DOSBox room

The Secret of Monkey Island

Guybrush Threepwood wants to be a pirate. Humour, insult sword fighting and a design where you cannot die or get stuck.

The 11th Hour: The Sequel to The 7th Guest

3 Skulls of the Toltecs

The 7th Guest

A pre-rendered 3D mansion, live-action actors and logic puzzles. It helped sell CD-ROM drives.

Above The Waves

The Adventures of Willy Beamish

Astro Chicken

Beneath a Steel Sky

Australian cyberpunk with art by Dave Gibbons, the artist of Watchmen. Characters followed their own routines around the city.

The Big Red Adventure

Broken Sword 2.5: The Return of the Templars

Bud Tucker in Double Trouble

Christmas Card 1988

Christmas Card 1990: The Seasoned Professional

Christmas Card 1992

Clandestiny

Cubert Badbone, P.I.

The Dig

Serious science fiction from an idea by Steven Spielberg: three astronauts are stranded on an alien planet.

Discworld

Rincewind, the most inept wizard of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, must stop a dragon. Its puzzles are famously convoluted.

Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!?

Discworld Noir

Dragonsphere

Drascula: The Vampire Strikes Back

A Spanish adventure with irreverent humour: estate agent John Hacker takes on Count Drascula in Transylvania.

DreamWeb

Grim top-down cyberpunk: a bartender is told in his dreams to kill seven people.

Fanmade SCI Game

Flash Traffic: City of Angels

Flight of the Amazon Queen

A 1940s pilot crash-lands in the Amazon and finds a mad scientist turning Amazon women into dinosaurs.

Frasse and the Peas of Kejick

Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist

A retired gunslinger becomes a pharmacist in the Wild West. A western parody with a sung opening theme.

Full Moon

Full Throttle

Ben, leader of a biker gang, is framed for murder. Short, cinematic and with a radial action menu: eye, hand, mouth and boot.

Fun Seeker's Guide

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

A New Orleans bookseller investigates voodoo murders. An adult, dark and well-researched script.

The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship

Gobliiins

Three goblins with different skills (punching, picking things up, casting spells) cooperate in screens that are self-contained puzzles.

Gobliins 2: The Prince Buffoon

Goblins Quest 3

Helga Deep In Trouble

Hoyle Classic Games

Hugo II: Whodunit?

Hugo III: Jungle of Doom

Hugo's House of Horrors

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Based on Harlan Ellison's story: a superintelligence tortures the last five humans, each in their own nightmare.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

An original Indy story in search of Atlantis, with three paths: team up with Sophia, use your wits or use your fists.

The Interview

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos

The Last Dynasty

The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate

Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out!

Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail!

Lepton's Quest

Life Flashes By

Little Big Adventure (Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure)

Little Big Adventure 2: Twinsen's Odyssey

Lost Eden

Prince Adam must unite humans and dinosaurs against tyrants. Pre-rendered 3D sets and music by Stéphane Picq.

Lure of the Temptress

Revolution's first game: the townsfolk follow their own routines and can be given orders.

Mandy Christmas Adventure

Martian Memorandum

Marvel Comics Spider-Man: The Sinister Six

Ms. Astro Chicken

Mystery House

Roberta Williams wrote an Agatha Christie-style mystery and Ken Williams programmed it with line drawings. It is considered the first adventure game with graphics.

Nathan's Second Chance

Nippon Safes, Inc.

Orion Burger

Out Of Order

Passport to Adventure (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Secret of Monkey Island, Loom)

Pepper's Adventures in Time

Phantasmagoria

Horror with real actors filmed over computer-generated backgrounds. Its violence caused controversy and store bans.

Return of the Phantom

Return to Ringworld

Return to Zork

Zork's universe moves to graphics and digitised video, with an interface that offers actions depending on the object.

Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender

Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch

Ripley's Believe It or Not!: The Riddle of Master Lu

Robin's Rescue

Sam & Max Hit the Road

Steve Purcell's comic-book dog and rabbit cops tour America's roadside attractions.

