would read!
The game is fully voiced, with the lovely Ivy Dupler as the main lead Carolina, but the entire cast performs with high quality. The pixel art graphics are slightly cartoonish but not over the top silly. It employs a one-click interface, with an inventory at the bottom of the screen. There are inventory puzzles and you'll have to talk to other characters to figure things out. You can save manually, but there's also an autosave on exit, which is very handy (but I'm old school so I still save manually, anyway...)
This guy is Afterlife-Stan...
So after having played for an hour, I can say I'm enjoying myself. So far it's not too difficult, I'm also not overloaded with inventory items. There are loads of locations and characters already, but there's also an overview map that's hardly been filled so I expect there's a lot more to come. The objectives are very clear, and it's also helpful that Carolina will say so if you don't really have to talk to a certain character anymore (and it's also helpful that she will automatically say the last available dialogue option or quit a conversation).
This guy should be able to help me; if I can convince him!
My primary goal at the moment is convincing a former "spectral agent" to help me get back to the world of the living so I can start investigating my own death. There are a couple of steps I still need to take for that, so let's dive right back into this realm of the dead!
You can find Shadows of the Afterland on Steam and on itch.io.
So, last year I wrote an anticipation post of all the adventure games I was looking forward to in 2025. But aw shucks, that didn't quite turn out so well, with several of the titles I mentioned back then still being in production as I write this. Of course, that's game development for you!
I'm still looking forward to their eventual releases, though I'm not quite sure when those will be. So I've taken a long, hard look at the 2026 release calendar and made a list of entirely new games that we should be able to play some time in the next twelve months.
TR-49 is the new game by Jon Ingold's production company inkle. Not much is known about this title; it's all cloaked in secrecy, since the game itself is about secrecy, hidden codes, spies, etc. (well, most likely, I presume...) But after my two hour "fiasco" overplaying Overboard! I considered it time to finally play and complete an inkle game! I'm not sure I'm quite up to the task, but sometimes you just have to dive in headfirst!
Theropods by Lost Token intrigued me from the start. I mean, DINOSAURS! Gotta play that! Now, I must admit, my enthusiasm has been lowered somewhat after I found out it's a dialogue-free game. Not a requisite to have a good story, but I do enjoy talking to characters when I'm playing a game, discovering information I need to progress, learning about them and the world I'm in. I'm a book reader, what do you expect! But if Dionous Games believes in this game enough to publish it, there must be something good there. So I'll just let myself be surprised!
I got the chance to play The Tragedy at Deer Creek at AdventureX last November and I'm really looking forward to dive in the full game. So naturally, this is one of the games I'm looking forward to the most. The developers of Sparrowland Studios were also very appreciative of my feedback. You travel to an abandoned Alaskan settlement as a photographer, slowly uncovering the secrets of its former residents.
(Of course I played more games at AdventureX that I'm looking forward to; you can read about them on my blogpost about the event!)
I'm not sure what the current status is of The Mystery of Doomsday Valley by True Ascension or if it even will be released this year (it's planned for Q4), but it looks like the kind of traditional point 'n click adventure I truly still enjoy and adore. A remote town, a local mystery, lots of characters, a whimsical style, and a quirky female lead; just let me at it already! I just hope it'll be more of a challenge than their previous title, Champy the Useless Vampire...
After An English Haunting by Postmodern Adventures, I've been looking forward to their next title, The Dark Rites of Arkham. This time I'm going to make sure to play it in the year it's actually released, so it can count for my next top ten! I have high hopes for this one, a detective story about a ritual murder linked to the Salem witch trials, so I expect to get creeped out again!
Finally this list wouldn't be complete without mentioning Shadows of the Afterland by Aruma Studios. Their second game after Intruder in Antiquonia, I hope they've learned from that previous title and have made something more substantial, a story with appealing graphics you can really dig into. And a ghost set to investigate its own death, possessing humans to get the necessary information? That sounds like a blast!
I'm also still looking forward to The Adventures of Bryan Scott by Radio Silence Studios, Legends of Castile by Torrezno Entertainment and Whirlight: No Time To Trip by imaginarylab. I also hope that Ghost Haunting by Three Headed Monkey Studios will be released; I didn't play the demo at AdventureX because I was already convinced to play the full game, so fingers crossed for that one, too!
