Following in the wake of Leisure Suit Larry, I was reminded of the 2004 graphical text adventure Enclosure, which uses the same Sierra AGI engine as the original Larry 1. In 2022, Enclosure received an update where the pixels were turned into voxels — resulting in a kind of retro 3D. The change isn’t dramatic but clearly noticeable. The graphics seem to lift off the screen, less flat than before; to my eyes, the characters now look more like LEGO figures than pixel sprites. Enclosure is a lovingly made fan project, available for free. What originally drew me to it was the premise: a pair of fraudulent mediums invited to a haunted Arctic station.

Game by: Femo Duo EntertainmentMausimus

After the rather sombre The Longing, I needed something to lift my spirits and reached for the light-hearted adventure game classic The Secret of Monkey Island, which I originally played on the Amiga. First I played the 2009 remake, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, and then the original 1991 Amiga version to experience it again from a modern perspective. The very first version of the game, however, was for DOS PCs, and this archaic experience is included in the 2009 Special Edition, where you can switch to it on the fly. In this article I focus primarily on the Amiga version and compare it to the Special Edition. The game is a classic for a reason: as an adventure game, it still holds up very well today. I have nothing against the audiovisually updated version, but to my surprise I found the old version better in terms of playability. In this post I also answer, from my own point of view, the question of how to play Amiga games.

Game by: LucasArtsRon Gilbert

The Victorian Mysteries trilogy, released between 2009 and 2012, follows in the footsteps of the long-running hidden object staple Mystery Case Files. Instead of original backstories, however, The Moonstone, Woman in White, and The Yellow Room draw directly from literature — specifically from pioneering detective classics by Wilkie Collins and Gaston Leroux. I was interested in these games precisely as literary adaptations. As hidden object, puzzle, or adventure games, there is nothing particularly distinctive about their mechanics. I hesitate to call them good, but they are certainly playable and easy enough, and the historical character of both the games and their stories appealed to me. In this blog post I focus on the first game and will return to the other two later in their own articles.

Game by: Craig HollandFreeze Tag

Time really does fly by. I wrote about the adventure game series The Black Mirror on Samooja seven years ago. I have not forgotten it, because at some point I set aside parts two and three with the serious intention of playing them. When I first started Black Mirror II: Reigning Evil, however, it somehow failed to draw me in and was left unfinished. Now, many years later, I returned to it and pushed myself to see the story through to the end — emphasis on the word “story”. Just like in the first game, the narrative is the strongest and most memorable element. Black Mirror II improves on its predecessor audiovisually, mechanically, and in terms of usability, while still preserving a clear sense of continuity.

Game by: Cranberry Productions

The sixth entry in the Mystery Case Files series, Dire Grove, was released toward the end of 2009. It follows in the footsteps of the previous game, Return to Ravenhurst, as a full-fledged adventure game, but it does not continue the Ravenhurst storyline. Instead, it tells its own tale inspired by Celtic mythology. Dire Grove features remarkably few mini-games, with tasks revolving primarily around the inventory. There are no bizarre door-lock mechanisms, even though the core actions still involve opening, activating, and gaining access. There are plenty of hidden object scenes — one could say enough to make up for the missing mini-games.

Game by: Adrian WoodsBig Fish Games

I continued my playthrough of the Mystery Case Files series with its fifth instalment, Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhurst, released in 2008. The game is a direct narrative continuation of the series’ third entry, Ravenhurst. This time, the series makes a decisive leap into adventure-game territory. Free exploration of the manor grounds and the use of an inventory are now woven into a single, continuous story arc. At the same time, the player character moves to the centre of the experience as its primary subject. Whereas in Ravenhurst the task was to recover missing pages of a lost woman’s diary, here those pages are written dynamically into the player character’s own journal. The series’ earlier humour is replaced entirely by horror, and stereotypical characters give way to overtly psychopathological figures. Haunting no longer relies on looping sound effects alone: ghosts appear as animated characters who speak directly to the player. The series thus takes a major step forward — but is its new direction a sound one?

Game by: Adrian WoodsBig Fish Games

Released in November 2007, the fourth entry in the Mystery Case Files series, Madame Fate, was among the first hidden object games I ever played. That was over a decade ago. I featured the game on Samooja three years ago, but rereading my old review now left me dissatisfied. The introduction was overly brief, and there were too few screenshots. As I have since set myself the task of revisiting the first nine Mystery Case Files games in a more analytical spirit, I am returning to Madame Fate to do better justice to its variety. This search-and-puzzle game, set in a carnival run by a medium, is a low-fi audiovisual feast.

Game by: Adrian WoodsBig Fish Games

I continued my exploration of the Mystery Case Files hidden object series with its third entry, released in December 2006: Ravenhurst. Within the series, Ravenhurst forms its own five-part mini-series, indicating that its setting proved fertile ground both narratively and commercially. Among fans of Mystery Case Files, Ravenhurst holds a particular status. It won me over as well, and the fatigue I experienced while playing Prime Suspects was entirely absent. What distinguishes Ravenhurst from the series’ first two games is its strong narrative cohesion. The story binds the mechanical elements together and gives the experience a clearer sense of purpose. This is where one can observe hidden object games edging closer to adventure games. I also suspect that Ravenhurst, unintentionally, marked the beginning of the genre’s later obsession with locks.

Game by: Adrian WoodsBig Fish Games

I continue from the previous post by returning to the early entries of the Mystery Case Files series. Prime Suspects followed the commercially successful Huntsville in less than half a year in 2006. It closely resembles its predecessor, though some development is clearly visible. Prime Suspects is longer, the mini-game-like crime computer now produces three different puzzle types, and the searching introduces a new flashlight/X-ray variation. The game managed to wear me down, though not to the point of outright boredom, which may simply have been due to my not taking a long enough break after Huntsville.

Game by: Adrian WoodsBig Fish Games

In my previous post, I found myself venting about the evolution of hidden object games — about how they have gone badly off course. That led me to return to the roots, to see what those early hidden object games actually felt like and what they did well. I have previously reviewed the fourth entry in the Mystery Case Files series, Madame Fate, which is a personal cult classic for me. Madame Fate was released in 2007. But what came before it? The first entry in the series, released in 2005, is sometimes described as the game that started the entire genre. I am not taking a stance on whether everything truly began with Huntsville, but the Mystery Case Files series is in any case a useful subject when examining the development of hidden object games. A new entry appeared almost every year, most recently in late 2021. The series currently consists of 23 games.

Game by: Adrian WoodsBig Fish Games