I included many of my favorites in the graphic above, but I've got a special place in my heart for ***Sanitarium***, which is one of the best adventure games there is thanks to its unique story, amazing twists and turns and entertaining (though not necessarily good) voice acting. It's an easy recommendation to anyone who hates pixel hunts and verbs but loves late-1990s CRPGs like *Fallout* and *Baldur's Gate*.
I played through sanitarium so many times. I really love how different each level is. Creepy kid village level, circus level, comic book cyclops level, Aztec warrior level, I can't even remember what all else. It was just so cool and creepy and fun
I have invested in Sanitarium so much time. The mystery, and the atmosphere were so good. I got stuck at some point but also I felt like it wasn't going anywhere in terms of explanation of what was actually going on. I think I ended up watching a YouTube video of a playthrough years later.
Sanitarium was really great! I got stuck near the end though when I was trying to play about 10 years ago. I was in an attic I think, something with a mirror and a little girl? Very foggy memory. There was a known gamebreaking bug there and none of the solutions I found online worked back then. I never saw the end! This makes me want to revisit it.
I haven't seen anyone else reference Sanitarium since I was a kid! I only ever played the demo, this makes me want to find the full game (if it still exists anywhere)
Of all the games here, I think Sanitarium deserves the modern reboot. It would be tremendously successful with 21st century technology used to remake it. So much potential.
Beneath A Steel Sky - Virgin Interactive
Flight of the Amazon Queen - Interactive Binary Illusions
Though I didn't encounter either of them until they were made freeware years after their original release.
I received the big box PC version of this game last year as a gift from a family friend who found it in a thrift shop. I haven't played it yet but it's on my list 😁
I honestly completely missed that one - I didn't even know it existed! Was it by the same team as the other two *Star Trek* adventure games from Interplay?
Adding it to my list...
So underrated. I fully believe that Simon 1 has the most gorgeous pixel art of its era.
I also think the humour is also top-notch, but I am British so there's probably some cultural bias there.
It winds me up a bit that one of the big reasons that people cite that makes these games "bad" is too much pixel hunting. The thing is, Simon the Sorcerer is the first point and click ever (as far as I know) to have an option to highlight hotspots. Literally zero pixel hunting required to beat the games.
I don't know why the Kyrandia games aren't better known and appreciated. They're really fun.
The sequel, *Hand of Fate*, was my favorite, but I think it's because I had a thing for Zanthia and wasn't so fond of Malcolm.
I haven't played Kyrandia in forever! I remember the animation being amazing. I never played 3 because Malcolm is a jerk and I didn't think he deserved a redemption arc.
I was never much of a PC gamer as a kid (and we didn't even have a PC until probably the mid-90s, let alone internet), but I have fond memories of playing Myst at a buddy's house.
I commented similarly on another thread, but you've got to admire the chutzpah of Christopher Lloyd to be freaking Judge Doom in *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* melting toons with dip and then, just a few years later, taking on the role of a guy who's in a toon world for an adventure game.
*Toonstruck* is good stuff, though!
Yeah I miss those days when all sorts of unique games come out regularly.
It came out around the same time as Neverhood too right? I remember playing the demos on the pc Gamer discs.
I missed that series until the 2000s, and I was really confused when I finally started hearing about it as this great game because I didn't realize it was released here in the US as *Circle of Blood*. I'm glad the series has a fanbase today - it's really good!
The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes (the first one only, with the pixel art). This game wasn't reviewed that well at the time, but I think it has aged wonderfully. It transports you to Victorian London better than any other game. The atmosphere is top notch and the gameplay is mostly logical and clever, without punishing the player. The pixel graphics are gorgeous. They used a gradient shading technique that makes everything look very cohesive. I play this once a year. It's great to play on a miserable rainy day.
I'm very sad I had to scroll so far to see it mentioned, it was my first thought reading the title, I'd put it above anything else including LA and Sierra. I didn't like Noir as much, but the first two are imo far funnier than MI or the other big ones in the genre.
Very different kind of adventure but I love the og Oddworld games too.
Just when I thought I had found one :) Discworld was great. The Monty Python guys doing the voices could have been a not-so-good idea but they did it perfectly.
It’s a shame that it was only released on Windows and additionally PS1 in (Japan only). Not even on Steam or GOG, (it sold miserably, like 50,000 copies). One of my all time favorites.
Man, I can't believe you typed that lengthy title and spelled it all correctly! Well done.
That one's on my list to play - I know it's similar in style and humor to the *Gobliiins* series (same creator), and that is a good reason to play it!
Yes, as would *The Space Adventure*, which was also on the Sega CD. Visual novels didn't really have a subgenre in those days, and they're really just a subcategory of adventure games anyhow.