Sam and Max Flintlocked

The Secret of Tremendous Corporation

Sfinx

Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel

Holmes and Watson investigate a murder in Victorian London, with a journal that records every clue and conversation.

Simon the Sorcerer

A British teenager falls into a fairy-tale world and mocks every one of its clichés. Monkey Island-style humour with an English accent.

Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe

Slater & Charlie Go Camping

Sołtys

Space Quest 6: Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier

Space Quest V: The Next Mutation

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary

Teen Agent

Toonstruck

Christopher Lloyd, in live action, is trapped in a cartoon world.

Touché: The Adventures of the Fifth Musketeer

WAGE

Ween: The Prophecy

Wetlands

Xmas Card

Adventureland

The first commercial adventure for home computers: find thirteen treasures with two-word commands in 16 KB of memory.

Atlantis: The Lost Tales

A queen's guard explores Atlantis in 360° panoramas with animated 3D characters.

La Aventura Original

A Spanish version of Colossal Cave with graphics for Spectrum, Amstrad, MSX and PC. Andrés Samudio's Aventuras AD was Spain's great text adventure house.

The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery

Gabriel investigates werewolves in Bavaria and the history of Ludwig II, shot entirely as full-motion video.

Beyond a Steel Sky

A sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky 26 years later, in 3D and with art by Dave Gibbons, co-creator of “Watchmen”.

The Black Mirror

Czech gothic: Samuel Gordon returns to his family's English manor after his grandfather's death.

The Blackwell Legacy

Rosa Blackwell discovers she is a medium and helps ghosts move on. The start of an indie saga set in New York.

Blade Runner

A story running parallel to the film. Characters were voxels, and who was a replicant was decided at random each playthrough.

Botanicula

Five little plant creatures defend their tree's last seed from parasites.

Broken Age

Born from the 2012 Kickstarter campaign that asked for $400,000 and raised more than $3.3 million. Two heroes, two worlds.

Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged

Revolution redraws the 1996 original in 4K from its animations and backgrounds, with optional hints.

Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror

George and Nico chase a Mayan conspiracy from Paris to Central America and the Caribbean.

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

George Stobbart and Nico Collard chase the Templars through Paris, Ireland, Syria and Spain. Hand-drawn animation of cinematic quality.

Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon

George and Nico move to real-time 3D, with direct control and actions mapped to buttons.

The Case of the Golden Idol

Frozen crime scenes. The player examines them and fills in a text with names, motives and weapons. Deduction replaces the inventory.

The Colonel's Bequest

Laura Bow spends a 1925 night on a Louisiana plantation where the heirs start dying. An internal clock moves on as you discover things.

Colossal Cave Adventure

Will Crowther, a programmer and caver, recreated Kentucky's Mammoth Cave in text. Don Woods expanded it in 1977 with treasures and fantasy. It is the direct ancestor of the whole genre.

The Curse of Monkey Island

High resolution, hand-drawn cartoons and a verb coin that appears when you hold down the button.

Day of the Tentacle

Three characters in three eras pass objects to each other through time-travelling toilets. Cartoon animation and full voice acting on CD.

Déjà Vu

An amnesiac detective in 1940s Chicago. On the Macintosh it was played entirely with the mouse: verbs on buttons and draggable objects.

Deponia

Rufus lives on a junkyard planet and dreams of escape. Acid humour and high-resolution cartoon art from Hamburg.

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Zoë Castillo, April Ryan and Kian Alvane: three leads between Stark and Arcadia, in real-time 3D.

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout

Edna escapes an asylum with the help of Harvey, her talking stuffed rabbit.

Escape from Monkey Island

The fourth instalment takes Guybrush into 3D with Grim Fandango's engine and keyboard control.

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

Folk horror on the 19th-century English moors. Classic pixel art with an unsettling atmosphere.

Fahrenheit

A man commits a murder in a trance, and the player also controls the detectives chasing him.

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

The series moves to real-time 3D with a free camera, around the Rennes-le-Château mystery.

