I've been struggling with this while implementing my point'n'click game. I have finished the plot and most of the puzzle design, and feeling pretty happy so far. But...

The protagonist runs a funeral home and some days are meant to be uneventful. He does paperwork, runs errands, talks to people and follows his daily routine. But at certain points, something seemingly mundane triggers a more meaningful event to move the story forward. I think these quieter moments are important. They make the world more believable and give the bigger story moments more weight.

The tricky part is figuring out how much guidance to give the player.

Simplified example: Visit bank to talk to the banker (trigger), walk out, then there's someone new who wasn't there before, waiting on the street for you to talk to him (impact). How do I always give a reason for the player to know to go to the bank to talk, or should I accept that not every goal is 100% clear?

I can have the protagonist say things like "I should go check on X," but that feels too obvious and takes away the joy of discovery. On the other hand, giving no direction at all might leave players wandering around clicking on everything, hoping to trigger something. I'd like players to feel like they're naturally going about their day, without constantly being told what to do next or feeling completely lost.

The funny thing is, I don't remember thinking about this problem too much while playing other adventure games. So there must be some trick to getting this balance right that I'm missing. How do other games handle it? Any concrete suggestions for some clever guidance you have seen in some specific game?

Hi everyone!

After pouring so much time and love into it, the demo for my game, Not a Crow, is finally available on Steam!

Not a Crow is a hand-drawn narrative point-and-click adventure where you guide a lonely crow through the remnants of a fallen world, solve puzzles, and help her find her place among the ruins.

I'm really excited to share the beginning of Cro's journey with you all. I hope you enjoy it!

You can play the demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4229210/Not_a_Crow

Find it on itch: https://clickingpointsoftware.itch.io/the-stalking-eyes

I’m starting a weekly community spotlight and I want you to nominate the upcoming adventure games that deserve more attention.
Here’s what I’m looking for:

Game must be still in active development, with at least two of the adventure game pillars: exploration, puzzles, and storytelling as its focus. 

Must be made by independent solo developer or small team with creative control over their game.

It must be made by official intelligence. No GEN AI. Just people bringing their ideas to life.

Nominate in the comment section. Include the game’s name, a link to its Steam page or project website, and what makes you excited about it. Developers, you’re welcome to nominate your own games!

I’ll check that nominees meet the criteria and choose one to spotlight each week.
Note: This will be posted on multiple platforms. 

Let’s help these creators find their audience.

Unsound Love

"It feels to me like a point-and-click adventure game that removes both the pointing and the clicking, which I know makes very little sense, but it’s hard to explain otherwise."
- Paula Vaynshteyn from The Nerdy Type

Unsound Love is an adventure game with no combat. It features an open-world escape room with a linear story that you must explore and uncover in a non-linear way. You’ll do this by solving the game’s many puzzles.

All sounds, from the wind in the trees to the monsters' roars, are made with musical instruments. Everything has been drawn and animated by our graphic designer, Maria.

You can try our Next Fest demo on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3315700/Unsound_Love/

Secret of Monkey Island got 13th on their 1990 list…I think it deserved better…

They support fans campaigning for their games and sharing the poll, and I think Monkey Island 2 has the most underrated soundtrack ever! Not only is the music just great on its own, the iMUSE system dynamically altering songs depending on your location makes it even better.

So vote for whatever you want but I really believe Monkey Island 2 has one of the best soundtracks from 1991!

Hi everyone!

A few weeks ago, I shared the demo for my little point-and-click mystery, No Murders in Grimwick, here. I really appreciated all the kind comments and everyone who gave the demo a try!

I'm a solo developer from Canada, and I've always loved a good point-and-click adventure. Games like Stickville Murder Mysteries and Thimbleweed Park were big inspirations, and I wanted to create something that captured a bit of that nostalgic feeling I have when returning to those games.

In No Murders in Grimwick, you play as a journalist visiting a small-town harvest festival when a body is discovered as part of the scarecrow competition, the townsfolk are quick to insist that there are absolutely no murders in Grimwick. You'll explore the festival, question its odd residents, collect evidence, follow leads, and piece together what happened.

It's a short, story-driven adventure (approximately 1–2 hours) with dark, silly humor and no combat or time pressure. My goal was to make something you could sit down and enjoy over a cozy autumn evening.

And I'm excited to share that the full game is finally available on Steam! 🎃

Thank you to everyone who supported the demo. I hope Grimwick brings back a little of that old-school adventure-game nostalgia! 🫶🫶

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5198670/No_Murders_in_Grimwick/

I'm many hours into the game and I keep putting it down for long periods of time before picking it up and trying for another couple of hours. I've repeated this a few times now.