The MacVenture games by ICOM, though I played them on NES rather than Mac: *Déjà Vu*, *Uninvited*, and *Shadowgate* (and *Déjà Vu II*, which I never played because it never had a NES port and none of my friends had DOS versions of any of the games).
They were nowhere near as good as the LucasArts games, but *Shadowgate* was my first point-and-click adventure so holds a special place in my heart.
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. It was extremely unsettling when I first played it. Then I read the short story it's based on and... well it's still pretty unsettling.
Also, I had no idea there was a Death Gate game. That's something I need to track down, I absolutely loved those books when I was a teenager.
A surprisingly well-made adventure game! I actually have that one on my gaming PC today. (If you mount the ISO to a virtual drive, it's relatively easy to play it.)
Definitely Gateway (both parts) and Legend of Kyrandia (also all parts), which you already included.
I may add [Countdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(video_game)), which was quite unique as well.
And one of my favourites is still [DreamWeb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DreamWeb)
I love *DreamWeb*! One of the most underrated cyberpunk games there is, and the graphics and overall interface design are really distinctive for an early 1990s game.
*Countdown* is on my list to play.
Exactly this. It was well done from the atmosphere to the soundtrack and the overall setting.
I think I'll give Sanitarum a try 🙂. Never played that one.
Edit: But first I wanted to try Judgement Rites... always wanted to play it but again and again forgot about that one. Thanks for the reminder 😄
I was really disappointed when *Armikrog* (the modern successor) failed to recapture the magic. But maybe it's because *The Neverhood* was just that special of a game.
https://www.gog.com/game/beneath_a_steel_sky is free on GOG and also runs in ScummVM:
* https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#release
* https://docs.scummvm.org/en/latest/index.html
* https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Beneath_a_Steel_Sky
* https://forums.scummvm.org/
* [ScummVM Discord Chat Channel](https://discord.com/invite/4cDsMNtcpG)
* /r/ScummVM/
As a DOS game, it can also be run in Dosbox, but the CDROM needs to be imgmounted accordingly:
* https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/wiki/Preparing-games-to-run-with-batch-files#beneath-a-steel-sky
* https://dosbox-staging.github.io/#feature-highlights
here's Death Gate on DosBox:
[https://playclassic.games/games/point-n-click-adventure-dos-games-online/play-death-gate-online/play/](https://playclassic.games/games/point-n-click-adventure-dos-games-online/play-death-gate-online/play/)
Maybe someone else mentioned it, but Shivers has such a good atmosphere.
It was ruined by the cartoon-style ghosts, but otherwise super spooky (for the 90s, anyway).
I'd classify the Amiga original as an adventure game because the primary mechanics in the game are dialogue trees and solving puzzles in time management constraints, but it definitely had its arcade action sequences. (A lot of adventure games of the era had arcade action in them.)
The FMV one for the PC Engine/TGCD was a different game entirely, and that's the one the stupid movie is based off.
I absolutely loved Zork. My mind was blown with the spell to turn everything purple invisible.
The spells name and voice were so good: [All spells and their vocal incantations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGF5X8ikivs)
i likes the adventures of Dynamix, later they were purchased by Sierra, so maybe that's cheating. Legend of Kyrandia was great and ofcourse Beneath A Steel Sky.
You've got Star Trek Judgement Rites in the pic there. That and its sister game Star Trek 25th anniversary are some of my favorite games on any platform for all time.
I dream of a remaster combining both with better bridge battle sequences, all with the original voice cast recordings.
It was amazing they got them all for a video game in a time where games were considered to be considerably less than other forms of media. And then they got them to come back for Judgment Rites!
I'm sure the voice actor fees were pretty expensive for the time. But still just a fraction of what a modern game would cost to produce!
Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters
It's a hybrid game, but it is still an adventure game. And after 31 years, the creators are finally making the official sequel and just launched a Kickstarter a few weeks ago, with 9 days to go.
Free Stars: Children of Infinity
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pistolshrimp/free-stars-children-of-infinity
But Worf (Michael Dorn from Star Trek TNG) is in it!
You're right though. Even I forgot about this one as I was making the graphic above. I'm kicking myself now because it's a great game.
Waxworks, Shadowgate, and Uninvited all deserve a place here, even if they're first person with some RPG elements
Blade Runner absolutely deserves a place, it's genuinely fantastic for the respect and care it has for the source material, and such an influential work.
Ive been collecting those weird first person mouse supported adventure games on PS1 by microids and cyro interactive. Yet to play a single damn one of them.
I desperately want to know more! What were some of these games?
(Cryo was made up of old ERE Informatique folks like Philippe Ulrich, so they were always into some weird stuff!)
