Suggest me some Adventure Games!

[Honest Tiefling]

I tend to play some of these with a group, but I worry that after the current game we're on, we'll need something else. And by adventure games, I mean games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, etc.

Something less fatal then King's Quest would be appreciated. Others aren't fans of other types of gaming, so...A little less on the Action-Adventure side of things. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Eldan]

Depends on what you've played, already. There's really not a lot of companies that make any of that style in the last, oh, decade or so. There's Telltale, but their style is quite different. I never did quite warm up to The Walking Dead, but Wolf Among Us is really good.

Oh, and if you haven't played it of old, Grim Fandango got a re-release recently with updated graphics and so on.

[Cespenar]

Anna's Quest has been one of the recent good ones, kinda like a subverted fairy tale.

Technobabylon from Wadjet Eye Games was one of the best cyberpunk adventures I can remember, if oldskool graphics don't ruin things for you. From your examples, though, I guess you're safe.

Similarly, the Blackwell Chronicles from the same people were good too.

If you haven't already, The Longest Journey and its sequel, Dreamfall are classics on their own, IMO.

There's also Chains of Satinav and Memoria, which interestingly happen within the Dark Eye german roleplaying setting.

There were also a lot of slightly worse stuff, like the newest Monkey Island, the newest Sam and Max, Book of Unwritten Tales, Deponia series, etc.

And at last, diverting from the old adventure game formula, some of the Telltale adventure games (and one not really from Telltale but still with the same system) tell pretty fine tales, if you pardon the pun. To summarize, they mostly eschew the Rube Goldberg machine puzzle format to emphasize decision making and consequences. Some argue that the "decisions" are in fact illusory at many points, but IMO that never really annuls the point that they have pretty good stories and writing.

The good ones of those are IMO, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands (especially if you played Borderlands), and most importantly, Life is Strange. The Walking Dead is good too, but I don't like zombies much, so maybe that's subjective.

[Winthur]

Something less fatal then King's Quest would be appreciated. Others aren't fans of other types of gaming, so...A little less on the Action-Adventure side of things. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

The least fatal (and most entertaining, IMHO) Sierra adventure game series is Quest for Glory, which is sort of an adventure/RPG mix with lots of unique solutions to quest. All 5 are worth playing, and IV is the pinnacle. If you're already familiar with those, I can't stress it enough that you have to pick up Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok. It's a free Steam game with a gorgeous soundtrack, nice landscapes, very fun interface and great humor for fans of trying everything just to see funny prompts of the game (like talking to windows or whatever). Note that if you're mostly a classic adventure game player, the most appealing playthrough for either of these games will be the Thief class; you get to sequence break a lot, can mostly skip combat, and walk into places other classes wouldn't be allowed to.

Broken Sword 1&2 is pretty good.

Ultima 7 is supposedly an open world RPG, but character progression/customization in that game is really scarce, the combat is not the focus (and is, in fact, extremely simplistic and not tactical at all), and the story is really about solving puzzles, mysteries, crafting items and travelling around with a party of dudes who have their own personality (in fact, all NPCs in the game, at the very least, have a distinctive name and a job). I consider it more of an adventure/RPG hybrid myself.

[Cristo Meyers]

There's also Chains of Satinav and Memoria, which interestingly happen within the Dark Eye german roleplaying setting.

I'll second Memoria. It's a little short, but it's had one of the best 'ah-ha!' moments I've had in a long time.

Another one, if you can find it on sale anyway since it's a bit overpriced, is Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller. Dark detective story, if maybe a little silly in places.

[Mx.Silver]

Really, all of Wadjet Eye's catalogue is worth looking at if you're into Adventure games. Gemini Rue (a game which defies convention by having some scenarios with multiple intuitive solutions), Technobabylon, Resonance, Primordia and the Blackwell series. The Shivah is pretty good too, although very short.

The Longest Journey is good, although the sequel, Dreamfall suffers from a bit of an identity crisis in terms of mechanics.
The first two Broken Sword games (shadow of the templars and the smoking mirror) are unsung classics of the genre, although the later games hit the same problem as dreamfall.

Machinarium is one of the most adorably charming games I've ever played. It's distinctly more puzzle orientated than most of the genre, but makes up for this by having a gorgeously-drawn in-game cheat book/walkthrough that you can use if you ever get stuck.

The Dig is the forgotten child of the LucasArt's Adventure games, mainly because it's not a comedy, but a fairly straight-laced Sci-fi game. Certainly worth a look.



If you're willing to give horror games a shot I Have No Mouth and I must Scream is a sensible pick. It's brutally unfair in terms of design and solution, but in this case that's sort of the point. Special mention must also go to The Cat Lady, with it's distinctive art-style and somewhat more nuanced approach to mental illness than the vast majority of horror as a genre.
Be advised that both games can get pretty uncomfortable at times.

[Cristo Meyers]

The Dig is the forgotten child of the LucasArt's Adventure games, mainly because it's not a comedy, but a fairly straight-laced Sci-fi game. Certainly worth a look.

This one is infamous for the fiddily-ness one of its puzzles, though.

