Developer: Infamous Adventures
Publisher: Infamous Adventures
Year: 2006
Platform: Windows
AGDInteractive wasn’t the only group working on a remake of King’s Quest III. Four years earlier, Infamous Adventures took a stab at it. While it doesn’t have the production values of the former (or would that be the latter?), it’s a faithful adaptation of the original game and sure to please those who liked the original just fine.
Developer: Big Finish
Publisher: Big Finish
Year: 2010
Platform: Windows
The follow-up to 3 Cards to Midnight, Dead Time improves things a bit by making the game simpler for non-native English speakers. Rather than creating compound words to find hidden objects on each screen, the goal is to now just find everything related to a category.
Developer: Big Finish
Publisher: Big Finish
Year: 2009
Platform: Windows
Chris Jones, the creator of the Tex Murphy series, dipped his toe into the casual hidden-object genre. And while for the most part I’m underwhelmed by this type of game, he did a nice job of injecting it with some style and challenge. Rather than simply find a list of objects on the screen, the conceit entails finding a list of words that relate to another word. To wit, if the keyword is “Card” you will want to look for objects such as a shark (for “card shark”) or a key (for “key card”). Think of it as an extra step in your hidden object dalliances.
Publisher: GASPOP Software
Developer: GASPOP Software
Year: 2001
Platform: DOS; Windows
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.
Publisher: AGDInteractive
Developer: AGDInteractive
Year: 2011
Platform: Windows; Mac
Presumably the final remake from AGDInteractive, their retelling of King’s Quest III does a great job updating and enhancing the original game by Sierra while still honoring the primary plot and structure. They changed just enough to keep the game fresh and if you liked the original there’s little doubt you’ll enjoy this as well.
Publisher: AGDInteractive
Developer: AGDInteractive
Year: 2002
Platform: Windows; Mac; Linux
Excuse me while I blush for a while. Not satisfied with simply enhancing the original game, AGDI agreed that the original King’s Quest II was utter trash and essentially created a new game. And they only produced one of the best adventure games in the history of the industry.
Publisher: AGDInteractive
Developer: AGDInteractive
Year: 2001
Platform: Windows; Mac; Linux
Originally known as Tierra, AGDInteractive decided to remake some classic Sierra adventure games. They started in 2001 with King’s Quest. It was an interesting choice given that Sierra had already re-released their crown jewel in 1990 with updated graphics and sound. And while in their remake they didn’t quite make this a game worth introducing to a new generation, they most certainly improved upon it, if ever so slightly.
Developer: Dreamers Guild
Publisher: Acclaim
Year: 1995
Platform: DOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS
While the book to adventure game thing has been done many times, it’s rare for the original author to have so much involvement in its design. Douglas Adams had a significant hand in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, though I don’t think he can hold a candle to the creative control Harlan Ellison had here. Unfortunately, this did not cause for a great game; in fact, Ellison sued to get profits from the game he though he deserved, only to learn the game made no profit. I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream is one of the more ambitious adventure games I have come across that unfortunately couldn’t quite figure out what it wanted to be and is nearly as frustrating to play as it is to be one of Ellison’s characters.
Publisher: Legend
Developer: Legend
Year: 1995
Platform: DOS
Around 1993, Legend Entertainment decided to mostly stop developing their own ideas and started pounding out adventure titles based on best-selling novels. Shannara was probably the most high-profile of them all. I was hesitant at first as neither the genre nor Terry Brooks’s style appeals to me, but I found Shannara to be a mostly pleasant, if very simple, adventure.
Publisher: Infocom
Developer: Infocom
Year: 1982
Platform: Everything
An ambitious final entry into the original Zork trilogy that is a pleasure to read but a veritable nightmare to play, Zork III’s value now is mostly for posterity.
Death By Troggles 
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