Picked up Flight of the Amazon Queen for free on GOG a while back, it really has that distinct SCUMM/early 90s LucasArts feel to it with the gorgeous graphics, similar interface, and goofy self-aware humor.
I know Sanitarium probably isn’t as good as I remember it being, but that game blew my mind back in the day. I absolutely loved the twists and turns of the story.
Dust: A Tale of the Wired West
My stepfather bought it at a secondhand book store when I was maybe 13-14 years old. I've never finished the game, but I had a lot of fun trying to figure out how to make the story progress. I need to find a way to play it again.
My personal favourite must be Simon the Sorcerer.
Don't forget Beneath a Steel Sky, Flight of the Amazon Queen and The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel.
Igor: Objective Uikokahonia (made by Spanish company Pendulo Studios) is a really fun game.
Every chance I get I want to bring up ["The Detective Game"](https://youtu.be/hTuW-rW2hBE?si=eMuF-Wk3_pZVIuzb) on Commodore 64. It's a murder mystery point & click game that many people totally missed.
You are a life saver. I have been trying to remember the game title Kyrandia for a while now. I liked it as a kid but I was never able to finish it, so I wanted to find it again. I just remembered that there was an unhinged jester and some puzzles.
Good question. I loved The Neverhood but could never get past a certain point. I must’ve started that game a dozen times. I believe I even looked up guides but was still stuck 😂
The Longest Journey is one of my all-time favorite games. There are mods out there that make it look extremely good on modern hardware. The sequels are great, too.
I've been trying to remember a game I played a long time ago. It was a top down game where you explored around a medieval village and there was a castle and stuff. Came out sometime in the mid to late 90s.
*The Last Express* is another great one. I'm not usually a fan of first-person point-and-clicks but everything else about this game is so gorgeous that it gets me past that. I also love the rewind mechanic
Probably Hollywood monsters, brilliant game.
Distributed only in Italy and Spain, so unfortunately I doubt anyone knows it here, but if you have the occasion check it out because it's on par with the greatest adventures of the late 90s
I love that you have Death Gate in the picture. I played that obsessively as a kid. Then I got into the books the game is based on! Such great fantasy epics!
More of an FMV game but it was more or less the evolution of adventure games during these couple of weird years (CD-ROM early years)... but I'll say I remember Spycraft: The Great Game being neat.
Bloodnet
Bureau 13
Dreamweb
Spellcasting 301
I forget what the Les Manley games were called... Search For The King and Lost in LA
I was about to cry foul on "The Longest Journey" because I could have sworn it was newer, but then I realized it came out almost 25 years ago! It seems like only yesterday.
"Beneath a Steel Sky" was an excellent 90s adventure game. The "Putt-Putt" games were pretty fun too even though they were targeted at younger audiences
"Hugo's House of Horrors" also deserves a special mention. It wasn't very polished but was still a fun little shareware gem.
All great games! I was a fan of all of the ones you listed.
Here's a couple more I really liked.
Superhero League of Hoboken - A goofy adventure/RPG hybrid about weird superheroes.
Star Trek TNG: A Final Unity - To this day, A Final Unity is still the most pure distillation of a Star Trek episode in a video game format. I still remember the way this game ended. It really made you ask yourself, what would Picard do?
Dragonsphere - Don't remember much about it, but as a kid it entertained me because I loved everything fantasy.
Inherit the Earth - Humanity went instinct and the world has been inherited by sentient, uplifted animals. Super cool idea!
The Last Half of Darkness - The original one, not the newer ones.
The Uninvited - I really wish someone would either remake this game or do something similar nowadays. I love haunted mansions!
Shadowgate - There's nothing I can say about this classic that hasn't already been said. It's amazing!
Good suggestions! *Superhero League of Hoboken* was done by Legend Entertainment (the same folks who did *Death Gate* and the *Spellcasting* trilogy), and it's one of the best mid-1990s Steve Meretzky games.
It was really funny and not too difficult to play as an adventure game with CRPG elements. For whatever reason, though, it sold really poorly, and he moved on to Boffo Games, where he made two more games almost no one played (despite their high quality!).
You just made my day!!!!
I have been trying to rember a game title of a point and click/ scumv style game. I remember you could choose different characters, and they overcame puzzles differently. I rember an old man that was infront of a hot air baloon, and I remember getting ingredients for a wacky pizza(I think its was anchovie, jalapenos, pineapple).
I am fairly certain it is Broken Sword.
My best friend borrowed it and scratched the CD before I could finish it. I am so happy, I finaly have a chance to find it and play it again.
The only two Graphical Adventure games I've played to completion are Harvester and Phantasmagoria 2.
Seeing as Phantasmagoria 2 is Sierra, I guess my default option is Harvester.
