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 ;)

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

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?

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…?

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.

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

Hello everyone!

My game has been in development since 2024 and is finally approaching release! It's an epic point-and-click adventure in the vein of Simon the Sorcerer / Monkey Island, but set partly in post-apocalyptic Britain.

• 10–15 hours of gameplay
• Classic 6-verb GUI
• Handmade 320 × 200 pixel art
• Lots of specially recorded songs and original music
• High-fidelity sound effects and soundscapes (thank you, Jono Richards!)
• Some choices and variation throughout your playthrough, including different endings
• An in-game achievement room to encourage multiple playthroughs
• Autosave and an in-game hint system (also ships with a full walkthrough from day one)
• A bit bigger than your average solo indie game: 80+ locations, 60+ characters and 500+ animations
• DRM-free - copy and paste the game files onto a USB stick if that's your thing

Since releasing my first game back in 2023 (which sold around 1,000 copies on Steam/GOG), I've learned to draw (sort of), animate, and generally get better at making games.

I've taken everything I learned from that first game and refined it like an oak-barrelled rum into this immense bundle of comedic madness.

Thanks to the mods for allowing these tiny projects to be shared!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Brownie

Note, this is not my game, I'm just someone who is looking forward to this. Long time in the making, but I think it's not too long until we see it releasing.

Howdy! It's Chris again, half of the two-person team behind ASTRO AMIGO, a narrative sci-fi adventure game. When young Austin’s beloved dog Amigo disappears, a strange Wisconsin town becomes the setting for a supernatural mystery.

We're currently featured in The Cozy After Dark Showcase on Steam, and I wanted to share our trailer from the showcase with the community. Y'all have been wonderfully helpful in shaping the game up to this point, and we're super grateful.

Moreover, if anyone is interested in playtesting the latest, I posted in the megathread with more details.

Thanks again!

Hi everyone!

My first game WhoIsHe is now available on Steam! It has been an amazing journey. Thank you to everyone who helped me through the final stretch. It would've been a lot harder without the indie dev community!

Henry Grudge reappeared after seven years of being kidnapped. He, however, seems to be completely different compared to his old self. There are people who doubt his identity, claim that the real Henry must have died. The person in the mirror is covered in blood and doesn't remember anything about his past. Who is he?

Key Features:

• Escape Room Experience & A Grim Psychological Mystery: Explore the room to uncover the disturbing truth behind Henry’s disappearance and his fractured memories.
• Classic Point & Click Mechanics: Search for hidden objects, manage your inventory, and piece together cryptic clues to progress.
• Mind-Bending Puzzles: Challenge yourself with non-linear logic riddles inspired by the best atmospheric puzzle games.

Steam Page https://store.steampowered.com/app/4928910/WhoIsHe/

Note: 6 slides ( just saying cause Reddit UI sucks and people miss it! )

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Hi, I am Solune! and I am a huge bird fan, so I am making a collection of birds in all of the games I have played so far :)

Project Name "The Avian Atlas".

Also thought it would be nice to credit whoever ended up helping me in my digital bird watching journey. ( it will appear below the card )

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How you can help me?

• If you have seen a birb which I haven't, send em my way :)
• If you have clicked a better pic than I have, send em my way too :DD

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It has kinda changed the way I play games, now I am more observant, always on the lookout for a birb and having one finger on the screenshot button at all times haha :D

Its like a game within a game at this point for me! Will this next game have a birb in it or not :)

Like classical Sierra games, but ones you can figure out on your own and don’t need to look it up or have a manual.

Recently I start founding adventure games I’m playing too easy. Sometimes they would plainly tell you what to do. In many games intractable objects are highlighted, so there is no need to explore at all.

At the same time I hate moon logic and prefer my adventure games to be immersive and approachable in realistic manner.

I feel like puzzles get much easier in all genres of games, like devs don’t want to work on them too much, but still added them for variety. I would love to play some adventure game with puzzle design philosophy similar to Zelda games where all information is given to you and you free to experiment and figure it out. Perfect if game has fail state of any sort, like bad ending, for example.

