Point-and-Click Adventure Games

OrientalGrill

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I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Obduction yet. It's from the creators of Myst, and it's excellent. I set out to beat it without a walkthrough because Myst and Riven stumped me when I was much younger. I used a walkthrough for those which spoiled the experience for myself. The worlds and puzzles are fantastic (with the exception of maybe one towards the end where
you basically have to teleport and rotate blocks around to create a path through a maze which, while interesting, is tedious
). I highly recommend it:


Cyan is also coming out with Firmament soon which also looks to be fun:


For point and click with an old school aesthetic, pretty much anything that Wadjet Eye puts out is fantastic. A portion of them have a hard cyberpunk bend to them. Ones I played through include:
  1. Primordia
  2. Shardlight
  3. Technobabylon
  4. Resonance
Fans of Serial Experiments: Lain and Studio Pixel might enjoy Unreal Life

Darkside Detective is also hilarious and fun. Not a super long game, but really enjoyable

If you only have a little bit of time to kill, Whimsy and Escape Lala are really short but fun and imaginative

Nice list of recs! Ill check these guys out.
Garage: Bad Dream Adventure is now getting a steam release by the way. Sick.
 
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№56

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I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Obduction yet. It's from the creators of Myst, and it's excellent.
I also played Obduction recently and really liked it except for the last 1/3 or so of the game where they gave up on anything resembling lateral thinking in favor of "rotate the magic balls to proceed." Both the good and bad endings were also kind of abrupt, although that's kind of par for the course for Myst games.
Quern is another great Myst-like (technically not a point-and-click, but it might as well be one) that came out around the same time. The story and visuals aren't as good as Obduction, but the puzzles are much more interesting and consistently good. It's also really hard and will probably force you to use a guide at some point.
I remember hearing people talk about this game with the assumption it would never be translated. It's cool to see it finally getting an English release, although I still have no idea what it's supposed to be about. For some reason I had always assumed it had some connection to the guy who made LSD: Dream Emulator, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
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sushiixroll

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OMG I loved these games as a kid because they were the only ones that could run. Some of my favorite are Full Throttle, Gabriel Knight.

I just recently finished Hypnospace Outlaw! https://www.hypnospace.net/

It really made me miss "surfing the web" and just being amazed with how random websites were. Highly recommended.
 

inuyashiware

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e best are Riven, Ti
I've always LOVED point n' click (and STILL do) one of the earliest ones I've played were the ISPY games, which I guess leans more hidden objects but there are areas where you could "walk" from one area to another, I just really dig the little details and the animations that would play with each individual item... The set/level designs in these games were just as much eye candy as in the original books!View attachment 13484View attachment 13485View attachment 13486
Memory Unlocked. Thank you.
 
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I also played Obduction recently and really liked it except for the last 1/3 or so of the game where they gave up on anything resembling lateral thinking in favor of "rotate the magic balls to proceed." Both the good and bad endings were also kind of abrupt, although that's kind of par for the course for Myst games.
Quern is another great Myst-like (technically not a point-and-click, but it might as well be one) that came out around the same time. The story and visuals aren't as good as Obduction, but the puzzles are much more interesting and consistently good. It's also really hard and will probably force you to use a guide at some point.
I definitely agree about that puzzle and the endings. That one was my least favorite puzzle in the whole thing. I think it took me a while to figure out too since there was a secondary place where the magic balls would teleport to that I didn't quite realize. Also, the alien adding machines weren't used to their full potential, I think

Also thanks for the heads up on Quern. It's on sale for the next few days. I'm definitely playing this :spaceGhost:
 
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nobodyhere

How were those 3D fuzzy graphics made? Is there any way to replicate them with modern software?
Imagine how cool it would be to have new point and click games with updated gameplay but classic graphics.
Sorry, I know this post is pretty old, but I didn't see any replies to it. Here goes!

Now, I'm no historian, so I can't answer your first question; however, I can answer your second question.

