This is a guide for puzzle/adventure games available on PC. The common feature of the games included are being focused mainly on puzzle-solving rather than other gaming mechanics (i.e. gunplay). Most such games are Point & Click in style, modelled after the Lucas Arts classics of the early 90’s – but there are a few non-P&C games marked dark-green in the game-map below. Being a fan of dystopia and horror, my list is very inclusive for this genre of puzzle-games but may be less inclusive of other areas. Nonetheless I strive to achieve a “complete” map of puzzle/adventure games and will update this page when/if I play something new.
The Game-Map:
Above is the game-map. This attempts to separate games into horror, dystopia and “detective” fields and also place the interlocking games in the respective segments. The reason “detective” is in quotation marks is because the category is somewhat vague. All adventure games include some element of puzzle-solving so could be labelled “detective”, yet I needed a category to separate the non-horror, non-dystopia games out, and having a category simply called “other” did not feel nice. So take the groupings with a grain of salt, it is my opinion of where games land.
Below I will go over a few of these games (there are too many to write about all of them individually) to encourage you to dive into the adventures they provide.
We being with: Alpha Polaris: A Horror Adventure Game (2011)
I first found this game via Reddit when the studio responsible for it posted about how they developed this game in Lapland. You play as a doctoral student writing a dissertation on polar bears who has ventured to a remote Arctic research base with only a handful of other inhabitants – and then things being to get creepy! The setting is excellent for a great horror-mystery-adventure. The story combines Inuit elements and the arctic setting to blend a unique concoction of a psychological-thriller. The game is not really scary in a “horror” sense, but is more so a thriller with eerie elements. The puzzle-solving parts are well thought out and not too easy or too hard, but the real selling point of this game for me is the “remote Arctic research base” setting – where essentially everyone is trapped together, especially when the power is cut.
Similar games: Syberia, The Longest Journey (It is hard to pin down what is similar to this. It is essentially a non-horror, non-Sci-fi mystery-adventure game – which separates it from many of the games on this list.)
Next Up: STASIS (2015)
STASIS is a game every sci-fi horror fan should play. Once again, the setting really drives the immersion. The game is set in a deep-space research vessel where things have gone wrong. The game begins with you waking up in a stasis-pod and no one appears to be around, or at least nothing human… Due to the remoteness of the vessel things appear to have been wrong for quite a while, and no one is coming to rescue you or anything. The eerie sound effects combined with the dark graphics and excellent setting make this a true Sci-fi/Horror masterpiece. The puzzle-solving is quiet standard being neither too hard nor too easy. As the story unravels things get more and more creepy…
Similar games: White Chamber, Sanitarium, Strangeland, SOMA (Also graphically it is quite similar to Planescape: Torment)
Next Up: Whispers of a Machine (2019)
Whispers of a Machine is part of the non-Horror Sci-fi/Detective games. I would rank it up there with the best of this genre, together with Kathy Rain, Gemini Rue, Resonance and the old-but-gold Beneath a Steel Sky. All of these games combine puzzle-solving and inventory management in unique and immersive Sci-fi setting. All are really excellent games, and a must-play for any genre fan.
If you are not necessarily hung up on the “horror” element (or actively want to avoid it) in adventure games then these games are the best of their genre in my opinion. Whispers of a Machine itself is set in a dystopic future where corporations control humanity and cybernetic implants and the likes are commonplace – it is also a post-AI world. The game begins effectively as a murder mystery within this dystopic world, but the story slowly unravels a much bigger scheme at play, involving many tropes of classic Sci-fi settings.
Similar games: Kathy Rain, Gemini Rue, Resonance, Beneath a Steel Sky
Next Up: Homesick (2015)
Homesick is separated from the point-and-click games by featuring first-person navigation with a keyboard (hence its Dark Green color on the game-map above). In the game you explore an abandoned building and slowly piece-together what happened. The game has some quite unique puzzle-mechanics, such as language-decrypting, which makes it very fun. There are also some horror elements which add onto the already eerie atmosphere, such as the nightmarish black liquid scenes as seen in the image above. The ending features a great twist which seals the whole “creepy-horror” atmosphere into a digestable package.
Similar Games: Pineview Drive, Layers of Fear + to a lesser degree Outlast and Amnesia.
Next Up: The White Chamber (2005)
A great point-and-click Sci-fi/Horror adventure game, similar in setting to STASIS, with the whole “waking up in a weird research facility with everything having gone wrong and us not remembering what happened” idea. We are essentially trying to understand what happened here, via the usual puzzle-solving and inventory-management tools. This game is unique in a sense that it features multiple different “endings” depending on how the player chooses to proceed at certain key points. A truly great but less-known gem of the horror/scifi/mystery genre.
Similar Games: STASIS, Sanitarium, SOMA, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
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