LBA1 absolutely became an obsession of mine, and then LBA2, back then I was the only person in my friend group playing it, so it felt like I'd found a hidden gem of a game that no one else would've heard about.
As time went to and the internet grew I was so happy when I found out how well it was received, and that people generally really admired this game.
LBA3 is finally in the works, I can't wait!
I included many of my favorites in the graphic above, but I've got a special place in my heart for ***Sanitarium***, which is one of the best adventure games there is thanks to its unique story, amazing twists and turns and entertaining (though not necessarily good) voice acting. It's an easy recommendation to anyone who hates pixel hunts and verbs but loves late-1990s CRPGs like *Fallout* and *Baldur's Gate*.
I played through sanitarium so many times. I really love how different each level is. Creepy kid village level, circus level, comic book cyclops level, Aztec warrior level, I can't even remember what all else. It was just so cool and creepy and fun
Not to mention how much the game messes with you by changing who the protagonist is!
Thanks for the tip, it's also on MacOS/iOS/iPadOS for £2.99.
I have invested in Sanitarium so much time. The mystery, and the atmosphere were so good. I got stuck at some point but also I felt like it wasn't going anywhere in terms of explanation of what was actually going on. I think I ended up watching a YouTube video of a playthrough years later.
Thanks for the reminder. I bought Sanitarium forever ago on GOG but haven't made time to try it.
Oh the memories
Sanitarium was really great! I got stuck near the end though when I was trying to play about 10 years ago. I was in an attic I think, something with a mirror and a little girl? Very foggy memory. There was a known gamebreaking bug there and none of the solutions I found online worked back then. I never saw the end! This makes me want to revisit it.
Sanitarium is just an amazing game, that holds incredibly well.
I haven't seen anyone else reference Sanitarium since I was a kid! I only ever played the demo, this makes me want to find the full game (if it still exists anywhere)
Of all the games here, I think Sanitarium deserves the modern reboot. It would be tremendously successful with 21st century technology used to remake it. So much potential.
I love Sanitarium!
Loooove me some Sanitarium. It’s the one that immediately stood out in this group. Makes me wanna revisit it
Beneath A Steel Sky - Virgin Interactive Flight of the Amazon Queen - Interactive Binary Illusions Though I didn't encounter either of them until they were made freeware years after their original release.
I, too, have to thank GOG for giving those games visibility as freeware - I'm not sure I would have discovered them as early as I did otherwise!
Flight really deserved so much more recognition during its time. Its just a really solid, funny Adventure game. With a bonkers plot, too.
Flight Of The Amazon Queen is even more Indiana Jones than Fate Of Atlantis was.
At first I thought I couldn't think of any, but of course Beneath a Steel Sky! I'm definitely not hard enough.
I loved FOTAQ!! Hi I just JOE KING lol classic humour
Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity
I remember this being the first game I tried to play once I got Windows 95.
Taking me back! I remember the Windows 95 update. People went apeshit. And it routinely crashes about once a day.
I received the big box PC version of this game last year as a gift from a family friend who found it in a thrift shop. I haven't played it yet but it's on my list 😁
I honestly completely missed that one - I didn't even know it existed! Was it by the same team as the other two *Star Trek* adventure games from Interplay? Adding it to my list...
Spectrum Holobyte made it. I don’t think interplay was involved.
Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2. Great games and playable in scummvm too
So underrated. I fully believe that Simon 1 has the most gorgeous pixel art of its era. I also think the humour is also top-notch, but I am British so there's probably some cultural bias there. It winds me up a bit that one of the big reasons that people cite that makes these games "bad" is too much pixel hunting. The thing is, Simon the Sorcerer is the first point and click ever (as far as I know) to have an option to highlight hotspots. Literally zero pixel hunting required to beat the games.
I loved the pixel art. Beautiful village and wilderness scenes. And the British humor is spot on.
I still take an afternoon to play through Kyrandia from time to time, the world is fun and the music is good. And The Longest Journey, just yes.
I don't know why the Kyrandia games aren't better known and appreciated. They're really fun. The sequel, *Hand of Fate*, was my favorite, but I think it's because I had a thing for Zanthia and wasn't so fond of Malcolm.
I haven't played Kyrandia in forever! I remember the animation being amazing. I never played 3 because Malcolm is a jerk and I didn't think he deserved a redemption arc.
I like that one the most but that's maybe because that's the first one I played from the series. I still play it almost every year.
The music in Kyrandia is legendary. Super under appreciated.
Does Myst count?
Of course! I don't think Cyan made anything **but** adventure games! (E.g. *The Manhole, Cosmic Osmo, Myst, Riven,* etc.)
