Publisher: Microsoft Developer: Interior Night Year: 2022 Platform: Windows, Xbox One, Xbox series
Rating: 7
The first game by designer Interior Night is a comic book style narrative road adventure that tells a suspenseful and action-filled story about family trauma. And the first half is one hell of a gripping tale. While it’s not unusual for an adventure game to start strong before petering out in the end, As Dusk Falls embodies that pitfall more than just about any.
After gushing over the first three games I’ve played by Quantic Dream (in fact, I ranked them all in my Top 15), I was still eager to dive into the less acclaimed Beyond: Two Souls. Yet, despite some spectacular motion capture and impressive performances by the leads, I was ultimately let down by a poor script and exhaustive repetition.
Publisher: Sierra Developer: Sierra Year: 1991 Platform: DOS
Score: 3
One of several Sierra adventures designed with children in mind, EcoQuest is a very simple and very educational game with above average production values. However, a lackluster story and script make it difficult to recommend.
Publisher: Achimostawinan Games Developer: Achimostawinan Games Year: 2023 Platform: Windows
Rating: 1
Achimostawinan Games (translated to “Tell us a story” in Cree) is an Indigenous-owned game studio and hopefully one of many more to come. Hill Agency: PURITY/decay is their first game, a futuristic detective noir mystery in which the colonizers have mostly left Earth and the few major cities remaining are run by Indigenous people. As an illustration of Néhinaw culture and what a future Land Back world could look like, Hill Agency is a beautiful success. Unfortunately, as an adventure game it’s still quite rough around the edges, even with all the effort the developers have put into smoothing them out since launch.
Publisher: Gray Design Developer: Gray Design Year: 1992 Platform: DOS
Rating: 1
I wish I could say that the final game in the Hugo shareware trilogy finally put things together. But despite a significant improvement in graphics and playability, this incredibly short game still manages to be dull and offensive.
Publisher: Gray Design Developer: Gray Design Year: 1991 Platform: DOS
Rating: 0
While certainly longer with slightly better production values, the sequel to Hugo’s House of Horrors is a perfect conglomeration of the worst sins in the adventure game genre.
One of the more popular shareware adventure games, Hugo’s House of Horrors, while short and easy, is not horrific in the slightest, unless of course you’re referring to the game design.
Publisher: Woodhill Interactive Developer: Woodhill Interactive Year: 2023 Platform: Windows, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series
Rating: 7
For the second time in three years, we have a game where you begin exactly twelve minutes before your untimely death. But while the game Twelve Minutes takes place entirely inside one apartment room, Woodhill Interactive’s Orten Was the Case spans an entire hand-drawn city from the top of its tallest building to the far depths of its underground. The seemingly random clues and disparate objectives keep the pace rather slow for a while, but it all builds into one of the more devilishly complex and rewarding time loop games to date.
Publisher: Application Systems Heidelberg Developer: Grundislav Games Year: 2018 Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Switch
Rating: 5
Take the historical aesthetic of The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes, the general structure (and occasional voodoo angle) of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, and the characterizations of The Blackwell Legacy series, mix them in an anachronistic blender, and you got yourself Lamplight City, an ambitious detective game with superb production values. Sadly, however, the game forgets to accomplish what should have been its primary goal: to give the player actual detective work.
Publisher: Playstack Developer: Color Gray Year: 2022 Platform: Windows, Switch
Rating: 7
2018 saw Return of the Obra Dinn become a cult classic thanks to a grisly murder mystery logic puzzle. The Case of the Golden Idol continues in that spirit though in a more whimsical–but also more complex–manner.
Death By Troggles 
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