Adventure Gamers - Forums

I’ve always said adventure games don’t have to look very good as long as they’re great to play. In spite of its minimal art style Edna & Harvey is one of my alltime favorites. Eye candy is nice of course but not necessary. I’ve just finished 3 games with pixel art (The Case of the Golden Idol - The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow - Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard) and I enjoyed all three very much.

But then I played beautiful Boxville. No pixels! Very short game, so I’m looking for something more solid to play. I have Norco and Lucy Dreaming installed, and I will play them, but not right now. Any recommendations? It’s becoming harder these days to find excellent non-pixelated games with characters that can show facial expressions.

EDIT: I’d like recommendations for recent adventures.

Thanks, I will have a look at your recommendations.

BTW facial expressions are certainly not required. I also love the lonely 1st-person explorations in Mystian games. But it struck me while I was playing the 3 games I mentioned that I kind of missed them.

Have you played The Forgotten City?

There’s some dexterity involved in playing the game, but nothing impossible. A Groundhog Day loop in an ancient Roman city.
I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and I loved the Groundhog Day loop concept (where every time you relive the same day gives you more information in solving the mystery). In fact, I loved the concept so much that I bumped The Outer Wilds significantly higher in my list of games to play…

Ah yes, the Forgotten City. Thanks for reminding me. I have it and tried it for maybe 20 minutes. It didn’t appeal to me, don’t know why, and I put it on the backburner. I’ll give it another try, 20 minutes is not long enough.

And I’ll repeat that you should The Case of the Golden Idol a try. It’s not Obra Dinn, but it’s good.

Karlok - 29 January 2023 12:19 PM

Ah yes, the Forgotten City. Thanks for reminding me. I have it and tried it for maybe 20 minutes. It didn’t appeal to me, don’t know why, and I put it on the backburner. I’ll give it another try, 20 minutes is not long enough.

And I’ll repeat that you should The Case of the Golden Idol a try. It’s not Obra Dinn, but it’s good.

I know. I take your recommendations to heart. Haven’t really been disappointed yet…

I have to get over the ugliness of the screenshots, though.

I can only think of one game that dots all your i’s and crosses all your t’s and is also a recent game is, unfortunately a game you’ve already played. Syberia 4.

What about Stray? My cat is eager for playing it, although I told him that he will have to wait for a new laptop in order to play properly…

@rtrooney: I don’t know where you got the idea I have played Syberia 4. You may remember I’m not really a fan of the Syberia games. But #4 has had so many positive reviews that I might play it at some point.

@Gabriel Cash: Nine Noir Lives looks like a game I might enjoy. I love noir and playing detective. The graphics are good too.

@walas: Stray is a beautiful and immersive game, I played it last year.

Thanks everybody!

Have you played Ceville? I think it’s one of the funniest games I’ve played. Colorful PS2 era quality graphics, pretty good puzzles, very cute story and characters. Usually less than a dollar on GOG, too.

Mage’s Initiation is another good one that I think went overlooked by a lot of people, despite being from the company that made the excellent King’s Quest and QFG II remakes. Hand painted backgrounds, so not pixel art.

Disco Elysium, if it somehow passed you by, is top-notch stuff. Takes a couple of hours to get going, but then it is almost impossibly absorbing.

Hector: Badge of Carnage was very funny, very irreverent, and had surprisingly quality gameplay to boot.

Irony Curtain was a somewhat recent very enjoyable game with a good story, unique plot and setting, likeable characters, and solid puzzle design.

I recently played the old game Normality, which maybe the first full 3d smooth scrolling first person adventure game. Pretty good, although there’s a little too much gosh darned pixel hunting and my interest started waning in the last 1/4 of the game. Weird enough to be worth a go.

Ah, I missed the recent part.

Baron_Blubba - 30 January 2023 01:21 PM

Disco Elysium, if it somehow passed you by, is top-notch stuff. Takes a couple of hours to get going, but then it is almost impossibly absorbing.

I can vouch for this!

When I was doing the solo playthrough I thought for sure that you mentioned you had played it. I was wrong.

Jenny Leclu Detectivu?

By the way, if you don’t mind wild and dark humour, I would recommend an Spanish adventure game: The Revenge of Johnny Bonasera. Four chapters of extravagant characters and very good puzzles:

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/6130/Johnny_Bonasera_1__2__3__4/

Each chapter is better than the previous one.