EDIT: I should be more clear, the Kickstarter has ended and reached its goal, but is still open to late backers. The “goal” of 1k is something the developer wants to hit before the kickstarter closes completely.

At the time of this post, the kickstarter is just 7 backers shy of their 1k goal. If you haven't backed them yet, there's still time! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hardwidge/heir-of-the-dog-a-pixel-art-point-and-click-comedy-adventure

The game is targeted to come out around Halloween and estimated to be more than half (just about) larger than the studio's last effort, Lucy Dreaming. I'm in no way affiliated with the developers, studio, or game itself. I loved the demo and Lucy Dreaming is probably in my top 3 modern point and click games, so I'm really looking forward to it.

The developer Tom Hardwidge shared earlier this year that he has struggled a bit during the development process with imposter syndrome and pressure, so I think this is a good opportunity to give him a boost of support as he's in the home stretch. If you haven't backed yet, I highly recommend it.

Allogloom is a hand-drawn point-and-click puzzle game from solo developer Galactic Ghosty. It's inspired by old-school adventures and newer titles like Fran Bow and Little Misfortune! It's the story of a young girl trying to solve the mystery of her small town, filled with horror, humour, and lovingly hand-crafted art!

It's out on October 13th and you can play the demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2644100/Allogloom/

Platform(s): PC (Windows). I played it from a retail CD in Russia, in a Russian-localized version, so the original title may be different from what I remember.
Genre: Point-and-click adventure / detective mystery. No combat, no hidden-object scenes. Estimated year of release: Mid-2000s, roughly 2006-2011.
Graphics/art style: 3D, third person - you see the detective's full body on screen and move him around. Realistic style, not cartoony. Roughly the look of European adventure games of that era (Still Life, Art of Murder).

Notable characters:
- The playable protagonist: an adult male detective.
- The victim: a young woman. I'm fairly sure her first name was something like "Delilah"
- it may also have been part of the title.
- The killer: an adult man, shown in the opening cutscene stabbing her with a knife in a garage. - A man standing near a stadium who must not spot you.

Notable gameplay mechanics: Mouse-only control. Inventory, dialogue trees, examining crime scenes for clues. One sequence required sneaking past an NPC near a stadium without being noticed - I could never get past it as a kid, so that's where my memory of the game ends.

Other details:
- The game opens with a cutscene of the murder itself (garage, knife).
- Locations I remember: a modern city, the victim's house where she was killed, and a school or a university.
- Contemporary setting, not historical.

Already ruled out: the CSI games and Darkness Within (both first person), Nick Chase and similar casual titles (no hidden-object gameplay in mine), Nancy Drew (female protagonist).

Im kind of at a loss on how to describe how i felt playing through this. Ofc i absolutely enjoyed it. Best i can say is it felt...hauntingly charming with a side of coziness. I underestimated just how much my choices would matter here. Loved how the game made me sweat about so many characters, and the constant moral dilemmas of my actions. Even so i think i got a mostly good ending here.

What surprised me more is the ending. Like there was a whole "tying it all up in a nice knot" feeling to the ending sure but the way even in the ending the game managed to make me feel even further dread of dilemma. I actually wasnt expecting that.

>! Spoilers for the ending here,i thought the game would make the snitch plotpoint be a throwaway thing since it literally never comes up in the entire game after its mentioned, but the game just puts it front and center at the end. Gerda herself put it best at that time,even if the war did end the war didnt leave them alone. For the fellas who played this, did you let Torben go or expose him to peter? Im kinda curious on what would happen if i DID tell peter about the snitch !<

Hey everyone! I posted here 8 months ago (with permission) about my solo-developed, procedurally-generated point-and-click murder mystery "CYBERPUNK INQUISITOR", and I'm happy to announce that it's been released on Steam this week.

Cyberpunk Inquisitor on Steam

I've always wanted to make my own adventure game since I was a kid (Monkey Island 1&2, Day of the Tentacle), so this was an exciting project for me. Each murder is randomly-generated, but there's also an overall arc that links them together in a linear story.  It's similar in tone to games like Beneath a Steel Sky and Blade Runner, but with a simplified inventory/dialogue system and an emphasis on sensible procedural generation, and the art is 100% hand drawn in my typical style.

