I like playing casual games. I really like the Drawn series, and Azada, and Dream Chronicles. I like adventure, solving puzzles, and riddles. I don’t mind a little hidden object, but more than Dream Chronicles uses is just annoying. What else might I enjoy?
Try Windosill. A surreal puzzle game, where you move a toy car from room to room, but you have to get the block (the key) from whatever bizarre contraption you find to unlock the next door.
It’s a free flash game, but it’s now available for the iPad which adds a bit more to the game since you can directly interact with the physics.
Old adventure games I loved (don’t know whether you might have difficulty getting them to run on a modern system though) :
Try Monkey Island I and II. They’ve recently been “reloaded”, so you should be able to run them. It is object based though, and you’ll have to run around quite a bit to get all the required ones to solve a puzzle. They are awesome games, though.
The best and I would include 3, 4, and 5 also if you have a PC.
I played this not too long ago and absolutely loved it - reminded me of an old Lucas Arts or Sierra game: Captain Zaron and the Trials of Doom
One freeware indie adventure game that I really like is called Out of Order. The basic story is that you wake up in your room, but everything outside of it is different, and you just try to make it through, while at the same time trying to figure out what’s going on.
A bit of warning: it’s the insane logic of older adventure games where what you do makes sense in hindsight, but seems weird at first. It’s not as easy as the modern variety of adventure game. Even its graphics harken back to the old days.
To clear this up, you guys are talking about two seperate things I think.
Telltale bought up the rights to the Monkey Island games and recreated the old games with new graphics/art, sound, recreated voices by the original cast, etc. That’s these.
They also created a new series based on monkey island, with all new content, divided up into 5 chapters/games. Those are these.
Grim Fandango is old now but it’s the best adventure game ever. It has a unique and compelling world and story line, drama, humor, good voice acting, it’s just perfect.
Is there a good source to find it online other than some random seller on Amazon Marketplace? I keep hoping it’ll turn up via Steam or something.
No, we’re talking about the same things. I was calling Tales of Monkey Island “5”, which I consider it even though they insist it isn’t.
I’d rank them:
- Lechuck’s Revenge(2)
- Curse of Monkey Island(3)
- Tales of Monkey Island(5)
- Secret of Monkey Island(1)
- Escape from Monkey Island(4)
I came here to recommend this. An absolutely epic game. If you do end up getting it, my sincere advice to you would be to try and solve it entirely on your own. I took too much help from the internet, and have regretted it ever after.
You could try The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (the oddly named sequel). They’re very good, the only issues is that the original is old (not the best graphics), has one or two rather obtuse puzzle solutions (one involving a duck inner-tube…), and the second one has rather poorly thought out combat every once in a while (which is really easy to win by spamming, luckily).
They have great stories and world crafting, as well as cool puzzles, of course, the second one ends of a ridiculous cliff hanger which will get resolved “eventually” whenever they get around to releasing Dreamfall Chronicles after the company finishes releasing their MMO.
Well, while people are mentioning Telltale Games, I quite enjoyed their Puzzle Agent games. Not very long or challenging, but funny and interesting.
So I bought the first two Monkey Island games. They’re very simplistic, but I can give them to my kids when I’m done. Can I get some help on the first one, though? I’m trying to find the treasure and I followed the map to this clearing and I don’t know what to do now. The walkthroughs I have found online say there should be an X on the ground, but there isn’t. I have done this many times and am certain I have followed the map correctly. I am not allowed to just dig.
Usually in these games when you’re not finding what you expect to find, there’s a reason; and often times the reason is very small! Instead of using a walkthrough, which will sometimes give you spoilers you don’t want, I’d like to suggest the Universal Hint System. You can get as many or as few hints as you want. Linky
Dusty Rose, THANK YOU! I don’t know yet if the help will work, but that page is BRILLIANT! I would much rather a hint than a spoiler.
Yeah, there is a UHS for most games, so you can use it for just about any adventure game. It’s cool.
Isn’t it awesome? I like it because sometimes I just need a nudge in the right direction; the reason I play those kinds of games is because I like figuring things out and solving the puzzles, I don’t want the solution handed to me. UHS is an ideal solution.
How are you liking Monkey Island? I haven’t played it in years, but liked it. I thought of a couple of others for future reference:
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and Beneath a Steel Sky. Both really good and both are free.
I love the adventure genre. 
I’m finding The Secret of Monkey Island extremely simplistic. Something my 9 year old would eat up, and there’s some nostalgia for the games I loved back then, but it’s not really what I was looking for. Part of this is my aversion to “box text”, which is the stuff you have to sit through and can’t do anything until it’s finished. I read very quickly, and I want to be able to go through dialogue at my own speed, and it’s frustrating to have to wait while it goes about things at its own pace. Another example- I was playing last night, and it took a full minute of real time for me to watch a boat row around part of an island. I quit the game because now I have to make the reverse journey and I didn’t want to sit there and watch the little boat icon move.
Puzzle Agents is okay so far. Again, seems very suitable for a kid. I can click through the dialogue here, which is a relief. PLus it was on sale at Steam for $1.24!