Developer: Cloak and Dagger Publisher: Wadjet Eye Year: 2022 Platform: PC, Mac, Linux
Rating: 4
If as a child you ever agonizingly picked your way through a bland dinner just so you could get dessert, then you’ll have a good idea what it’s like to play The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. The good news is that with this latest point-and-click pixel art adventure from Cloak and Dagger Games (and publisher Wadjet Eye), there’s a three-layer chocolate mousse waiting for you at the end.
Developer: Fully Ramblomatic Publisher: Fully Ramblomatic Year: 2006 Platform: Windows
Score: 5
The third game in Yahtzee Croshaw’s Chzo series, this game brings back Trilby himself but in a slightly different manner than in 5 Days a Stranger. The results are mixed, but it’s a refreshing change of pace and a solid entry for fans of the series.
Developer: Fully Ramblomatic Publisher: Fully Ramblomatic Year: 2004 Platform: Windows
Rating: 5
Winner of Best NPC and Best Use of Sound at the 2004 AGS awards, 7 Days a Skeptic is a worthy follow up to 5 Days A Stranger, if for different reasons.
Developer: Fully Ramblomatic Publisher: Fully Ramblomatic Year: 2003 Platform: Windows
Rating: 5
Winner of five AGS awards in 2003, including best game, best puzzles, and best script, 5 Days a Stranger uses every horror cliché in the book to create a chilling and absorbing game.
Martha is, indeed, quite dead. At the same time, she is quite lucky. I spent six hours in this world and grew increasingly jealous of Martha every minute. Because by being dead, Martha never had to play this game. Despite my jealousy, I would like to think Martha’s spirit was looking out for me, as a repetitive game-crashing bug kept me from finishing.
Author: Michael Gentry Year: 1998 Development System: Inform Cruelty Rating: Cruel Length of Play: 5-10 hours
My Rating: 10
Awards: Best Setting — 1998 XYZZY Awards
My introduction to H.P. Lovecraft, and frankly, well-written horror, Anchorhead remains one of my favorite games ever made twenty years later. While the free version stands on its own, the 20th anniversary edition is well worth the ten dollar price tag on Steam if you liked the original or are a fan of thriller/horror games.
If you’re a Sierra fan who ever wondered what it would be like to combine elements from Police Quest and Manhunter, then you’re decidedly an odd duck. But you’re also in luck, as Pleurghburg (pronunciation: fuck if I know): Dark Ages does just that, providing a tense, gory, exciting adventure.
Developer: Femo Duo Entertainment Publisher: Femo Duo Entertainment Year: 2004 Platform: Windows
There exists a game development tool that allows one to create adventure games in Sierra’s AGI system, responsible for their first three King’s Quest games as well as most of their adventures prior to 1989. Most of the games that were made were very amateurish, and even the ones I’ve enjoyed are hardly worthy of review. Enclosure is the exception, an engrossing horror adventure worthy of play by anyone who enjoyed adventure games in the 80’s.
Publisher: Got Game Entertainment Developer: Nucleosys Year: 2006 Platform: Windows
Horror is my favorite fictional medium, and I think there’s a simple reason why. I have virtually nothing in my wonderful life to fear, and thus it is an emotion I rarely feel. Additionally, it is an adrenaline-inducing intense feeling with the security of fiction laced around it, making it very attractive. And when I mention horror, I refer to the suspense of the unknown, not hack’n’slash gore. True horror allows the imagination to create feelings of terror. Bad horror has a cat jump out of the cupboard, coupled with disproportionately loud noises, jarring the senses.
Death By Troggles 
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