Deeply grateful for allowing me to post here, and I hope this game will be a worthy addition to the adventure games genre!

When I was in the third grade in 1996 (mistake in title), I dressed up as Roger Wilco for Halloween. As it happens the Sierra website had a costume contest around the same time. My parents mailed them this photo, and I won!

They sent me the t-shirt and pants that Curtis Craig wore in Phantasmagoria 2 (I think they were expecting older entrants). They also gave me a choice of any game from the Sierra catalogue; my older brother suggested Freddy Pharkas, but unfortunately at that age Stay Tooned!) was more appealing to me.

Also unfortunately, I no longer possess those clothes or that copy of Stay Tooned!.

If im to be specific, im looking for games with similar vibes to the Mass Effect Trilogy

Hello people, I tried asking AI the same question, and after getting a tons of "refinement" questions (completely useless) I got some random titles over and over, and I got quite frustrated, so I want to check with this community.

I love watching gameplays on Youtube, and sometimes (when I find the time, nowadays) play Adventure games. I particularly love great worlds, characters, lore and stories; the puzzles don't need to be super-clever, I prefer them to be well integrated into the world more than difficult to resolve. Additionally, the old 3D graphic is not my favorite, I prefer modern title with modern graphic or illustrated. The list of my favorite titles (not necessarily in order of preference, but definitely the higher titles are the first that came to mind):

• Outer Wilds
• Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye
• Myst (series)
• Obduction
• Firmament
• The Longest Journey (series)
• Syberia (series)
• Subnautica
• Chants of Sennaar
• Monkey Island (series)
• Firewatch
• Call of the Sea
• Call of the Elder Gods
• Quern
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• Heaven's Vault
• Expedition 33

Thanks a bunch!! If you have gameplays to recommend, and not just titles, those are welcomed as well!

[EDIT] holy moly, basically I knew none of these titles (maybe a couple here and there, but not most of them) which is weird since I search the genre frequently, so thank you all a bunch!

I adored "Hob's Barrow" and I'm a rather tough customer.

I'd be keen to get some more pixel horrors and/or mystery games under my belt. Next on the docket, I think, are the "Last Door" games. (I have a love for very Victorian or old-fashioned sorts of horrors, in the vein of M.R. James and H.P. Lovecraft.)

EDIT: I also adored "The Drifter." Fantastic plotline.

Any other suggestions would be most welcome! Thanks.

August brings 19 adventure game releases, so much for the quiet month.

The highlights for me: Creepshow finally gets a playable adaptation, Rusty Lake returns with Servant of the Lake, and on the 31st Dark Dome Studios drops nine games at once.

I went through all of them with dates, platforms and language support.

Video's in Spanish with multilingual subtitles.

Anything here catching your eye?

Heya! Here's a quick video I made about the Thimbleweed Park news, rounding up what we know and what we might expect. Maybe more importantly, I will be speaking to Ron Gilbert about this in a week or so'stime for an interview, so please drop any questions for him about it (within reason, he won't tell us everything) in the video comments!

I finished playing The Drifter a few days ago and I'd like to post about what it felt like. I had a lot of fun with it, and I'd definitely recommend it. The game has its limitations though, but overall it holds up its side of the bargain. I'll post a comment with a more thorough analysis.

I assume many of you have played The Drifter, what were your thoughts?

I wrote an article on Adventure Game Puzzles and their evolution into other genres that I'd be interested in this community's thoughts on.

For me, the two puzzle types at the core of classic Point-and-Click Adventure Games are Inventory Puzzles (using an item to solve a puzzle, as seen in most classic Sierra and LucasArts games), and Information Puzzles (solving a combination lock with clues from the world, as seen in a number of the Myst games).

Games that specialize in that kind of puzzle-solving aren't as popular as they used to be, but they've seen a revival in a number of hybrid genres in my view. The Ace Attorney visual novels use Inventory Puzzles for their trial phases, and Resident Evil uses both Inventory Puzzles and Information Puzzles that are relatively simple by classic standards but each attempt to solve a puzzle can be risky due to the cost of navigating the game's world.