The short answer is a resounding yes! However, I don't feel like just throwing out a "yes" is very convincing. So, here's a 3D techie's theory on why these old 3D games look the way they do

Looking over the 3D screenshots in this thread, it seems that a large part of these titles' surreal aesthetic is caused by a lack of reflected light. You see, IRL, the light that strikes objects is sourced both directly (IE, from a light) and indirectly (IE, from adjacent objects which reflect light). While the former can be reasonably simplified—the "lightness" of all objects are based off a single point—the latter has way more variables flying around, the complexity of solving for a scene's "lightness" is directly based off how complex the scene is. When you have a bunch of high poly models hanging around, solving for this indirect light gets... expensive. Thus, it's a lot easier to just boot the bounced light and simulate the most superficial aspect of lighting. However, since this novel "no bounce" (I just made that term up, look at me!) form of lighting is somewhat based on the real world, our brains get confused. By trying to be efficient, you get a very uncanny aesthetic. This, paired with NO omnipresent & omnidirectional light source (IE ambient lighting) makes some certain shots from old games look flat out incorrect. This is a prime example of what I mean: https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?attachments/drownedgod2-png.13406/
 

elia925-6

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Ross_Я

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I guess my favorites from this area would be Beneath A Steel Sky, The Last Express, Gemini Rue and Toonstruck (which I still hope will have a part 2 one day). And I cannot stress enough how good Gemini Rue turned out to be. It might be a bit boring and has kind of... long acceleration time, but this is not surprising, given that it was pretty much a one-off project of one man: he never made full scale games before Gemini Rue and never made any full scale games after it came out. Still, Gemini Rue is totally worth your time. The plot there turned out to be great. I like the questions it raises and the points it makes.
Also, if you just want to feel some nostalgia, Thimbleweed Park is a very good option. And Truberbrook, while not being great, has unique art design, and, in case you will manage not to drop it and make it to the end, the final plot twist will definitely leave you pleasantly surprised.
 
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I guess my favorites from this area would be Beneath A Steel Sky, The Last Express, Gemini Rue and Toonstruck (which I still hope will have a part 2 one day). And I cannot stress enough how good Gemini Rue turned out to be. It might be a bit boring and has kind of... long acceleration time, but this is not surprising, given that it was pretty much a one-off project of one man: he never made full scale games before Gemini Rue and never made any full scale games after it came out. Still, Gemini Rue is totally worth your time. The plot there turned out to be great. I like the questions it raises and the points it makes.
Also, if you just want to feel some nostalgia, Thimbleweed Park is a very good option. And Truberbrook, while not being great, has unique art design, and, in case you will manage not to drop it and make it to the end, the final plot twist will definitely leave you pleasantly surprised.
Have you tried the other Wadjet Eye games? Primordia, Shardlight, and especially Technobabylon are fantastic. (Reminds me that I need to finish playing Resonance as well)
 
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Ross_Я

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Have you tried the other Wadjet Eye games? Primordia, Shardlight, and especially Technobabylon are fantastic. (Reminds me that I need to finish playing Resonance as well)
Technobabylon definitely was on my list (how could I walk past a game with such a name). Not sure about the others, but so far, unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to try out even the Technobabylon one, so it doesn't really matter, I guess.
Soon, hopefully.
 
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containercore

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I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Obduction yet. It's from the creators of Myst, and it's excellent. I set out to beat it without a walkthrough because Myst and Riven stumped me when I was much younger. I used a walkthrough for those which spoiled the experience for myself. The worlds and puzzles are fantastic (with the exception of maybe one towards the end where
you basically have to teleport and rotate blocks around to create a path through a maze which, while interesting, is tedious
). I highly recommend it:


Cyan is also coming out with Firmament soon which also looks to be fun:


For point and click with an old school aesthetic, pretty much anything that Wadjet Eye puts out is fantastic. A portion of them have a hard cyberpunk bend to them. Ones I played through include:
  1. Primordia
  2. Shardlight
  3. Technobabylon
  4. Resonance
Fans of Serial Experiments: Lain and Studio Pixel might enjoy Unreal Life

Darkside Detective is also hilarious and fun. Not a super long game, but really enjoyable

If you only have a little bit of time to kill, Whimsy and Escape Lala are really short but fun and imaginative

Seconding Obduction. It deserves more attention, it's really great.
 
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anachronism

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I loved me some fuckin Full Throttle growing up. Which reminds me, I still need to play through the remastered.
 

幽邃森林

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Has anyone mentioned any of the games from Lucas Arts? The Secret of Monkey Island has some of the most memorable quotes in gaming.

My pick for the best point and click adventure still goes out to Riven. I'm glad it's been mentioned multiple times here and am wondering if anyone had a chance to play it on the Sega Saturn.
 

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