Adventure Gamers - Forums

Not the best year for adventures as far as memorable, fantastic games.

Adventures that were released this year that I played and really enjoyed:

1.Chasing Static. Very atmospheric horror indie. Short, well-made, remarkable.

2. The Rewinder. Pixel point’n'click with a huge variety of puzzles and interesting game mechanics - perhaps a contender for best gameplay of this year for me.

3. Not Another Weekend. Probably, the best point’n'click I played this year. Funny and fun, very 80s (whatever that means for anyone), challenging enough (it’s ultimately an elaborate fetch quest that can stump you for a while), and with a crazy sinister twist to add to an already crazy story.

4. Hitchhiker - Absolutely the best narrative adventure I played this year, and maybe several few years - very surrealistic, philosophical and have a sense of wonder and grand adventure to it. Fantastic graphics. Not for everyone, as it’s pretty open to interpretation (ending including), which was evidenced by a rather low rating here, on AG (3 stars), then again, the review writer seemed to not like all the things I did - so, it’s indeed, subjective. I liked the narrative (and the narration, as the VO is outstanding) so much, I played it twice in a row, which almost never happens.

5. Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery This one is for puzzle lovers. Greatly enjoyed this surprisingly long, fun game where you rotate tiny detailed dioramas 360 in order to solve the mystery of everyone’s disappearance.

My two top adventure games of the year are only adventure crosses, but I thought I’d mention them anyway.

Buddy Simulator 1984 - a brilliant journey through adventures (RPG included along with “classic adventuring) and most importantly - graphical element of gaming. You start at text adventure and progress through graphic improvements of the medium as you play - very cool, very original. Great storytelling, well-paced plot with psychological horror undertones and the overall execution of all this mix of genres is top notch.

Inscryption - what a wild ride from a creator of Pony Island! It’s ultimately a strategy card game that is also an adventure that is also an escape room. Unless I’ll play something that blow my socks off in the next week - this is a game of the year for me. Phenomenal, crazy and fun genre-blending. If anyone is interested in strategy deckbuilders even a little - this will absolutely bring you joy. Hell, I even hesitantly recommend it to any adventure player, as long as you not averse to strategy card games, since it’s a core gameplay, but it’s THAT fun, really.

Going to have to give Kathy Rain a try based on all the praise it’s getting here.

I enjoyed Lacuna. Glad it’s come to consoles as well. I may even gift it to a few people for Christmas.

I think next year will be a great one for the adventure genre, pending any further delays, that is.

Haven’t played many adventure games this year but Life is Strange: True Colors is my pick. Better than LiS2 but it was a bit too short.

Gabe - 24 December 2021 06:06 AM

With outstanding artistic values my candidates are Psychonauts2 and The Medium.

Psychonauts 2 is my overall game of the year but it’s not really an adventure game.

Rewinder is one I started but didn’t finish because I had played a lot of text only games back-to-back and wanted something with VA. I should get back to that it looked cool.

There’s one great game I failed to recall in my first post. Opus: Echo of Starsong, a space exploration adventure game by Chinese developer Sigono. It’s an emotionally strong space opera with cool sim-ish exploration elements on the map screen. It’s somewhat let down by extremely casual/uninspired puzzle design, but taken as whole I really enjoyed going through it.

Reading this thread a couple of days ago I realized I almost haven’t played any 2021 released games. Quarantine Diary was pretty much the only one I could think of. I guess that one was ok, enjoyable like most of the Carol Reed games.

Came close to the end (I think) of St Kotar, but never bothered to finish it.

So I took DCasts recommendation and bought Chasing Static. Glad I did! Short (around 3 hours) and very good. Kind of a walking sim but with some simple inventory management thrown into the mix. Loved the Playstation 1 type graphics.

So Chasing Static would be my candidate for best adventure game of 2021! Highly recommended. 4/5 for me.

Glad you gave it a go and liked it! It was a highlight of the year for me.

I didn’t play many games this year, even fewer released in 2021. I actually came back to the forum to scour for ideas as I’m feeling like playing traditional adventures again! Even though there isn’t much to compare to in my case, I would like to say that Inspector Waffles was a real joy to play, and I hope to see it somewhere in the Aggies list.
Life Is Stange: True Colours is on wishlist, but I’m feeling like playing something with older-school vibes first. I’ll still try to make it before voting time!

Also, I just started Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, and so far it looks pretty good, even though the graphics are a bit dated but that may be my computer specs. It’s not exactly a traditional adventure game though, from what I understand, but most action sequences seem to be entirely skippable. I’m not far enough in the game to have a definite opinion but it could be a solid candidate for a prize.