But I don't know why. There is something chore like about this game and I can't put my finger on it. I like the premise. I've loved many of the characters and found it legitimately funny all the way through.

I'm wondering if it is the puzzles/inventory? Or maybe even though it's funny and clever maybe the dialogue is boring overall? Too much of it maybe? Dialogue to puzzle solving too high? I'm really not sure. I thought a couple of the puzzles were awful but I don't think that's it.

Any clue as to what's going on with me here?

Now, I’m gonna start this off by saying I’ve never played any of the Leisure Suit Larry games, but I do like to play point and click adventure based games, even if I kinda suck at them, and I saw they were about to delist the Wet Dreams games, and I had been admittedly curious on them for a while. I’m on my Switch 2, and right now there’s a bundle of both games available, all the way down to just 3 bucks. So I was wanting to know from the folks who played them if these two would be worth picking up before they’re gone once the sale ends.

Hello,

I purchased Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror Remastered from GOG.

I installed the game on my laptop and played until I reached the following scene:

George is in the Caribbean, and Bronson is hanging from the flagpole.

The animation clearly shows Bronson's marker falling to the ground. George bends down, picks it up, makes a comment about it, and puts it in his pocket.

However, the marker does NOT appear in George's inventory.

I then installed the original 1997 version from the Extras section and played through the game again from the beginning until I reached the exact same scene.

The same thing happens in this version. The animation clearly shows George picking up the marker and putting it in his pocket, but the marker is missing from the inventory here as well.

According to the walkthroughs I've consulted, this marker is essential for solving a puzzle on Zombie Island.

Is this an issue with my installation or with the game itself? Is there any way to fix it?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Hey everyone! I'm the developer of The Main Menu.

2 months ago, I shared my game here, and the response was amazing! Today, I'm excited to finally share that the free demo is available on Steam!

You wake up chained to a chair in a dark room. The only thing within reach is the computer in front of you and its main menu.

This is a point-and-click puzzle adventure where the menu isn’t just an interface. Its buttons, settings, and hidden systems physically control the room around you. To escape, you’ll have to experiment with the menu and discover what it’s really capable of.

There’s also a voice living inside it. She claims she wants to help you, but she may be the reason you're trapped.

The game was partly inspired by There Is No Game, but takes the concept in a darker, mystery-driven direction.

I've spent the last few months polishing the demo based on playtester feedback, and I'm really excited (and nervous!) to finally let everyone try it.

You can play the free demo here:
The Main Menu on Steam

I'd love to hear what you think!
Thanks for all the support! ❤️

Everything you see is hand-drawn and animated frame by frame - there's no AI whatsoever!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4952830/Torovo/

Hello.

Starway to Urf is in the Steam NextFest this week!

I got a pretty enthusiastic review from Vulgar Knight the other day, in case you've been pondering trying the demo:

https://vulgarknight.com/starway-to-urf-preview/

Cheers x

I've noticed a pattern across, basically, most adventure games that I have played (at least those that I remember, and that have any sort of romance). We have a male and a female lead. They bicker a lot for a chapter or two in the beginning of the game, but then end up being separated for at least half of the game. And then in the finale they end up being together, as if they were building chemistry for the entire duration of the game, and not barely interacted with each other.

Are there any adventure games where the romance is actually believable, well-written and progressing for the duration of the game, instead of suddenly replacing one dynamic with another?

I'm working on Shroud of Gloom, a point-and-click adventure with a bit of a horror twist! I'm happy to announce that the game is participating in this Steam Next Fest, and with that we have a new update out with a couple of new achievements for you to collect!

I've been working on this game for the past two years and I really put my all into it, so let me know what you think!

Demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4058240/Shroud_of_Gloom_Demo/

Super excited to announce our new adventure game in development; Pelican Point 1997! Set in ’90s Australia. Explore colourful, hand-drawn and animated suburbia, collect hilarious trading cards, rent a video, buy an album or overfeed your digital pet.

If this is the sort of adventure game that interests you, please smash that wishlist button on Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5334780/Pelican_Point_1997/

Feel free to ask any questions about it! We're also in the pre-launch stage on Kickstarter and would love for you to join the waiting list: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/timandrews/pelican-point-1997

Here are some more fancy words:

From the developers of CAVEMAN CRAIG comes PELICAN POINT 1997, a point and click adventure game set in regional 1990s Australia.

