Michael @lemm.ee Makes little games and runs an adventure game club
https://virtualmoose.org/
Yeah I tried the playtest of it that's available on Steam and it felt solid to me. It controls much more easily than the original game which makes it a different and easier game, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I liked how it looked too
Planning on playing it this month for the monthly adventure game club I organize. It looks really cool and I think it's getting some sort of spinoff or game set in the same universe later this year
Some recent ones I like that I haven't seen mentioned yet are
NORCO
Thaumistry
The Nick Bounty trilogy
The Aching
Blood Nova
And then some games that aren't traditional adventure games but have some adventure game or Interactive Fiction elements:
Lake
Citizen Sleeper
Cartomancy Anthology
yeah, I think last year was one of the best for the genre in a long time
My copy should be arriving soon but I loved the articles as they were coming out on his blog.
Citizen Sleeper is a fantastic game. I was surprised they announced a sequel so soon. Looking forward to trying out the tabletop rpg too since the video game was so strongly inspired by indie tabletop rpgs like Blades in the Dark
I'm totally blanking on if they have multiple endings but I love Digital: A Love Story and If Found. I also liked We Know The Devil and A Summer's End - Hong Kong 1986, which do have multiple endings, but are a little more adult. All are fairly short. Ladykiller in a Bind is more comedic since you're looking for something along those lines and each playthrough is fairly short although that has more player input than the other games I mentioned.
What are some free adventure games you're a fan of?
There's a lot of great commercial adventure games being made today but with so many free games coming from the community, I thought it would be fun to have a place to give shoutouts to those.
I will start with Elsewhere in the Night. I'm a fan of the people involved with this one and the Manhunter-inspired artwork is really cool
Yep, that's my choice as well.
To make this reply more interesting, I guess I will also add Hypnospace Outlaw. There's so many bonus pages that aren't required for completing the game that I can just spend plenty of time hopping around an alternate 90s internet and having fun
Yeah, Pandora Directive is a great one.
Another one I really enjoy is Overboard, which is maybe stretching the definition a little but does fit under the detective and interactive fiction genres so I'll bring it up. I just loved how each playthrough takes about 30 minutes and the game has some systems behind the scenes to determine the ending you get so it's more than just Good/Bad ending based on one action. And if you screw up, it's not a big deal because the playthroughs are so short and you learn something in the process.
Jon from Inkle talks a bit how it works here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--3meejDM-U
I've always wondered why he didn't do more games soundtracks.
As for me, everything by Robert Holmes is great but I really love the Gabriel Knight soundtrack
What games are you looking forward to?
There's so many adventure games being created right now and I was wondering what you're all excited for. Here's some games I'm hoping to play in the next year. I'm leaving a few out just so this doesn't turn into a gigantic list
The Crimson Diamond - loved the demo and the dev streams for this have been fun to watch Rosewater - same dev as Lamplight City and I liked that Old Skies - new Wadjet Eye game! The art looks fantastic too Dreamsettler - Love Hypnospace Outlaw and Slayers X, which was released this year. I'm excited to see this universe grow I doesn't exist - Really curious to see how they innovate on text adventures A Highland Song - Kind of a stretch since it's an adventure platformer but I really like Inkle
I think a lot of adventure game fans have heard of it but Callahan's Crosstime Saloon is pretty great and it's my favorite game designed by Josh Mandel. I really wish it could get a digital rerelease.
Technically Leisure Suit Larry was the first adventure game I played when I was 3, but I was just walking back and forth in front of the bar because I didn't know what a text parser was. I think the game that actually got me into the genre was Myst, as divisive as it may be. I loved playing it with my family and exploring that world.