lil’ Henry and Penny’s Big Adventure Pack is a collection of three short point-and-click adventure games where you play as two children named Henry and Penny. I saw someone sharing a post about this one and it looked really cute since the games were developed with, or at least voiced by, the designer’s kids. The games themselves are traditional adventure games, they use a modified version of the Scumm verb bar that only has four verbs, and you doing your typical adventure game stuff where you pick up items and use them elsewhere. The game has a nice option to make them more playable for young kids by having the player character read the verb when you click on it.
Where the games really stood out for me was in how charming the voice acting and art was. The kids were a lot of fun to listen to and my kids (6 and 8 years old) loved playing too since they thought Henry and Penny were funny. The games outside of the voice acting are good of course, but it was their voice acting that made my kids excited about the games and willing to try out the verbs on everything to see what they would say. The cartoon art is cute too and reminded me a bit of early AGS games, which I mean as a compliment.
Each game increases in difficulty and length but overall the entire collection will take about an hour to play through. The first one is the shortest and just has you playing as the boy Henry, but the two after that have you switching between the two kids to solve puzzles, which I guess means it’s a Gobliins-like? I can’t speak for how much this collection may appeal to people without kids but I found them to be a great collection to play with mine. I’m currently working on a Playdate game with my kids and it’s fun seeing other parents including their kids in game dev and making silly stuff together.
lil’ Henry and Penny’s Big Adventure Pack is available on Steam.
Many Nights a Whisper is a short (about 60 minutes) third-person archery game where you play as the Dreamer, an archer who must make an incredibly long shot into a massive chalice to grant the wishes made by people in your community. During the day you can make practice shots into closer chalices to get better at archery and at night you listen to the anonymous wishes from people and choose to accept them or not. You repeat this cycle for a few days as your mentor makes your bow stronger, until it’s the big day where you have one chance to make your big shot.
I finally picked this one up because I had seen it on a few End-of-Year lists and I’m glad I did. I can’t really say anything more insightful than what a much better writer at an outlet like Rock, Paper, Shotgun can but it’s a lovely game. The game does a very nice job of mixing lighthearted wishes with heavier ones, and never feels like it’s punishing or judging you for the wishes you choose to keep or leave. In some ways it kind of reminds me of a solo tabletop rpg where it will prompt you for your thoughts and make you think about your choices, but never gives you a definitive “you have chosen wisely” statement. I was surprised that the game has a final shot that you only have one attempt at and need to replay the game to try again. Obviously I made it because I am a Real Gamer (I hope my sarcasm is clear here) but even if you do, to continue the solo ttrpg comparison, the game does not do an extended epilogue telling you about the wishes you accepted and what happens. It leaves this all to you to think about and I think that’s part of why this game works so well for me.
I appreciate that all the actions seem to have some heft to them too. Cutting a braid to accept a wish requires you to hold down a button for a second or two before letting go to cut it. When you’re practicing to shoot arrows, the longer shots take a few seconds to fully pull back on the bow and let go, with you watching the arrow fly through the air for a while to see if it hits its target. It all helps make that final shot a lot more tense, when you need to pull back on the bow all the way and make sure everything is all lined up before letting go.
It’s easy for me to recommend Many Nights a Whisper. It’s a very short adventure game/interactive fiction that can be experienced in under an hour, longer if you want to replay it, and very affordable at $3.
Many Nights a Whisper is available on Steam and Itch.io
Developer: katbrush Publisher: katbrush Year: 2025 Genre: Adventure System: Windows
Landlord Quest is a short point-and-click adventure game where you play as a landlord who must do a task for one of your tenants but as expected in a comedy adventure game, this goes off the rails very quickly. It features multiple endings, with an extended ending if you do all the goals and max out your Landlord Score, but all of them are “good” unless you like landlords for some reason. It’s always a little goofy to try to write a longer review for any game that’s 30-45 minutes long but I wanted to write some kind of log since I thought it was a fun adventure game and always appreciate when a point-and-click adventure takes an anti-capitalist stance. It’s definitely not a pro-landlord game.
It features all the stuff you would want in a comedy adventure like good jokes, puzzles that are fair, and a mini game as well. The only criticism I have is that some of the inventory items are used in an odd way for the 9-verb scumm interface, with you generally clicking on the item itself and then the object you want to use it on and not clicking the Use verb first, but once you figure it out then it’s not a big deal.
The art is very nice too. The verb panel has the aesthetic of early Windows and I was really impressed with the animation, especially for a solo dev project. It’s good stuff! Sometimes it’s nice to just play through a short adventure game in one sitting and watch a landlord eat shit. It’s only $2 too! Other than the content warning of a possible violent suicide depiction not being for some folks, I feel very comfortable recommending it to adventure game fans who want a short comedy adventure. It’s available on Steam but if you buy it on Itch.io then you get the files to run it in ScummVM, making it playable on basically every platform.