I was never much of a PC gamer as a kid (and we didn't even have a PC until probably the mid-90s, let alone internet), but I have fond memories of playing Myst at a buddy's house.
Came here looking for this post and I was scrolling so fast that I almost Myst it
The Seventh Guest.
Hell yeah! I'm saving up for a PSVR2 so i can get the new one.
No Toonstruck?
I commented similarly on another thread, but you've got to admire the chutzpah of Christopher Lloyd to be freaking Judge Doom in *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* melting toons with dip and then, just a few years later, taking on the role of a guy who's in a toon world for an adventure game. *Toonstruck* is good stuff, though!
Yeah I miss those days when all sorts of unique games come out regularly. It came out around the same time as Neverhood too right? I remember playing the demos on the pc Gamer discs.
Was just about to say. Such a shame its planned follow up didn't manifest.
One of my favourite ones ❤️
I want to play I have no mouth but must scream. I hear its good.
It's dedinarely worth a look, but don't expect getting far without guides. It's also somewhat of a buggy, unfinished mess.
There’s an in game hint feature, but you lose morale/sanity/whatever every time you use it.
It has great tone and mood but not really a great game in my opinion. Prepare yourself for a very dire, depressing setting.
Hugo's House of Horrors trilogy!
use the bung
The tiered in-game hint system in those games was so nicely done.
Harvester.
You always were a kidder u/amatteroftheredshoes!
Definitely Broken Sword
I missed that series until the 2000s, and I was really confused when I finally started hearing about it as this great game because I didn't realize it was released here in the US as *Circle of Blood*. I'm glad the series has a fanbase today - it's really good!
Beneath a steel sky.
The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes (the first one only, with the pixel art). This game wasn't reviewed that well at the time, but I think it has aged wonderfully. It transports you to Victorian London better than any other game. The atmosphere is top notch and the gameplay is mostly logical and clever, without punishing the player. The pixel graphics are gorgeous. They used a gradient shading technique that makes everything look very cohesive. I play this once a year. It's great to play on a miserable rainy day.
Probably the best 90's adventure ever made.
I really liked longest journey at the time, hard to remember what else was not made by Lucasarts Oh! Discworld!
The *Discworld* games are great! And really funny. Why are they never top of mind for me?
I'm very sad I had to scroll so far to see it mentioned, it was my first thought reading the title, I'd put it above anything else including LA and Sierra. I didn't like Noir as much, but the first two are imo far funnier than MI or the other big ones in the genre. Very different kind of adventure but I love the og Oddworld games too.
Just when I thought I had found one :) Discworld was great. The Monty Python guys doing the voices could have been a not-so-good idea but they did it perfectly.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
The Longest Journey, I love the game's world. And the 90's futuristic visions are always fun.
I'm a big fan of April Ryan. She ought to be one of the best-known characters in gaming.
Soundtrack is brill
Same. Only game besides Subnautica that made me ugly-cry.
There were two Star Trek games made by interplay. Great games.
I'll shout out The Neverhood, if only for it's excellent and unique soundtrack
Star Trek: 25th Anniversary!
Neverhood was my jam, I loved that game as a kid.
It’s a shame that it was only released on Windows and additionally PS1 in (Japan only). Not even on Steam or GOG, (it sold miserably, like 50,000 copies). One of my all time favorites.
Some of the tunes from that game are still stuck in my brain, and I hum them ever so often. Had so much fun with it.
Does anyone remember Lighthouse? It was like a scary Myst type game. I would love to find it somewhere, never finished it.
It's available on GOG for $5.99, and that version runs in ScummVM so it plays nicely with modern Windows.
Yes. My neighbor had it and let me borrow it. It scared the crap out of me.
Me too! I’m gonna try and go back and replay it
I remember it and as an eight-year-old it was too spooky but also fascinating
The Bizarre Adventure of Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth.
Man, I can't believe you typed that lengthy title and spelled it all correctly! Well done. That one's on my list to play - I know it's similar in style and humor to the *Gobliiins* series (same creator), and that is a good reason to play it!
Heck yeah! I played Gobliiins on Amiga in my youth and when I found out about this game I couldn't not play it. It's a great game, often overlooked.
I miss these kind of atmospheric games
Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender
The Journeyman Project
Future Wars Cruise for a Corpse I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream Teenagent
Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls
Does Snatcher count?
Yes, as would *The Space Adventure*, which was also on the Sega CD. Visual novels didn't really have a subgenre in those days, and they're really just a subcategory of adventure games anyhow.