Though the occasional Moon Logic Puzzle is inevitable when you're an adventure game fan.

That brings another classic to mind, though: Gabriel Knight. Get the classic version over the remake: listening to Tim Curry doing a New Orleans accent is something to behold.

[LibraryOgre]

The Dig is the forgotten child of the LucasArt's Adventure games, mainly because it's not a comedy, but a fairly straight-laced Sci-fi game. Certainly worth a look.


It is also occasionally REALLY frustrating and unintuitive. Gorgeous for the time, though.

In the same vein is Full Throttle, also by Lucasarts.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Gemini Rue is actually pretty good. Except for the end. So it's like Mass Effect. :smalltongue:

[Mx.Silver]

This one is infamous for the fiddily-ness one of its puzzles, though.
There is a non-zero chance I may have wilfully forgotten the one you're talking about. I did a similar thing to a lot of the end-game sections of Monkey Island 2, although I suspect a lot of people tried to do that as well.

Then again I don't recall having much problem with the terminal section in Primordia, which a lot of people complained about, so maybe I've just developed a knack for these type of things.


Gemini Rue is actually pretty good. Except for the end.
Gemini Rue's ending is perfectly fine, maybe a little bit easy to call, but perfectly fine. The final gunfight might have been a little less intuitive than it could have been, but given the lengths that game goes to avoid the usual moon logic* I'd give it a pass on that.
Honestly, prior to Technobabylon's release, Gemini Rue would probably have been my first choice of recommendation. That or Resonance, anyway.


*there are some interesting elements of the creator's commentary revealing just how far he went in that. For instance, he added-in a new solution to a particular scene when he noticed that it was the first thing most play-testers attempted to do because they thought it might work.

[Cristo Meyers]

There is a non-zero chance I may have wilfully forgotten the one you're talking about. I did a similar thing to a lot of the end-game sections of Monkey Island 2, although I suspect a lot of people tried to do that as well.

Assembling the skeleton is the one I keep hearing horror stories about.

[Legoshrimp]

Assembling the skeleton is the one I keep hearing horror stories about.

Watching mostly walking do that was hilarious.
I haven't really played adventure games much, but I have been an avid watcher of mostly walking(A show by day9 and some other game devs/friends of his, in which they play through old or new adventure games) I highly recommend watching it.

From that grim fandango, gemini rue, the first part of broken age, and myst seemed the best/and or least frustrating to play.

But as I said I don't really have experience playing adventure games so take this with a grain of salt.

Also again, watch mostly walking, it is amazing. Not only because of day9's cats.

[Mx.Silver]

Assembling the skeleton is the one I keep hearing horror stories about.

Oh.

That one.

Yeah...

[Wookieetank]

I'll second anything by Wadjet Eye. Even their silly puzzle robots was fun and entertaining.

Machinarium also gets a +1 from me. Also from the same studio is Botanicula, which is just gorgeous. There's also Samarost 1 & 2 but they're a bit abstract/story lacking.

If you have access to a NDS or 3DS, the Professor Layton series is just great fun all around.

[Honest Tiefling]

Depends on what you've played, already. There's really not a lot of companies that make any of that style in the last, oh, decade or so. There's Telltale, but their style is quite different. I never did quite warm up to The Walking Dead, but Wolf Among Us is really good.

Oh, and if you haven't played it of old, Grim Fandango got a re-release recently with updated graphics and so on.

We finished Grim Fandango a while back. I had to get the HD verison as I had 1) lost the CDs and 2) had an issue that the second one wouldn't work properly. The HD remake is quite nice.

Wolf Among Us has intrigued me, but the action elements would turn off others of the group, I am afraid.


Another one, if you can find it on sale anyway since it's a bit overpriced, is Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller. Dark detective story, if maybe a little silly in places.

We are going through Sam and Max (the new ones, not Hit the Road), and just finished Broken Age. I think we're good on the silly front. Going to check this one out for sure.


Really, all of Wadjet Eye's catalogue is worth looking at if you're into Adventure games. Gemini Rue (a game which defies convention by having some scenarios with multiple intuitive solutions), Technobabylon, Resonance, Primordia and the Blackwell series. The Shivah is pretty good too, although very short.

These sound good, any more information you can offer me?


The Longest Journey is good, although the sequel, Dreamfall suffers from a bit of an identity crisis in terms of mechanics.

We've played Longest Journey a while back. It had some memorable moments, but wasn't my cup of tea. Dreamfall became Action-Adventure, which others of this group don't wish to play.


The first two Broken Sword games (shadow of the templars and the smoking mirror) are unsung classics of the genre, although the later games hit the same problem as dreamfall.

Thanks! I'll see about aquiring these. I feel mildly stupid for forgetting them as I have heard plenty of them.


Machinarium is one of the most adorably charming games I've ever played. It's distinctly more puzzle orientated than most of the genre, but makes up for this by having a gorgeously-drawn in-game cheat book/walkthrough that you can use if you ever get stuck.

Dang thing won't save properly, so we gave up on it. I might play it by myself if I can figure out a fix.