Gemini Rue

Science-fiction noir on a planet where it always rains, with two parallel stories that eventually meet.

Grim Fandango

Manny Calavera, travel agent in the Land of the Dead, in a film noir with Day of the Dead style. 3D characters over pre-rendered backgrounds.

Grim Fandango Remastered

A remaster with improved textures, new lighting, re-recorded orchestral music and mouse control.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams himself co-wrote this text adventure, which mocks the player as much as the galaxy.

The Hobbit

A Tolkien adaptation with illustrations and characters who acted on their own: Thorin might sit down and sing about gold at the worst moment.

Hollywood Monsters

Two reporters investigate a monster's disappearance at a party for horror film stars. Top-notch voice acting and a huge hit in Spain.

Igor: Objetivo Uikokahonia

A student wants to join a field trip to a tropical island to win over a girl. Pendulo's first game and the starting point of 1990s Spanish adventure games.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure

It adapts the film but lets you solve many situations with fists, cunning or talk. The Grail Diary came in the box.

Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb

Anthropomorphic animals in a world without humans: Rif the fox must recover a stolen orb to prove his innocence.

Kathy Rain

1995: a journalism student returns to her grandfather's town and investigates his past.

Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer

The biker detective returns to hunt a killer who announces his crimes. A 1990s investigation with a single-click interface.

Kentucky Route Zero

A secret highway beneath Kentucky. Magical realism, theatre and poetic dialogue, released in five acts between 2013 and 2020.

King's Quest

Commissioned by IBM for its PCjr. For the first time the hero walked through animated scenes with depth, although actions were still typed.

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella

The series' first female lead and the debut of the SCI engine, with higher resolution and sound card support.

King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!

Sierra drops the parser: an icon bar (walk, look, act, talk) and hand-painted, digitised VGA backgrounds.

Lamplight City

A detective in a steam-powered city investigates cases that can go unsolved: the game moves on even if you fail.

The Last Express

A murder on the Orient Express on the eve of the First World War, in real time and in Art Nouveau style.

The Legend of Kyrandia

Colourful fantasy with a single-click interface: no verbs, the game decides what to do with each object.

Leisure Suit Larry

A risqué comedy starring a lovable loser. It opened with trivia questions to check that the player was an adult.

The Longest Journey

April Ryan discovers she can travel between two worlds, one technological and one magical. A long, mature narrative.

Loom

No inventory and no verbs: Bobbin weaves spells by playing four-note drafts on his distaff. A melancholy fable set to Tchaikovsky.

Machinarium

A small robot in a city of scrap. No text: dialogue is drawn as thought bubbles, and everything is hand-painted.

Manhunter: New York

New York occupied by aliens and a hero who spies on fellow humans for them. No parser: everything is done with mouse or joystick.

Maniac Mansion

Seven possible students, three chosen, several endings. To make it, Ron Gilbert and Aric Wilmunder wrote SCUMM, and verbs moved from the keyboard to the screen.

Le Manoir de Mortevielle

A French mystery in a country manor: the detective questions the residents by picking questions from menus.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

Guybrush hunts for the treasure of Big Whoop. Painted, scanned backgrounds, a “Lite” mode for beginners and an ending still debated.

Myst

Rendered images, silence, an empty island and mechanical puzzles. It sold millions and popularised the CD-ROM.

Myst III: Exile

A new studio continues the series with 360° panoramas and a villain, Saavedro, seeking revenge on Atrus.

The Neverhood

Everything is stop-motion clay: the clay figure Klaymen explores a surreal world.

The Next BIG Thing

Two journalists cover a movie-monster gala and uncover a conspiracy. A spiritual successor to Hollywood Monsters.

Old Skies

A time-travel agent can replay each scene until everything goes right. High-resolution pixel art.

Oxenfree

Teenagers on an island open a ghostly rift with a radio. Dialogue flows as you walk, without stopping the action.

Planetfall

A Stellar Patrol ensign is stranded on an abandoned planet. His companion is Floyd, a childlike, endearing robot.

Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel

A former California highway patrolman designed this adventure where you must follow procedure to the letter: inspect the car, call for backup, cuff.

Primordia

Robots in a world without humans: Horatio Nullbuilt and his sidekick Crispin look for a stolen part.

Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero

It mixes adventure and role-playing: choose fighter, magic user or thief, and each class solves puzzles its own way.

Resonance

Four protagonists and a dangerous physics discovery. You can store memories to use as conversation topics.

Return to Monkey Island

The original creators return to the island three decades later, with a storybook art style and a built-in hint system.

Rise of the Dragon

Cyberpunk in 2053 Los Angeles with a comic-book look and a real clock: events happen whether or not you are there.

The Rise of the Golden Idol

The sequel jumps to the 1970s: the same deduction mechanic, filling blanks with words found in the scene.

Riven

Myst's sequel: an archipelago with its own culture, language and number system to decipher.

Runaway: A Road Adventure

Brian and Gina flee the mob across the United States. 3D models rendered to look like hand-drawn cartoons.

Sam & Max Save the World

Steve Purcell's characters return in episodic form, with monthly chapters and digital distribution.

Samorost

A gnome saves his asteroid in a browser game built from photographs of moss, bark and mushrooms.

Sanitarium

A bandaged man wakes up in an asylum with no memory of who he is. Isometric view and episodes that shift between reality and delusion.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

A remaster with hand-painted high-resolution art, voices and re-recorded music.

Shadowgate

Dark fantasy in a castle full of traps, played with on-screen verbs and torches that burn out.

Shardlight

After a nuclear war, a sick mechanic seeks the cure to a disease that the government rations by lottery.

Space Quest

Roger Wilco, a space janitor, saves the galaxy by accident. The "Two Guys from Andromeda" brought sci-fi parody to Sierra.

Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers

Roger Wilco travels to sequels and prequels of his own series, including a mall that sells Sierra games.

Still Life

An FBI agent hunts a serial killer in Chicago while reading her grandfather's case in 1920s Prague.

Strangeland

A nightmarish carnival where a man searches for a woman who keeps leaping into the abyss.

Syberia

Lawyer Kate Walker travels east on a clockwork train in search of an automaton inventor. Melancholy and gorgeous backgrounds.

Syberia II

Kate Walker and Hans Voralberg continue by train towards the island of the mammoths.

Tales of Monkey Island

Guybrush returns in five monthly episodes, with LeChuck turned human.

Technobabylon

Cyberpunk in the city of Newton: a virtual reality addict and two agents investigate “mind-jacking” murders.

Teenagent

A clumsy teenager is recruited as a secret agent. A Polish adventure full of absurd humour.

Thimbleweed Park

Five characters, a corpse and a very strange town. Pixel art and classic verbs, crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2014.

Unavowed

Urban fantasy in New York with a party of companions and role-playing choices. High-resolution pixel art.

Under a Killing Moon

Detective Tex Murphy explores a post-apocalyptic San Francisco in free-roaming 3D, with live-action video scenes.

Uninvited

After a car crash you enter a haunted mansion to find your brother. Horror with the Macintosh's windows, icons and mouse.

The Walking Dead

Lee looks after Clementine during the zombie apocalypse. Fewer puzzles, more choices with consequences and emotional weight.

The Whispered World

Sadwick, a melancholy clown, dreams of the end of his world. Hand-painted high-resolution backgrounds.

Whispers of a Machine

A detective with implants solves murders in a world that banned artificial intelligence.

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders

A tabloid reporter discovers that aliens want to dumb down humanity. Globe-trotting and four playable characters.

Zork

Four MIT students built an underground world with a parser that understood full sentences. In 1979 they founded Infocom and sold it in three parts from 1980.

Zork Nemesis

Zork turns dark: mechanical and alchemical puzzles in panoramic temples with embedded video.

Zork: Grand Inquisitor

Infocom's humour returns: an inquisitor has banned magic and you must recover the artefacts of the Great Underground Empire.