Developer: MOKKOGRAD Publisher: MOKKOGRAD Year: 2025 Genre: Platformer System: Windows
Virtue’s Heaven is a 2D Metroid-like where you explore a world that has been ruined by capitalism and you set out to eliminate those that caused that destruction and free your friends. Unlike a lot of games in the Metroidvania genre, you do not get powerups that allow you to explore new areas. You have all of your abilities at the start of the game and destroying bosses will give you keys to open new areas and make you stronger. My experience with the game was one where I didn’t initially click with the game, but when I figured out how I was playing the game incorrectly it became one of the most satisfying gaming experiences in a long time.
Screenshot from Steam
My initial experience with the game was that I was very impressed with the art and music, and thought the combat system, which is based entirely on melee attacks, was an incredibly interesting approach. However, soon it felt like the game was becoming too difficult. The combat started to feel like a slog because the character was not doing much damage and enemies were too strong. I knew it was me doing something wrong though, since the game had put so much thought into every other aspect, that I just got annoyed with myself for missing what was probably an obvious detail and then got distracted by other things and put the game down for a month.
Cut to a month later and I finally came back to the game to see how I would do with the game this time. Pretty quickly I saw that I was correct and missed an obvious detail. The game expects you to go back to town after defeating bosses to get an upgrade to get more health and be able to use more of the powerups you’ve obtained, which you get from freeing your friends. This time the game really clicked with me and I was so happy with how great the game felt. The combat was still challenging but very fair and it was immensely satisfying to keep getting more upgrades after beating bosses. I kinda hate the term juice for describing the feeling of sound effects and other effects that happen when the player interacts with the world, like an explosion after defeating an enemy, but folks, it’s got very good juice. Some of the best explosions in a video game to be honest. The game’s anti-capitalist theme was obviously a big selling point to me too. It feels very rare to see it in a setting like this so I really appreciate the developer taking the big swings with the story it’s telling. It’s not really a game that sets itself up for a sequel but I think there’s some really interesting directions that it could go in if they do decide to make one, which I would certainly be the first in line to buy.
I should point out that the initial bounce off the game was entirely my fault. The game is very generous with reminders on other aspects of the game and I was probably playing the game and not feeling very patient, which is the wrong mindset when going into a new game. I could have also played the game at the wrong time, when I wasn’t in the mood to learn a new ruleset. This has happened to me before. One of my all time favorite games, Morrowind, is one that I had initially bounced off of but when I came back and was more patient, it really clicked with me and I loved it. I think this was a similar experience. I don’t necessarily like to say that it needs to be appreciated on its own terms, because that might make it sound like you need to accept the shortcomings of something. These weren’t issues with the game. I had just played it at the wrong time. I think it’s even harder now when there’s just so many games that it’s hard to be patient and understand what the game is doing. It’s not like it’s doing anything radical here, I’m not expected to learn a brand new number system like in Riven, but it was still very easy for me to get distracted to jump to something else.
It feels a little silly to write about this massive journey I took with a game that’s ultimately only 4-5 hours long but if a game takes you on an adventure, you have to write about it folks. I’m so glad I came back and recognized what I was doing wrong because it’s a game that I now love and hope more people check out.
Virtue’s Heaven is available on Steam and Itch.io. This review was made possible thanks to a key from the developer.
Developer: Emberheart Games Publisher: Apogee Games Year: 2020 Genre: Platformer System: Windows
Crystal Caves HD is a remaster of the 1991 shareware game by Apogee where you play as Mylo Steamwitz, a miner in outer space, trying to become rich. The platformer has you going through levels and grabbing all the crystals in each one while trying to avoid various monsters and traps. There’s also a puzzle element as you have to carefully plan the use of the timed power ups in the level to reach certain areas and the order that you’ll unlock doors and activate platforms. I used to play the original version quite a bit as a kid so it was nice to see this rerelease happen. Emberheart has done a few of them at this point, with Secret Agent and Monster Bash being the other two Apogee remasters they’ve done. I’ve previously played through the Secret Agent one and enjoyed that quite a bit, and the gameplay and additions in this remaster are very similar.
Image taken from Steam page
The remaster adds more color and smoother animation to the original game, music, an entire new episode of levels, and a level creator. I can see the argument for the additional colors removing some charm from the original game but I think it looks nice. The music is fine too but if I did have any criticisms of this remaster I think it’s that the music almost sounds more like something on an older video game console rather than a PC game from this era. This is a very minor gripe though. I think the new levels are very solid and feel like a good continuation of the previous three episodes, and the level editor seems to have been embraced by a very active community with the developer still adding stuff years later.
This ending screen from episode 3, also in the original game, is just Monolith Burger from Space Quest 3, isn’t it?