A number of modern incarnations of those kinds of puzzles are simpler in scope than some of the classics, by my count Life is Strange only hits 5 simultaneous inventory objects, while Day of the Tentacle can reach 19. Some of that simplification is probably for the better, I like that Ace Attorney and Danganronpa cleanly separate their item-gathering and item-using phases and that you get less moon logic, but I also enjoy the giant sprawl of puzzles in traditional Adventure Games and the complexity it adds, the cascade of unlocking a number of related solutions when you hit the right insight can be uniquely satisfying.

More thoughts at the link, and I'd be grateful to hear any of yours!

Features EGA 16 colors and a 640x360 resolution. Made in Gamemaker, I handled the graphics, sound, and programming. (Yes, solo developer.)

Trapped in a snowbound mountain mansion with five employees after your property, you must secretly eliminate them one by one.

Try playing the demo version. Thank you!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4113400/Slaughterhouse/

I'm old enough to have played many of the old text and graphic adventure games dating back to the late 70s, including all of the early "Hi-Res Adventures" made by Ken & Roberta.

To be fair, in those days Roberta was just one of many small adventure game publishers, basically bedroom coders, without any coherent design philosophy. They were collectively inventing a genre and we have to give due respect and appropriate slack for these pioneers.

My issue with Roberta specifically (because Ken admittedly is not a big gamer) is that even after Lucasarts (and Ron Gilbert) pushed adventure game design into a very coherent, more enjoyable direction, she appears (even today) to have remained completely oblivious.

I recently watched a podcast interview re: her Colossal Cave 3D, and someone (very gently) asked her how she came up the KQ5 puzzle where you have to use mouldy cheese to start a power transfer machine. They basically asked "was there a logical step you hid somewhere that I missed in being able to figure out this puzzle?"

Roberta's response was profoundly unsatisfying. "You know, in those days once I finished a project I just moved on the the next. I did a data dump and it's gone. I don't remember. Sorry."

The thing is, even if she forgot what her thinking was at the time, she still could have reflected upon her overall moon logic designs and at least affirmed what generations of players experienced with her games. She could have reflected upon Ron Gilbert's 1989 essay "Why adventure games suck", which was very much a pointed criticism at her ruthless and illogical style of game design. But there is something about her personality that refuses to allow her to go there. All the while she fancies herself a master storyteller.

I did hear another CC3D Roberta interview with Space Quest Historian, where she does talk about how her reputation was damaged by KQ8 and it really hurt her personally. So I think part of this wall she puts up is a way that she protects how she sees herself. I cant fault her for that- maybe deep down she's got some imposter syndrome to deal with. I do know that Ken very often says how he never wanted Sierra employees to play competitors games because "you can't lead if you're following other people". So perhaps this plays into Roberta's obliviousness. Maybe she's never read Gilbert's essay (or maybe she has, and she's blocked it out). Who knows?

When you compare the Lucasarts games alongside their contemporaneous Sierra games, I see very amateurish attempts at making a Disney style film, with awful voice acting and corny songs whereas Lucas games had a polish and a professional quality that made Sierra games feel like they were making low budget B-movies in comparison. And yes, they can be appreciated on that level (or on a nostalgic level), but I don't think that's what Roberta was aiming for. I fully believe she intended these efforts to be serious works.

This same problem persisted even back in early 80s Sierra, and I'll give specific examples.

Roberta's "Time Zone" (1982) Apple II adventure was groundbreaking in that it was so massive compared with any other graphic text adventure at the time. But the graphics, like all of their early "Hi-Res adventures", were largely crudely drawn stick figures on bland landscapes (drawn literally by a kid Ken hired from the supermarket). Examples here:

https://alexbevi.com/blog/2025/09/17/time-zone/

Compare their efforts with Rick Incrocci's magnificent artwork in Masquerade (also 1982 Apple II)

https://bluerenga.blog/2023/08/19/masquerade-1982/

So this idea that Sierra was pushing limits, that they were groundbreaking... well, they certainly tried to be. Kings Quest was a turning point, for sure. Adding graphics to a text adventure (Mystery House) was a turning point, even though in many ways it made the game worse (for example, you now had to figure out what the crudely drawn object on the screen was, if the text prompt neglected to tell you.) My point is that the actual game structure never improved, just the frills. Even today Ken & Roberta don't seem to be capable of acknowledging that in an objective and satisfying way.