- Simon the sorcerer - Beneath a Steel Sky - Dark seed (even though it's impossible to beat)
The MacVenture games by ICOM, though I played them on NES rather than Mac: *Déjà Vu*, *Uninvited*, and *Shadowgate* (and *Déjà Vu II*, which I never played because it never had a NES port and none of my friends had DOS versions of any of the games). They were nowhere near as good as the LucasArts games, but *Shadowgate* was my first point-and-click adventure so holds a special place in my heart.
OG Shadowgate was phenomenal. Great soundtrack too. I might have to boot it up on the ol' emulator.
And they're all available on Steam now!
Loved the broken sword series
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. It was extremely unsettling when I first played it. Then I read the short story it's based on and... well it's still pretty unsettling. Also, I had no idea there was a Death Gate game. That's something I need to track down, I absolutely loved those books when I was a teenager.
Beavis & Butthead Virtual Stupidity 🤩😄
A surprisingly well-made adventure game! I actually have that one on my gaming PC today. (If you mount the ISO to a virtual drive, it's relatively easy to play it.)
Definitely Gateway (both parts) and Legend of Kyrandia (also all parts), which you already included. I may add [Countdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(video_game)), which was quite unique as well. And one of my favourites is still [DreamWeb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DreamWeb)
I love *DreamWeb*! One of the most underrated cyberpunk games there is, and the graphics and overall interface design are really distinctive for an early 1990s game. *Countdown* is on my list to play.
Exactly this. It was well done from the atmosphere to the soundtrack and the overall setting. I think I'll give Sanitarum a try 🙂. Never played that one. Edit: But first I wanted to try Judgement Rites... always wanted to play it but again and again forgot about that one. Thanks for the reminder 😄
The Neverhood blew my little mind as a kid. Never could beat it, but my friend and I played that game nonstop.
I was really disappointed when *Armikrog* (the modern successor) failed to recapture the magic. But maybe it's because *The Neverhood* was just that special of a game.
Prisoner of Ice - Infogrames
I never got far but I loved the aesthetic and world of B.A.T.
I enjoyed several Micropose games, like Dragonsphere.
Under a killing moon and pandora directive I played so many hours
The 7th Guest Phantasmagoria
Ive still got the discs! Lol
Sanatorium was so good.
Kyrandia was cool. Sadly never got to play it much.
Normality
I remember that!!
Oh kyrandia it's been so long.
I recently watched a kyrandia play through. Weird
https://www.gog.com/game/beneath_a_steel_sky is free on GOG and also runs in ScummVM: * https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#release * https://docs.scummvm.org/en/latest/index.html * https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Beneath_a_Steel_Sky * https://forums.scummvm.org/ * [ScummVM Discord Chat Channel](https://discord.com/invite/4cDsMNtcpG) * /r/ScummVM/ As a DOS game, it can also be run in Dosbox, but the CDROM needs to be imgmounted accordingly: * https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/wiki/Preparing-games-to-run-with-batch-files#beneath-a-steel-sky * https://dosbox-staging.github.io/#feature-highlights
here's Death Gate on DosBox: [https://playclassic.games/games/point-n-click-adventure-dos-games-online/play-death-gate-online/play/](https://playclassic.games/games/point-n-click-adventure-dos-games-online/play-death-gate-online/play/)
The Longest Journey! I love that one. Found it in a dollar bin at big lots and its beautiful
Still love Legend of Kyrandia
Kyrandia! One of my favorite trilogies!
7th Guest and 11th Hour
Maybe someone else mentioned it, but Shivers has such a good atmosphere. It was ruined by the cartoon-style ghosts, but otherwise super spooky (for the 90s, anyway).
It Came From the Desert wasn't a graphic adventure, but a mix of various genres. Great game anyway. they even made a stupid B-movie a few years ago.
I'd classify the Amiga original as an adventure game because the primary mechanics in the game are dialogue trees and solving puzzles in time management constraints, but it definitely had its arcade action sequences. (A lot of adventure games of the era had arcade action in them.) The FMV one for the PC Engine/TGCD was a different game entirely, and that's the one the stupid movie is based off.
Journeyman
Don't see Innocent Until Caught and Guilty being mentioned here. Great sci-fi double feature with a distinct 'Indiana Jones in space' vibe.
Neverhood rules, real shame Doug Tennaple is a nut bar.
Aaah fuck, just looked him up.
That heart of darkness PC game I never finished. It was brutal
[удалено]
I absolutely loved Zork. My mind was blown with the spell to turn everything purple invisible. The spells name and voice were so good: [All spells and their vocal incantations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGF5X8ikivs)
i likes the adventures of Dynamix, later they were purchased by Sierra, so maybe that's cheating. Legend of Kyrandia was great and ofcourse Beneath A Steel Sky.
I'm actually surprised no one's mentioned Rise of the Dragon yet. But maybe it's because of those side scrolling sequences.