I’m very possibly too nostalgia poisoned to accurately assess this game but I think it holds up pretty well and Emberheart has done a wonderful job with the remaster, just like they did with Secret Agent. If I had any complaints about the game, not the remaster, it’s that it becomes tedious to marathon the game and it’s why I very slowly played this over a year, but it’s still pleasant to play in short bursts. The developer has also done a remaster of Monster Bash, another Apogee shareware game I loved. I haven’t played it yet but the reception on Steam seems to be very positive and I’m sure it’s great if it’s anything like the other two they’ve done. I haven’t finished it yet but Emberheart also developed the fps Wizordum, which kinda feels like if Catacomb 3D had kept being iterated on instead of ID moving on to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. If you’re a retro FPS fan, I highly recommend it. There’s also an upcoming remaster of BioMenace that is not by this developer but looks amazing, with it having lots of features I wish this had, like the ability to switch between the old and new graphics. Give the demo a try if you have fond memories of the original.
Death by Scrolling is the latest game by Ron Gilbert, who is often known for his games like The Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion but has created many non-adventure games as well. It’s an arcade game with roguelite elements where you are an adventurer walking through a level, killing monsters and grabbing gold, while the screen slowly scrolls behind you so you must keep moving so the wall of fire doesn’t kill you. Occasionally the grim reaper will show up to chase you around until you outrun it. The goal is to get enough gold by completing levels so the ferryman can get you out of purgatory and into the afterlife. The roguelite element is that you’ll find diamonds in levels and these can be used to purchase permanent upgrades.
As of this review I have about 7.5 hours put into the game and have been enjoying my time with it. The gameplay loop really works for me and I think the small amounts of humor sprinkled throughout the game is very pleasant. I’ve also found the pixel art and animations to be very nice.
I’ve been watching this bounce between Mixed and Mostly Positive on Steam and I think part of the issue is that the game is marketed as a roguelike but it’s really an arcade game with some minor roguelite elements. I think it’s a very good arcade game, but aside from buying upgrades, there really isn’t that much roguelite stuff there. I don’t have an issue with that at all, but I suppose if you were buying this game expecting a roguelike then you would be disappointed. I do think the text on the Steam page makes this sound like it’s more of an rpg than it really is.
The other complaint I’ve seen is that the game lacks content, but I disagree with this. The game is $8 and I have arguably “completed” it at 7.5 hours, by getting all the characters to the afterlife. I don’t know, I suppose it’s very subjective but that sounds like a good deal to me. I certainly wouldn’t complain if there was more “stuff” in the game but I don’t feel like it was lacking either. Again, I think this ties in a little with the rpg stuff. I’m also kind of a grump about the roguelike community sometimes and feel like every game is expected to be a game that can be played for an infinite time.
There’s also one or two people that think Ron should just keep making adventure games and to that I say, fuck off. People can do more than one thing in life.
Anyway, I’m not saying it’s a perfect game above all criticism but I think if you go in expecting an arcade game with some very light rpg elements, you’ll have a good time.
Developer: Witch Beam Publisher: Humble Games Year: 2021 Genre: Adventure System: Windows
I think at this point everyone has heard of this one. It’s a game released in 2021 where a story is told through a series of relaxing puzzles where you unpack boxes in a new home and need to fit all your stuff in each room. This is one of those games that had been sitting in my backlog for a while despite it being relatively short. I think everything about this game has been covered by folks smarter than me but I did enjoy it. It’s one of those things where there had been so much universal praise for it for years that when I finally got around to it, my first thought was “well yeah it’s good but that’s it?” It’s not fair to the game but it’s so simple and straightforward that I had expected there to be more to it when I finally played it. In fact, if I did have an actual criticism of it, it’s that I had felt like I had “got it” after I played just a few levels. I remember people complaining it was too short at the time but I think it would have become a slog if it was longer.
Anyway, glad I played it. Sometimes you like a thing and think it’s very good, just not as much as everyone else. Like everyone says, it’s a good time and the pixel art is fantastic. Something I didn’t expect would be that my 5 year old would see me playing it, ask to try it out, and fall completely in love with it. She now says it’s one of her favorite games.
It was fun looking up the studio and seeing that they had made Assault Android Cactus+, which I think is brilliant and deserves to be just as popular as Unpacking. It looks like they have one game I haven’t played yet, Tempopo, which was released earlier this year. I’ll have to check that one out too given that I’m a fan of their other work.
To be a fan of French DOS games is knowing that mechanically the game may not be the tightest thing, but it could be weird enough and take enough swings to be worth it. Some of my favorite games are French DOS games and include: Alone in the Dark, Little Big Adventure, Lost Eden, and The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble. I’m a huge fan of Coktel Vision so it was unfortunate that I mostly found Ween: The Prophecy to be a frustrating experience.
