pretty much the title. i have played most of sierra, lucasarts and telltale catalogues so if you are suggesting one of their games i’ve probably already played it. it doesn’t have to be a copycat, homage or in the same style as these companies’ games either, just that it must satisfy the vague definition of being an “adventure game” and have a good story. thanks in advance, can’t wait to see your recommendations!
EDIT: thanks for your recommendations i couldn’t reply to everyone. i can’t to play (most of) them when i got time.
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I know many people did not, but I really enjoyed the King’s Quest reboot.
It’s slow but, The Invincible was pretty good.
I really feel like Disco Elysium treads the line between RPG and old school Adventure Game.
If you want story, its got it in spades.You’d probably find Pentiment interesting.
Also, maybe the Ace Attorney games.
And also seconding Disco Elysium; it has some of the best writing I’ve seen in a game.
played almost all ace attorney games. i got nothing bad against them but honestly the plot is really frustrating i don’t know how i played through all of them.
Disco Elysium was an awesome game it is one of my top 10 games for sure. it’s funny, emotional, bizarre or thought provoking when it needs to be, delivered in such a style it’s hard to match.
haven’t heard of Pentiment will definitely check it out.
Rain World. Fits the vague definition with some survival elements. But it is heavy on story, atmospheric story-telling, and heavily influenced by Hinduism.
tried playing it with my friend but our networks were so bad we gave up and i never tried out the game again. from the 5 minute i played it didn’t look like it has much of a story but maybe it’s time for me to actually play it.
Yeah it doesnt spoon feed you the story. You have to discover the characters and they each share a bit of lore with you. Most of these come from lore pearls or having enough karma to see the Echos and talk to them. I don’t want to spoil it for you though. As part of the game is peeling off your animal struggles to see what is actually around you.
The Longest Journey. It’s my favorite point and click of all time. Epic, beautiful, and fun. A couple of Babel fish-level puzzles, but otherwise a steady and engaging story with a very likable lead. The much-delayed sequel, Dreamfall, tried some things and mostly failed, but was still a pretty interesting story extension. I haven’t played the last episodic entry, Dreamfall chapters, because I’m slowly working my way through the first two again first.
sounds interesting i will check it out. thanks for the recommendation.
Another vote for Disco Elysium. For an old-school classic dripping in atmosphere, check out the 1997 Blade Runner PC game.
Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters has an excellent story and wordbuilding, and you can talk to all kinds of weird aliens. If you don’t like the ship combat, you can set up the game’s AI to fight for you.
I personally enjoy Brok the Investigator, if you don’t mind beat-em-up mixed in with your story. Has multiple endings, every single area has 3 hidden collectables that act as hints in case you get stuck, and is available on console (ps4/5, xbox one and series s/x, switch) if you don’t feel like playing on PC.
You play the first chapter as a detective alligator (Brok) who has a new case to solve. Starting chapter 2, you gain access to switch between him and his cat son (Graff). Depending on your actions, you get the different endings. To make things easier on getting different endings, you can load yourself in at specific chapters, too.
I’m currently playing The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. Very good so far.
It’s a big stretch on the definition, but try the Hitman Trilogy. There are tons and tons of solutions to achieve the kills without trying for tricksy, difficult stealth challenges - just by recalling a bunch of hints you’ve seen/heard by wandering around the region, and combining them in fun ways.
Basically, if you see that the target is inside a complex guarded by two armed men, you shouldn’t be trying to flick a coin to see if you can turn a guard just long enough to use your garrot on one, and hide him around a corner, all in 10 seconds. You SHOULD, instead, look for options like:
- Find a pizza delivery guy, get him alone, knock him out, take his uniform and pizza, and greet the guards so they let you in
- Set off an alarm in a nearby room that causes a guard to go shut it off
- Call the target on the phone and tell him you want to meet about his secrets. Then, he leaves the complex himself with one bodyguard to your proposed meeting spot “right underneath the suspended ornamental anchor”.
What’s often misleading about the games is they orient themselves around all this equipment you can bring in, but the best way to explore a lot of levels is with no equipment at all (sometimes not even a pistol). Granted, the game changes in speedruns and other challenges, but it DOES feel like playing a Monkey Island game at times.
Immortals fenyx rising was a good adventure game. Good story, good writing, breathe of the wild knockoff gameplay. I really enjoyed the characters.
Couldn’t make it more than a couple hours in this game. Everything was just so “generic open world Ubisoft game” and I found the dialog to be obnoxious.
If you have access to a PS4 or Nintendo Switch: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
A crazy an interesting sci-fi game, mixes point-and-click adventure with tower defense action stages. Story is amazing and I absolutely love Vanillaware’s 2D art.
unfortunately have access to neither, nor switch emulation capable hardware. im not really a fan of anime artstyles so it doesn’t look like much of a loss to me. thanks for your recommendation anyway.
I really enjoyed Gemini Rue, and most of wadjet eye’s catalog is pretty high quality.
I also would recommend Lost Horizen, which was very Indiana Jones like, and done quite well. Another game, Heart of China by dynamix is in the same vein.
An interesting older one is Dreamweb, which has great visuals and a kickass soundtrack, but you may need a walkthrough handy since you can pick up almost any object that isn’t nailed down, but only a few of them are useful.
Lastly, the old 1999 Bladerunner punches above its weight, with some amazing mechanics that I haven’t seen in any other game. NPC’s will notice how you treat others, and have the ability to warn other NPC’s they interact with, which will influence how they respond to your questions. It’s also replayable, since the replicant is a different character every playthrough.
i’ve heard about wadjet eye through their blackwell series, but haven’t actually played any of their games. all of these sound interesting thank you for youe recommendations.
I hope you enjoy them! ^^
Another I forgot to mention is Quest for Infamy, which is a fantastic little spiritual successor to Quest for Glory. It has some really witty writing, and was a really fun romp.
So, I’m playing adventure games (and similar games that work in the setting) with friends most Fridays. We’ve been doing this for years and have quite the list by now.
I’ll list some favorites of mine from that list. But let me know if you’re also interested in some more niche/janky games (not everything we played was good, some of it was so bad it was already entertaining again, especially when enjoyed in a group).
- Heaven’s Vault
- The Case of the Golden Idol
- The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
- Chants of Sennaar
- Pentiment
- Edna & Harvey: The Breakout
- West of Loathing
im ok with niche/janky as long as it doesn’t fry my laptop it’s fine, so hit me with your best.
heaven’s vault was great. i really liked it especially the new game+ and the story. the translation mechanic didn’t really impress me but it’ll sometimes produce some head scratchers.
the case of golden idol was a brilliant detective game no notes. one mistake i made was disabling automatic highlight of keywords, it doesn’t add anything to the puzzles you just spam click until you hit a keyword.
i didn’t like chants of sennaar that much. its art is good but it was too easy and it just didn’t click with me as much as it should have.
west of loathing is awesome, i’ve played the original kingdom of loathing and was glad to see it was as much silly and funny as its predecessor. i would also recommend shadows over loathing alongside west of loathing to anyone that hasn’t played these games. kingdom of loathing is a really old browser game and is more of a daily type of game so i wouldn’t exactly recommend it. all of them are set in the same universe but in different time periods so you don’t need to play all of them or play them in order in order to just play one of them.
haven’t played the rest so i’ll definitely check them out. thanks for the list!