The Dig is the forgotten child of the LucasArt's Adventure games, mainly because it's not a comedy, but a fairly straight-laced Sci-fi game. Certainly worth a look.

I've played this game so long ago I didn't even remember the fiddly little puzzles. I did like it overall, but...That was a while ago.


If you're willing to give horror games a shot I Have No Mouth and I must Scream is a sensible pick. It's brutally unfair in terms of design and solution, but in this case that's sort of the point. Special mention must also go to The Cat Lady, with it's distinctive art-style and somewhat more nuanced approach to mental illness than the vast majority of horror as a genre.
Be advised that both games can get pretty uncomfortable at times.

Pardon, but can you explain what you mean by brutal?

[Eldan]

I have no Mouth is, well, a psychological horror game. It goes to some very unpleasant places. And there's every chance it might screw you over by giving you a terrible ending if you did something wrong.

[Cristo Meyers]

We are going through Sam and Max (the new ones, not Hit the Road), and just finished Broken Age. I think we're good on the silly front. Going to check this one out for sure.

Ah, silly as in clichéd, not goofy. I should've been more clear, sorry. The game played a couple of detective story tropes completely straight.

It's a pretty good game and story regardless, but every so often my wife and I just looked at the screen and went 'really? you're going there?'

[Mx.Silver]

These sound good, any more information you can offer me?

I can give you a rundown of each if you want.

Technobabylon is a modern cyberpunk story, in the tradition of the novels of William Gibson or Pat Cadigan, set in a future where genetic engineering is an everyday part of life to the point of requiring its own dedicated branch of law enforcement and VR-abusing internet junkies spend their days slouched on the floor, connecting to the internet through neural interfaces modded into their own head and home-grown wetware.
Puzzles are pretty intuitive, although the fact that the story switches between three different characters, some of whom have very different ways of interacting with things, can throw things a bit. It's the longest game Wadjet Eye have published, the first run will probably take about 12-15 hours, with some minor branching paths and more than one possible ending.
As a content warning: there is one scene which contains a lot of gore, even if it is low-resolution.


Gemini Rue is a sci-fi mystery, with a few nods to Blade Runner in the general atmosphere. A grizzled private investigator lands on a rain-soaked mining colony in search of information about his missing brother. Elsewhere, a nameless test subject awakens in a prison-like, mysterious testing facility after having had all his memories forcibly removed.
As I mentioned early, it's notable in the lengths it does to avoid the sort of 'moon logic' Adventure games has a bit of a reputation for, to the point of offering multiple solution to various problems should it make sense for there to be some. The controls during the occasional gunfight segments, while not particularly difficulty, can take a little adjusting to in terms of pace changing.


Resonance is a near-future techno-thriller, about four seemingly unconnected individuals who are thrown together in the wake of a peculiarly precise terrorist bombing of a research facility.
Puzzle-wise, it has an interesting mix. Most of the puzzles you need to accomplish are relatively solvable, although some of the solutions can be a little tricky to execute due to requiring you to co-ordinate multiple characters to get through things, sometimes requiring you to switch between characters quite quickly. There are also some optional puzzles, some of which are a bit more involved, which aren't necessary to complete the game but which can provide some more insight into things.


Primordia is set in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity wiped itself out, leaving their robots behind to inherit the earth. A few of whom, after enough time had passed, ended-up founding a religion based around their now-extinct Creators.
Puzzle-wise there are couple of highly non-intuitive puzzles, although exactly which ones those are depends on who you ask. In any event though, they're the minority, and indeed a few of problems are somewhat optional, aside from some minor differences in the endings you get.


The Blakwell series (Legacy, Unbound, Convergence, Deception, and Epiphany) follow Rosangela Blackwell, a young New York woman whose largely unsuccessful attempts at being a writer are cut short when she starts being haunted by Joey Malone, a ghost from the 1930s who declares himself her spirit guide, forcing an abrupt career-change into dealing with various ghost-related problems. Of which there are rather a lot.
The actual continuity between the games is a little spotty in parts, to the point where I suspect there wasn't a lot of long-term planning going on, but individually they all work pretty well. The first 4 are typically sold as part of one bundle, although they are still separate games.

The Shivah is a mystery story centring around a Rabbi, who receives a visit from the police one evening informing him that a former member of his congregation has died, and left all his money to the temple - despite having left the congregation several years early on very bad terms.
It's by far the shortest of the games listed (shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours to clear, if that) but has a fair few different ways the story can play out.




Thanks! I'll see about aquiring these. I feel mildly stupid for forgetting them as I have heard plenty of them.

Basically everything I've listed is available on GOG.com, as are most of what everyone else has mentioned.





Pardon, but can you explain what you mean by brutal?
What I mean is that it's bother very easy to get screwed over. In fact the game goes out of it's way in a few cases to throw things at you that you basically won't have any way of dealing with unless you know they're coming, which you won't. These will often end-up locking you into one of the game's more unpleasant endings*. Given the premise of the game though, this probably isn't that unexpected.

*not that any of the endings are what you could honestly call pleasant, mind you.

[LibraryOgre]

Another of LucasArts games is Loom... your interaction with the world is playing music on your stick.