Adventure Gamers - Forums

Can you recommend me adventures for PC that focus on solving brain-teasers, the kind of puzzles that make the player think logically? I’m not looking for adventures dominated by inventory puzzles or Myst-like contraptions.

Both Safecracker games fit the bill, IMO.

“Jewels of the Oracle” 1 (1995) and 2 (1998) (Jewels 2 was originally called “Gems of Darkness”) are collections of “brainteaser” puzzles. You fall into this cave area and you wander around finding and solving these puzzles. I think Jewels 1 had an option to skip all the wandering and leave only the puzzles.
Both games would probably need to be played inside an emulation program on a modern computer.
The early versions (Windows 3.1/95) of Jewels 1 and Jewels 2 will work in DOSBox with Windows 3.1 installed.
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=9405

The Windows 95/98 version of Jewels 1 will work in Virtual PC or VMware with Windows 95 or 98 installed. I think only Jewels 1 had an “updated” Windows 95/98 version.

There is an eBay seller who’s created installers that work in Windows XP/Vista/7/8. He provides an original disc plus a disc with his “updated” install. However he charges $50 each. If you’re interested in ease of use more than a low price, search eBay for the name of the game plus “1click”

“9: The Last Resort” (1996) also has a lot of “brainteaser” puzzles. In this one you’re wandering around some sort of amusement park discovering the puzzles.

“Shivers” (1995) and “Shivers 2” (1997) have “brainteaser” puzzles. Shivers took place in a museum. Shivers 2 took place in some weird town.

“7th Guest” (1993) is probably the best known, though I don’t think it’s as good as the others. It has the advantage of having been re-released with installers for modern computers. Currently $2.99 at GOG—http://www.gog.com/game/the_7th_guest

“Obsidian” (1997) had a lot of logic-based puzzles, though they weren’t all “brainteaser” types. It took place (mostly) inside a computer simulation.

“Schizm: Mysterious Journey” (2001), “Schizm 2/Mysterious Journey 2: Chameleon” (2003), and “Sentinel: Descendents in Time/Realms of Illusion” (2004) had a lot of “brainteaser” types. The first “Schizm: Mysterious Journey” had a huge gameworld and clues might be far away from the puzzles though, and some of the puzzles were more Mystlike. The other two games were smaller and more “brainteaser”-like.

As Antrax said, “Safecracker” (1997) and “Safecracker” (2006) also feature “brainteaser” puzzles. In both you wander around a house full of safes, and most of the puzzles are to unlock safes. Unfortunately the 2nd Safecracker (now 8 years old) is the last game I know of that featured a challenging collection of “brainteaser” puzzles as opposed to mostly other gameplay with a “brainteaser” here or there.

A couple of 3rd person adventure games that have quite a few “brainteaser” type puzzles are “Keepsake” (2005) already mentioned by Iznogood, and “Dracula Origin” (2008).

The first Azada game (2007) had mostly easy “brainteaser” puzzles, some of which were time-restricted. The later Azada games are very different and don’t fit what you described at all. It’s too bad they don’t make these types of games any more. There were never many of them, but most seem to have been made in the 1990’s.

A couple of casual games you might check out are Frogwares’ “Sherlock Holmes: Hound of the Baskervilles” and “Dracula: Love Kills.” The Sherlock game was better overall and had a few “brainteasers” that were surprisingly challenging (for a casual game).

The Phoenix Wright games. A lot of logical reasoning required.
Sherlock Holmes games by Frogware.

The Neverhood. Really. You may as well recommend Doom 3, it’s about as relevant a recommendation.

He said he didn’t want “Myst-like contraptions.”
I took that to mean no mechanical puzzles, like you see in games like Myst, Riven, RHEM.
Puzzles in games like Safecracker don’t involve wandering around the landscape looking for spigots, listening for sounds, etc. There’s no doubt you’ve found a puzzle or clue when you encounter it—something that isn’t always true for Myst.

If he’s looking for straight brainteasers or logic puzzles, he might be better off with a puzzle magazine like
http://www.pennydellpuzzles.com/product.aspx?c=MixedDifficulty&p=OVP
or
http://www.pennydellpuzzles.com/product.aspx?c=LogicMathSubscriptions&p=OL

It’s not entirely clear what he means by “brainteasers” so all we can do is suggest games we think might be what he’s looking for, and he can look them up at some place like Adventuregamers reviews http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/reviews or http://www.mobygames.com to get a better idea of whether our suggestions what he’s looking for.

Thanks everyone! I’ll probably try Safecracker first.

I’m not entirely sure what I meant by brain-teasers either, just that I wasn’t looking for inventory puzzles or, like crabapple said, didn’t want to wander around like in Myst.

I’d recommend Machinarium.
Sure there is an inventory, but you are usually only limited to 1 location.

I think he’s looking for the kind of puzzles that make you go ‘Aha’, those rewarding ones that demand logical reasoning. That’s why I recommended Phoenix Wright, although those games are for the DS.

Seconding Dr. Brain and Fool series, but Pandora’s Box is just a collection of stupid minigames.