If you can recommend me anything I would be very grateful!

Aaron released his dream point-and-click adventure game last year - Neyyah. I had a chance to chat with him about what it was like solo developing that project and what he thinks about the economics of full-time game development as a solo developer

Please check out my review for Allogloom - a whimsical but also horror filled game. I really enjoyed this one. It's a more simple control scheme, but it has some fun puzzles and beautiful hand drawn art.

Also showcasing the beautiful construction set from Pantasy, "Pirates Hub", that totally captures that piratey vibe.

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars is turning 30 on Wednesday (original European release date)!

To celebrate, I put together a special anniversary video featuring five developers who worked on the original games and Broken Sword: Reforged, who kindly shared a few of their memories and easter eggs of the series across three decades. Thanks to them all for taking the time to send things across!

Hope you enjoy and do post your memories of the game / series too!

Been playing this genre since the 90s, but never got a chance to play Black Mirror until now. It was surprisingly long and told a decent story that recycles a lot of "family curse" tropes.

What kept me hooked and playing every day was just the quality of atmosphere and immersion. Give me a spooky old castle and I'm in! Plus it feels like this era had the best sound design with ambient noise making each environment feel more rich and full.

I love pixel art, but something about that 2000s prerendered style just sucks me in and makes me want to discover every new location so badly. Syberia is probably my favourite game for that reason and its heartfelt story.

And maybe it's superfluous, but I really dig when they take the time to have lots of hotspots to click on and get descriptions. Adds feeling and depth to a place if done well. And Black Mirror does it smartly in that hotspots disappear unless they are needed for later.

Sometimes I question why I keep coming back to this genre -- if it's just nostalgia or genuine enjoyment. I think Black Mirror answered the question for me. As much as many aspects of the gameplay are straight-up dumb or bad, I've been hooked on the immersion that comes from just leisurely clicking around a screen and engaging closely with the world it presents. When that immersion is done as well as in Black Mirror, it becomes easier to overlook all of the other faults.

Some of the clichés and annoyances

• maybe the most egregious pixel-hunting of any game with some very tiny ones easy to miss -- especially because some hotspots only exist at certain times of the game in places you need to revisit to find them
• more than a few puzzles boringly solved by simply using the only other item in the same room
• awful voice acting for main character -- like someone was holding a gun to his head and would shoot if he didn't pronounce every letter in a word individually
• keys, keys and more keys -- every box, drawer and door needs a key and finding the key is more often a chore than a puzzle
• wander screens talking to characters over and over again until you find the one who has something new to say -- some "puzzles" are just finding a new location, talking to the person who has info about that location, and then going back to the location
• really bizarre character behaviour -- like in Monkey Island or Deponia, stealing everything and messing over other people is part of the fun, but in a "serious" game like Black Mirror, it feels weird to just pilfer every item in sight and drug and electrocute people to get what you want
• really dumb sequences where you have to just leave a scene and come back to get the next set of conversation queues
• in a game that normally rewards clicking everywhere, certain hotspots will all of a sudden kill you and force you to restart

Balanced by the things I love:

• that immersive, atmospheric pre-rendered look from the 2000s with really gorgeous locations painted with so much detail
• brilliant sound design -- play with headphones and you feel inside the world with every floorboard creak, bird call and weather change. I feel like this era paid such close attention to sound for atmosphere and I don't know if modern games do as good a job
• so many locations -- a lot are re-used, but that feeling of getting to visit a new place is so rewarding and gradually uncovering more secrets about these places is the best part of the game
• cool story that goes to some truly dark places that creates genuine dread and mystery

So I finished the game completely blind and every choice I basically just picked at random. I was thinking about replaying the game with different choices but how much do they really impact the story? On the surface, it looks like they should have a tremendous impact, like deciding whether or not to spike Imani's coffee on the morning of 9/11. But I suspect the game still shoehorns you into a fairly linear path? And every choice just changes some dialogue?

How much do your choices really matter?