Publisher: Sony
Developer: Quantic Dream
Year: 2013
Platform: Windows, PS3, PS4
Score: 4
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.
Continue reading Beyond: Two SoulsPublisher: 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.
Continue reading EcoQuest: The Search for CetusPublisher: 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.
Continue reading Hill Agency: PURITYdecayPublisher: 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.
Continue reading Hugo III: Jungle of DoomPublisher: 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 Spellbreaker
Death By Troggles 
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