The game has a plot about you stopping an evil wizard, but it’s mostly an excuse for you to move to various rooms, in an almost puzzle room level-based format, and solve the various inventory puzzles before moving on to the next room. This is one of those games that quickly wraps up with a block of text when you beat the final puzzle. Unfortunately I frequently found these puzzles to rely heavily on moon logic or sometimes broken, which meant mostly doing trial and error and trying every item on everything, or just pulling up a walkthrough because I got tired of the sluggish response from every action. I took notes while playing and there’s many instances where I just did not understand what was happening in the game or instances of me trying an action, checking a walkthrough to see that I was doing the right action, but was just not trying it enough times for it to actually work. The entire game consists of these inventory puzzles so the game quickly became a huge slog to play. There are one or two points where there are multiple solutions, but those were the only clever bits in the game’s design.
Even worse than a game consisting of trial and error puzzles is that the game tells you that you had a bad idea, or that your character is getting frustrated, or something isn’t working. It’s aggressively hostile in a genre called Point-And-Click Adventure, where you often just want to click on something to get a description or to see what happens. Instead of either of those things happening though, you are just scolded. It’s immensely frustrating to play an adventure game where you are actually discouraged from clicking on things. I wasn’t even trying to solve a puzzle. It is just common practice to play around in an environment and click around but this is a game that does not want you to do that. I suppose to the game’s credit, I didn’t come across any softlocks.
It’s so frustrating that the game is so unfun to play because the parts surrounding it are nice. Like just about every other Coktel Vision game, I like the art and music. Charles Callet does a fantastic job on the soundtrack like he did on every other game he worked on. There’s also some really weird FMV in here that other people online seemed to find disturbing but I liked how weird it was. The weirdness is why I usually play French DOS games.
So unfortunately, I can’t really recommend this game. I generally love Coktel Vision’s games, even when the gameplay is a bit clunky like in Inca, because there’s usually a lot of really interesting stuff going on and the game has something to say. Ween: The Prophecy just does not have enough to justify playing through the game.
Ween: The Prophecy is not available for sale anywhere but is probably on your favorite abandonware site and playable through ScummVM.
I just did my regular playthrough of Super Castlevania IV for the Halloween season. This used to be a yearly tradition for me but it’s been a while since I’ve play it so it was nice to revisit it. This time I did it through the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, which includes a lot of the early games. I suspect that anything I say in this post has been repeated a billion times better by other folks but it’s still a lovely game. It’s always been one of my favorites in the series, with some of my favorite bits of it being the directional whipping and the jazzy soundtrack. Neither seems to really come up in later entries and that’s a shame. I know Mode 7 effects only make sense on a SNES but you know what? Later games should have had those too.
I’ve always been fascinated by this being a loose remake of the first game but still being labeled the fourth game of the series. It feels like something we probably wouldn’t see today with a lot of this stuff being more standardized. At the very least it feels different from how the industry does remakes today.
Screenshot taken from MobyGames. The background in this level rotates.
If I did have any complaints about the game, it’s that I personally feel like it starts to become a slog once you get to the castle. The game moves so quickly up until then and it has a wonderful variety of environments but then you get to the castle and the variety seems to drop and there’s a big difficulty spike. It remains this way for a few levels and then I think the level design becomes a lot more interesting again towards the end. It’s still a fantastic game though and the one I probably go to if I want to recommend a level-Castlevania game, partially because I haven’t played that many that aren’t on a Nintendo console.
Super Castlevania IV is part of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, available on Switch, XBox, Playstation 4, and Windows.
Developer: Oh, a Rock! Studios Publisher: Oh, a Rock! Studios Year: 2022 Genre: Adventure System: Windows
Photo from Itch.io page
The Lost Oregon City Gold is an adventure game where a dad and his two daughters stumble across an old letter from an ancestor with clues pointing them to $25,000 in lost gold. It’s up to you to explore Oregon and find it. Most of the game is played in a first person view where you click on arrows to navigate various spaces in Oregon, made up of photos, and talking to people or solving puzzles that will point you to the next clue in your treasure hunt. Occasionally you make choices in dialog but they’re pretty low stakes decisions and there are parts where you can answer questions about Oregon’s history that you learn by playing the game. I suppose that technically this makes the game an edutainment title, but that might be a stretch.
As you can see, it’s not a very serious game. Photos of people, played by the devs and family and friends, are used for all of the characters and the plot itself is very silly. It all works for me though. Something I really like about the games by Oh, a Rock! Studios is that they all feel like a group of folks having lots of fun making games for each other but without all the inside jokes so they’re still very approachable for folks outside the group. They’re all just like a nice, relaxing, and goofy hangout session and would also recommend Internet Court and The Awkward Steve Duology for the same vibe. They don’t take themselves seriously but the games aren’t doing any sort of ironically bad FMV either.
The Lost Oregon City Gold is available on Steam and Itch.io for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
