Latest Adventure Games News - PC page 32

Perhaps the scariest part of many dark fairy tales is that they happen to children. It's the same feeling of (relative) helplessness that drives the emotional impact of modern puzzle-platformers like INSIDE and Little Nightmares. The next game to tap into this children's nightmare scenario is Bramble: The Mountain King, a new horror adventure unveiled by indie Swedish developer Dimfrost Studio.

We've all been lost in a good book at one time or another, but it doesn't usually result in anything worse than a missed appointment or a burnt dinner. In The Bookwalker, an upcoming puzzle adventure by Russian developer Do My Best Games, it can happen literally and could get you killed.

Wandering through creepy and perilous old rudimentary-3D mansions goes way back to the likes of Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil, but Vertical Reach's upcoming captivity thriller The Tartarus Key is preparing to take players on a nostalgia-fueled return to the games of the early nineties, though without the combat of some of its more famous predecessors.

Imagine, for a moment, a perfect world: maybe somewhere lush, green, and tranquil, with none of the stress that marks modern life. Then imagine all that being taken away in an instant as objects of devastation fall from the sky. What would you do? That's the challenge posed by Planet of Lana, the upcoming debut adventure from Swedish indie Wishfully Studios. 

The last place you'd normally look for a frog is a hot, dry, Wild West-style desert town. But then, the titular star of the Frog Detective games is no ordinary amphibian. That's a good thing, as the world's "second-best detective" is preparing to return for his third and final mystery adventure, Corruption at Cowboy County. 

Indie Russian developer Sergey Noskov really wants us to walk towards the light. No, not that light, but rather his own first-person adventure by that name. Following a short freeware version in 2012 and an overhauled commercial remake on PC last year, now The Light is available on consoles as well, under the new title In Rays of the Light.

Smart devices are everywhere these days, from fridges to lightbulbs; you name it, someone has tried to add AI to it. But you've probably never even considered the potential benefits of smart fertilizer, or the possible side effects. The upcoming A Trail of Ooze, by indie developer Insanto Studios, will be all about those unintended consequences in a classic-styled comedic point-and-click adventure with a social conscience.

The challenges facing Hong Kong these days are well documented, but they're nothing compared to the devastation that has already befallen the region in indie developer Navi's upcoming memory-driven adventure, Man Without Organs.

Numbers stations are one of the more curious relics of Cold War spycraft, consisting simply of numerical sequences broadcast over shortwave radio. Seemingly random to outsiders and intriguing to ham radio enthusiasts, they were nonetheless a crucial way of distributing information to agents in the field. To Polish studio Sons of Welder, this search for meaning in the apparently meaningless is an apt metaphor for modern life and represents the core of their newly released puzzle adventure Magnus Failure, the first in a planned series.

AI: The Somnium Files may not be quite as well known as Spike Chunsoft's other games like the Danganronpa and Zero Escape series, but perhaps that will start to change as the next title in the neo-noir detective franchise is due to arrive next spring in the form of nirvanA Initiative.

You could say that Serbian studio PAROBOT are ardent admirers of their countryman Nikola Tesla. Even after the award-winning animated short Tesla and the Lamplighter, followed by the animated movie Tesla: The Invention of Dreams and even a stage play, the developers were still not content and are now branching out into games with Tesla INVENTORIUM, a puzzle-platforming adventure that delves into Tesla's imagination to entertain while also teaching players about the man, his ideas, and his environmentally conscious ideals.

Some games take longer than others to make. The most basic can be completed in a matter of months, while many can take years. Then then are games like Ingo Stuckenbrock's of pawns & kings, which has been in some form of development for over twenty-five years! At long last the project appears poised to reach its conclusion, though it's going to need some help on Kickstarter if it's to finally reach the finish line. 

Many adventure games claim to be inspired by Broken Sword, but few if any can do so with as much conviction as indie German developer Radio Silence Studios, whose upcoming The Adventures of Bryan Scott not only seeks to emulate the "depth and charm" of Revolution's acclaimed classic series, but will star the voice of George Stobbart himself, Rolf Saxon, in the lead role.

Prophecies tend to foretell either the coming of great disaster or the means to salvation from said disaster. Which of those is true (or neither, or both) is entirely up to you to find out in indie developer Start Warp's fantasy adventure The Prophecy, the first part of which has just been released on Steam Early Access.

The ocean is fascinating to explore but the deeper you go, the darker and more dangerous a place it can be. Fortunately you'll have a unique ability to help you survive its perils in Spiral Circus's upcoming monochromatic adventure, Silt.