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.
Continue reading Hugo II: Whodunit?Publisher: Gray Design
Developer: Gray Design
Year: 1990
Platform: DOS, Windows
Rating: 1
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.
Continue reading Hugo’s House of HorrorsPublisher: 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.
Continue reading Orten Was the CasePublisher: 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.
Continue reading Lamplight CityPublisher: 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.
Continue reading The Case of the Golden IdolPublisher: Infocom
Developer: Infocom
Year: 1985
Platform: PC, Commodore, Apple, Mac, Amstrad, Atari ST, TRS
Rating: 4
Considered one of the most difficult games in the Infocom catalogue, Spellbreaker deploys an excellent plot that neatly and satisfyingly wraps up the Enchanter trilogy. Yet, as seems to be in the case in all of his games, Dave Lebling’s puzzle structure maddeningly gets in the way of most of the fun.
Continue reading SpellbreakerPublisher: Infocom
Developer: Infocom
Year: 1984
Platform: PC, Commodore, Apple, Mac, Amstrad, Atari ST, TRS
Rating: 7
Steve Meretzky took over the reins from Marc Blank and Dave Lebling in his second adventure after the wildly popular Planetfall. His style is quite evident here. While telling perhaps a weaker story with a significantly less serious atmosphere than Enchanter, Sorcerer far exceeds it as a sequel thanks to a more user-friendly design and some truly excellent puzzles.
Continue reading SorcererPublisher: Sierra
Developer: Sierra
Year: 1992
Platform: DOS, Windows
Rating: 2
The sequel to The Colonel’s Bequest, The Dagger of Amon Ra tells a more interesting and complex murder mystery about a stolen Egyptian dagger. Despite this, the game manages to be far worse on nearly every other level.
Continue reading The Dagger of Amon RaPublisher: Infocom
Developer: Infocom
Year: 1983
Platform: PC, Commodore, Apple, Mac, Amstrad, Atari ST, TRS
Rating: 4
The first game of the second trilogy in the Zork universe, Enchanter tells a much more interesting tale with significantly more rewarding puzzles than it’s predecessors. Sadly, some poor design choices and inconsistency make it not terribly fun to play today.
Continue reading EnchanterPublisher: Sierra
Developer: Coktel
Year: 1993
Platform: DOS
Rating: 5
Notorious for its copious–and I mean copious–inventory puzzles, Lost in Time tells a convoluted time travel story that falls short of the heights it aspires to. But it’s still a good time if you’re willing to have a walkthrough at the ready.
Continue reading Lost in Time
Death By Troggles 
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