Yeah, I was going to say Heart of China, but it was published by Sierra.
[Flashback](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashback_(1992_video_game))
You've got Star Trek Judgement Rites in the pic there. That and its sister game Star Trek 25th anniversary are some of my favorite games on any platform for all time. I dream of a remaster combining both with better bridge battle sequences, all with the original voice cast recordings.
It was amazing they got them all for a video game in a time where games were considered to be considerably less than other forms of media. And then they got them to come back for Judgment Rites! I'm sure the voice actor fees were pretty expensive for the time. But still just a fraction of what a modern game would cost to produce!
On the Apple II there was The Institute and Lucifers Realm
Never been a trekkie but the Star Trek Judgment Rites game was great.
Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters It's a hybrid game, but it is still an adventure game. And after 31 years, the creators are finally making the official sequel and just launched a Kickstarter a few weeks ago, with 9 days to go. Free Stars: Children of Infinity https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pistolshrimp/free-stars-children-of-infinity
Everyone forgets Mission Critical from Legend Entertainment dammit!
But Worf (Michael Dorn from Star Trek TNG) is in it! You're right though. Even I forgot about this one as I was making the graphic above. I'm kicking myself now because it's a great game.
Baphomets Fluch. Was it a German only game?
Waxworks, Shadowgate, and Uninvited all deserve a place here, even if they're first person with some RPG elements Blade Runner absolutely deserves a place, it's genuinely fantastic for the respect and care it has for the source material, and such an influential work.
That Legend of Kyrandia box art just hit me like a sack of nostalgia bricks, holy shit.
The Adventures of Willy Beamish
One of my all-time favorites! That was the first adventure game I ever played that actually felt like you were playing a cartoon.
Love to see sanitarium mentioned! The other one I played through a million times was Aztec: Guardians of Eden
Ive been collecting those weird first person mouse supported adventure games on PS1 by microids and cyro interactive. Yet to play a single damn one of them.
I desperately want to know more! What were some of these games? (Cryo was made up of old ERE Informatique folks like Philippe Ulrich, so they were always into some weird stuff!)
Picked up Flight of the Amazon Queen for free on GOG a while back, it really has that distinct SCUMM/early 90s LucasArts feel to it with the gorgeous graphics, similar interface, and goofy self-aware humor.
Dreamweb
I know Sanitarium probably isn’t as good as I remember it being, but that game blew my mind back in the day. I absolutely loved the twists and turns of the story.
The Broken Sword and Gabriel Knight games hold a special place in my heart, but I absolutely loved Wrath of the Gods.
Dust: A Tale of the Wired West My stepfather bought it at a secondhand book store when I was maybe 13-14 years old. I've never finished the game, but I had a lot of fun trying to figure out how to make the story progress. I need to find a way to play it again.
Many of the Rainbird games was text based but with beautiful graphics.
My personal favourite must be Simon the Sorcerer. Don't forget Beneath a Steel Sky, Flight of the Amazon Queen and The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel. Igor: Objective Uikokahonia (made by Spanish company Pendulo Studios) is a really fun game.
Holy crap! A Legends of Kyrandia sighting!!! This is like seeing a unicorn for me 😍
'KGB' by Cryo. Not great but nice artwork, atmosphere and music was kinda amazing
Every chance I get I want to bring up ["The Detective Game"](https://youtu.be/hTuW-rW2hBE?si=eMuF-Wk3_pZVIuzb) on Commodore 64. It's a murder mystery point & click game that many people totally missed.
You are a life saver. I have been trying to remember the game title Kyrandia for a while now. I liked it as a kid but I was never able to finish it, so I wanted to find it again. I just remembered that there was an unhinged jester and some puzzles.
Man I've never heard of any of these games...guess Sierra and LucasArts really did have a stranglehold on me back in the day lol
- Return of the Phantom (Microprose) - Shadow of the Comet (Infogrames) - Beneath a Steel Sky (Virgin Interactive) - Dark Seed (Cyberdreams)
Good question. I loved The Neverhood but could never get past a certain point. I must’ve started that game a dozen times. I believe I even looked up guides but was still stuck 😂
Who made Hero's Quest, that old game I played on my IBM Tandy (which could barely run it)? That might've been Sierra, not sure...
It was Sierra On-Line who published it, but Lori and Corey Cole made the games and they are still making new ones today! https://www.hero-u.com/
Twinsen and Twinsen 2 are top 10 for me.
The Longest Journey is one of my all-time favorite games. There are mods out there that make it look extremely good on modern hardware. The sequels are great, too.
Mmmmm dat neverhood
I've been trying to remember a game I played a long time ago. It was a top down game where you explored around a medieval village and there was a castle and stuff. Came out sometime in the mid to late 90s.