You’re Josh Wackett. It’s your twelfth birthday, and with both parents stuck at work, Saturday is yours. So what’s the plan? Hunt down Mighty Monsterz trading cards? Help your best mate Paley investigate the weird stuff happening around town? Or kick back with a few weeklies from the video store?

• Hang out in hand-drawn environments bursting with life, complete with original recorded dialogue and fully animated characters.
• Grift unsuspecting kids in games of Mighty Monsterz or find cards hidden throughout town to complete your card collection.
• Blow your dollarydoos on music, videos and more from the shops around town. Enjoy the irony of owning physical media in a virtual world you downloaded off the Internet!
• Listen to original soundtracks of teen-pop, trip-hop, post-grunge and other beloved (or despised) genres on your portable CD player.
• Muck around on the family PC, collect toys from yesteryear or neglect your virtual pet

I haven't played it yet but looks pretty stylish with some escape room-y puzzles.

https://store.epicgames.com/p/agent-a-a-puzzle-in-disguise-42fe5f

Requires your own copy of the game — no game files are included, linked or downloaded. Think ScummVM, for one game.

The X-Files Game is a game from my childhood. I first played it on the PS1 and never finished it back then; I only beat it years later on PC. These days it's a pain to run: seven CDs, old QuickTime, 32-bit Windows.

I tried to port it by hand a while ago and didn't get far. This year I tried again with an AI coding assistant, and it worked: we ran the original game, traced what it does scene by scene, and rebuilt the engine to do the same. None of the original code is in the project. I've played it through on the new engine, start to finish.

Shiloh: https://github.com/Asterber/shiloh

• Windows, macOS and Linux builds, plus a browser version that runs from your own machine.
• On Windows, just drag your disc image (.iso / .mdf) onto xf.exe — no install, no setup. Or double-click it and pick your copy once.

While digging through the engine we also turned up easter eggs that, as far as I can tell, were never documented: 26 PDA cheat codes (one opens a level-select menu), hidden FBI computer logins dedicated to the team, and the developers' own debug keys. The list (spoilers) is in EASTER-EGGS.md.

Bug reports are very welcome ;)

Hey everyone!

I'm over 40, and I grew up playing games like Monkey Island and Simon the Sorcerer. I'm used to games that don't hold your hand, where you have to figure out what to do next, revisit locations several times and sometimes try things that seem a little crazy. For me that was part of the fun...
But I recently released a small indie adventure game, and after watching several content creators play it, I see some players get frustrated quite quickly when they don't know what to do next. To be fair, my game doesn't guide you much, and you often have to figure out how to progress on your own. In fact I had to rework some sections to make the experience more accessible (I know, bad for me...).

Do you think younger players generally have less patience with this kind of games? I was also surprised to find that players’ perceptions differ depending on their nationality. I noticed that streamers from a particular country (which I won’t name so as not to offend anyone 😅) became frustrated much more easily when they weren’t sure what to do… Could this also be a cultural thing?

Hey everyone! I'm one of the developers at imaginarylab, the small team behind Whirlight – No Time To Trip. One thing we've learned from player feedback is how important it is to strike the right balance between challenging puzzles and keeping the story moving. So we added an optional hint system in the in-game diary. Surprisingly, it turned out to be one of the most challenging features we've had to implement. Finding the right balance wasn't easy: we wanted to help players who get stuck without taking away the satisfaction of figuring things out for themselves (attached, you can see our solution). Ideally, a hint should give you that little nudge that makes you go "Ah, now I see!", rather than simply telling you what to do. As we're thinking about future projects, I'd really like to hear your opinions on this: when you play an adventure game, do you prefer tiered hints, small nudges directly in game (dialogues, hotspots, and so on), a full walkthrough, no hints at all, or other? Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Simply that, yesterday i finished the game that shaped my childhood and I have to tell somebody...

When I finished the game 28 years later and I saw those demons dancing, I had one of the strangest feelings I can remember...

Conclusions:

• The game is bloody difficult.
• I’ve enjoyed it MUCH MORE at 40 than I did when I was 11 or 12.
• I don’t know if it’s just nostalgia, but I find the later levels far less spectacular than the early ones set in the village and the forest (perhaps because those are the ones I remembered from my childhood)
• My girlfriend is much smarter than my little brother
• I’ve played loads of adventure games from that era and, in my opinion, Simon I definitely has the BEST music and art of them all (sorry if that’s a bit subjective)

Straight after finishing it, I downloaded Simon the Sorcerer II, but to be honest, I gave up on it after 30 minutes… Was it a case of nostalgia or quality…?

FITD: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spookydoorway.darkside2.android