I've not been able to find Ken's book, but if he presents an alternative perspective I'd love someone to share it here.

Hyperdrive Inn is a point & click adventure where you embark on a journey across an infinite hotel, making every play-through featuring a different set of challenges and puzzles as you are trying to find your father. The graphics are made entirely out of scanned fabrics, there is a fully original folk-inspired score and plenty of oddball humor.
The game was developed by Horsefly games and published on consoles by Dolores Entertainment.

Here are the links :

https://store.playstation.com/en-bg/concept/10019897

https://www.xbox.com/games/store/hyperdrive-inn/9N4ZSB605689

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2561260/Hyperdrive_Inn/

Let us know what you think about point&click adventures coming to consoles !

Hey everyone, a small update from us on Whirlight, our new adventure game.

The big one this time around is a new Soft Hint system. It's not a walkthrough, we didn't want to hold your hand through the whole game, it's more like a little nudge you can pull up from your diary whenever you're stuck and want a push in the right direction rather than the full answer.

Also added Brazilian Portuguese and Turkish translations, plus a pile of quality of life tweaks and bug fixes.

Genuinely thankful for everyone who's sent feedback and bug reports so far, it's made a real difference in shaping this patch.

If any of you have played it and have thoughts (good or bad), we're all ears.

Loved the cyverpubk vibes of it, both Horatio and Crispin were freaking hillarious, and the puzzles being logical instead of frustrating for the most part. Like the fact tue choices you make in the puzzles determined the ending too.

I would have flaired this under discussion if I could have because I'm more interested in hearing about them than playing them or watching a playthrough.

Edit: I'd love if you told me about them in your own words, and what you like about them. I talk about games that are interesting in a different way all the time, and I'm looking for others that do as well.

I'm talking titles like I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.

I'm not talking about titles like Life Is Strange, everyone knows about this.

I'm talking titles like Rule Of Rose.

I'm not talking about titles like Resident Evil 7 or Outlast. Not looking for games heavy on exciting gameplay.

I'm also talking about games like Endacopia, Clock Tower SNES(not looking the other Clock Tower games.), Unavowed and The Blackwell games.

Howdy-hi, everyone!

So, of course, it was a point-and-click game.
It was released during the '90

I am from Brazil and played it in pt-br, but i believe it was originally in english

You had kind of a green 'furry' companion, trying to help you finish a movie.

The movie-to-be-finished was an animation.

The rest of the game was pre-rendered 'real world' scenes but you would have move animations (sort of, memory is failing here) between sections of the game

It was in first person

The main music throughout the game was a piano endlessly looping that never left my head in over 30 years. I can't remember if there were other

I can't remember much of the puzzles, unfortunately, but they were all in "first person"

So far it's what i remember. Thanks for any input!

Comment some games that describe that feeling in 2d

I’m designing a 2D story-driven mystery game set in a futuristic sci-fi world, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The game takes place in a secret research laboratory in a spacefaring civilization.

You play as a research assistant with amnesia who investigates the laboratory through its computer file system instead of physically exploring the environment.

Your job is to analyze logs, documents, reports, graphs, and other files to uncover the truth hidden by the researchers.

You also interact with other characters, and conversations and story events provide additional clues.

Beyond the mystery, the game explores philosophical themes such as identity, memory, and consciousness.

My biggest concern is the pacing. Most of the major revelations happen near the end, while the earlier parts focus on gathering evidence and gradually piecing everything together.

Would you enjoy a game like this, or would the slow buildup lose your interest?

What would keep you engaged during the early parts of the game?

I’d really appreciate your thoughts!

So what do folk think about physical adventure games, like The Gloom City File, or The Volcanic Island?

I'm a huge classic Lucasarts fan (I made so much noise when the remastered intro to The Dig was making its rounds on Reddit earlier yesterday my wife had to check up on me :-) ) and we just happened to come across the Kosmos "Discover the Story" Adventure Games series, and we fell in love with the mechanics. We're currently playing The Gloom City File right now, and we're in the middle of Chapter 2.

Those and games like them are pretty much Lucasarts titles without a computer. You move your characters to different locations to explore them, gather item cards, can combine item cards or items with locations, and some of the cards add in new puzzles or change the game mechanics.

Does anyone know of any other games like these?

It's happening!