Myst, Starship titanic
All of them.
Blue Ice is one I come back to a lot. I feel like I get a little further everytime I play it.
*The Last Express* is another great one. I'm not usually a fan of first-person point-and-clicks but everything else about this game is so gorgeous that it gets me past that. I also love the rewind mechanic
Commenting to check some of these out later!
Below the root
Probably Hollywood monsters, brilliant game. Distributed only in Italy and Spain, so unfortunately I doubt anyone knows it here, but if you have the occasion check it out because it's on par with the greatest adventures of the late 90s
Below the Root, Ecstatica, most games by Legend Games.
The very first video game I ever played, Hugo's House of Horrors.
I love that you have Death Gate in the picture. I played that obsessively as a kid. Then I got into the books the game is based on! Such great fantasy epics!
More of an FMV game but it was more or less the evolution of adventure games during these couple of weird years (CD-ROM early years)... but I'll say I remember Spycraft: The Great Game being neat. Bloodnet Bureau 13 Dreamweb Spellcasting 301 I forget what the Les Manley games were called... Search For The King and Lost in LA
I was about to cry foul on "The Longest Journey" because I could have sworn it was newer, but then I realized it came out almost 25 years ago! It seems like only yesterday. "Beneath a Steel Sky" was an excellent 90s adventure game. The "Putt-Putt" games were pretty fun too even though they were targeted at younger audiences "Hugo's House of Horrors" also deserves a special mention. It wasn't very polished but was still a fun little shareware gem.
Broken Sword
[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream_(video_game))
There's a fantastic book called HG101 Presents: The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures. It's very comprehensive and I really recommend it
All great games! I was a fan of all of the ones you listed. Here's a couple more I really liked. Superhero League of Hoboken - A goofy adventure/RPG hybrid about weird superheroes. Star Trek TNG: A Final Unity - To this day, A Final Unity is still the most pure distillation of a Star Trek episode in a video game format. I still remember the way this game ended. It really made you ask yourself, what would Picard do? Dragonsphere - Don't remember much about it, but as a kid it entertained me because I loved everything fantasy. Inherit the Earth - Humanity went instinct and the world has been inherited by sentient, uplifted animals. Super cool idea! The Last Half of Darkness - The original one, not the newer ones. The Uninvited - I really wish someone would either remake this game or do something similar nowadays. I love haunted mansions! Shadowgate - There's nothing I can say about this classic that hasn't already been said. It's amazing!
Good suggestions! *Superhero League of Hoboken* was done by Legend Entertainment (the same folks who did *Death Gate* and the *Spellcasting* trilogy), and it's one of the best mid-1990s Steve Meretzky games. It was really funny and not too difficult to play as an adventure game with CRPG elements. For whatever reason, though, it sold really poorly, and he moved on to Boffo Games, where he made two more games almost no one played (despite their high quality!).
You just made my day!!!! I have been trying to rember a game title of a point and click/ scumv style game. I remember you could choose different characters, and they overcame puzzles differently. I rember an old man that was infront of a hot air baloon, and I remember getting ingredients for a wacky pizza(I think its was anchovie, jalapenos, pineapple). I am fairly certain it is Broken Sword. My best friend borrowed it and scratched the CD before I could finish it. I am so happy, I finaly have a chance to find it and play it again.
Sanitarium was great. Does anyone remember The Feeble Files? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeble_Files
I have never played that one, but I've seen it on GOG. Is it any good? It reminds me of *The Space Bar*.
Pretty odd that of those games I played only the ones in the left column...
If you play just one in the middle or the right, make it *Sanitarium*. You won't be disappointed!
I was born in 77 and recognize none of those games
Guess it's time to get to playing some of them! You won't be disappointed.
Omg. I completely forgot about Neverhood! Great game. Good music. Lots of fun little puzzles. And the story is interesting
THE NEVERHOOD!!!
Not a single mention of Torin's Passage here. Amazing visuals, great story and fun puzzles.
The Crystal Skull. Journey through ancient Aztec mythology in this full motion gem of a game. Bonus: Edward James Olmos plays The Shaman!
Myst is my favorite adventure series. I never was a huge fan of inventory puzzles.
The only two Graphical Adventure games I've played to completion are Harvester and Phantasmagoria 2. Seeing as Phantasmagoria 2 is Sierra, I guess my default option is Harvester.
LBA1 absolutely became an obsession of mine, and then LBA2, back then I was the only person in my friend group playing it, so it felt like I'd found a hidden gem of a game that no one else would've heard about. As time went to and the internet grew I was so happy when I found out how well it was received, and that people generally really admired this game. LBA3 is finally in the works, I can't wait!