Hey, all.

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays, on behalf of the entire Hotspot team!

To help mark the occasion, we've brought back an annual tradition to bring you a video full of personal season's greetings from this year's (or any year's!) top developers. Plus a very special musical surprise at the end!



Thanks to all of you for being part of the Hotspot family. It's been a great year for adventure gaming, and we're glad to have you be a part of it!

I didn't grow up celebrating Christmas, but you'd think that managing and owning a couple of toy stores would have me loving the holiday. On the contrary: Seeing the way parents cowardly leverage Santa as a scapegoat to get their children to behave instead of assuming the responsibility of discipline themselves pisses me off like nobody's business. And even though one might think I'd have celebrated the gross consumerism and attempts to express love for family, friends, and Jesus by spending lots of money on an exorbitant quantity of gifts most people don't really need, I was shaking my head on the inside while smiling and Merry Christmas'ing and swiping credit cards on the outside.
I also live in an extremely hardcore Burn Harry Potter, Close The Public Library, God Abhors Gays, and Call The Exorcist, My Daughter Sneezed kind of town, which hasn't enhanced my sentiments towards religious holidays.

All this is to say, I'm well outside of what I perceived to be the target demographic for Azazel's Christmas Fable. When the game came out, I passed up on the opportunity to review it for this site, and never gave the idea of playing it a second thought. Until it popped up on sale in my Steam feed and I was on a streak of mediocre games and I remembered that several people whose opinions on adventure games I respect had spoken highly of it, "Even if you don't care about Christmas." This perfect storm of circumstances persuaded me.

And I'm glad it did, because Azazel's Christmas Fable is *easily* one of the best adventure games I've played in years. 
- The story and setting are unique...well, I guess the setting is kind of similar to that dumb Tim Allen movie, which I also am definitely not the target demographic for. 
- The voice acting is in the charmingly old-school point 'n click style. Think the digitized tones of King's Quest V's voices, acted in a similar 'not quite bad, not really good, Platonic Ideal of 90's adventure game acting'. 
- The humor in the game is probably the best part. It takes a lot to get me to laugh out loud while playing, but here I did, several times. And also commented to no one in particular, maybe the dog, "Man, this is *so* good!"
- Because the main character is an imp from Hell, I didn't find myself questioning his moral consistency like I do with a guy like George Stobbart, whose means often don't justify his ends. It's the perfect conceit for an adventure game protagonist!
- Puzzles are mostly inventory based, perfect difficulty, not quite Monkey Island 2, not quite your typical modern babysitting style where the character tells you exactly what to do next every time you pick up an item. There were also some nice logic puzzles, nothing that'll hold you up for more than a few minutes, but a pleasant challenge and welcome change of pace.
- Major kudos for having a satisfying final chapter and fun "Boss fight" at the end, and then really sticking the landing with a great ending.
- Bonus: There are little candies to find throughout the game, one in each screen, like a hidden object game. I didn't think I'd care so much about finding all of them, but I ended up having a great time doing it. 

The game isn't terribly long, but I wouldn't categorize it as a short game. If you pay $10, you'll get your money's worth of fun. Yeah, it's worth paying full price for. If you have to think twice about it, just pass on buying someone at work who you don't really care about a stupid Xmas gift that they don't really need. Azazel's Christmas Fable is a much better way to spend your time and money.

Hey besides Mac, PC and GOG, Scott Whiskers is also available on iOS, Android, Nintendo and PlayStation!
Please do make sure that this info is complete because it’s important for knowing which reviews to check out.
I’ve seen this kind info missing here before, making me think that I couldn’t play some games on my iPhone.
Only in case of fantastic reviews I looked further to find out they were available.

The games and achievements I complete on Steam now—do they expire, or do they count toward next year?

Winter Burrow is a cozy forest survival game about a mouse returning home to restore her childhood burrow. Explore, gather resources, craft tools, knit warm sweaters, bake pies, and meet the locals. Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/30087...views_hash

Winter Burrow was my first survival game and I really enjoyed it. At the beginning, I was as clueless as the little mouse, but the better I got to know the forest and where to find materials, the more confident I became. Looking back, I'm glad I played the game before the winter event, as it added a map. The desperation of not knowing where I was and how to save myself from freezing to death was part of the fun.
Less fun was the inventory, which was chronically too small; for most of the game, I had to make do with 1-2 slots. When you go out to collect materials, that's definitely not enough. There were scrolls and quests that allowed you to expand your bag space a little, but the big breakthrough only came at the end. That was really frustrating.

The storage space in the house also expanded significantly after I built the birch wood cabinet (blueprint located in the far east of the spider area). I disabled the “spiders” option because they were too difficult to defeat as enemies; the cockroaches in the area already pushed me to my limits.

I will definitely return to build the remaining furniture and furnish the house. Thanks to the two floors, there is plenty of space to let your imagination run wild.

Conclusion´

“Winter Burrow” is a game for people who like to explore a world but don't want to engage in difficult battles. It is literally worth exploring even the dark corners.

What are your most anticipated adventure games of 2026?

Hello everyone and Happy Holidays! I'm new to this community and looking forward to getting to know you and your games.

I'm a solo dev and just released my first game, Estória, on Steam and the Apple Store. It's a 2D point-and-click adventure game in the style of Sierra games like King's Quest and Quest for Glory, which I grew up on and love dearly.

If you're interested, please check it out, wishlist it, give it a try, or spread the word to someone you think might like it. It's a coming-of-age story where you explore and uncover the history and mysteries of the Kingdom of Estória. Thanks a lot! - Jonathan

Steam for PC & MAC

Apple Store for MAC, iPad, & iPhone

Trailer on Youtube

If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers is a narrative-driven point-and-click adventure with horror elements that explores the stories of four characters in a masked ball taking place aboard a train in the late 1920s. https://store.steampowered.com/app/16039...Travelers/

This free, nearly two-hour episodic pixel adventure about mental health issues is quite compelling.

The story of the homosexual man who wants to separate from his partner in the 1930s for safety reasons is a little short at just over twenty minutes, while the story about a war veteran's guilt was too long for my taste. I liked the story of a woman addicted to medication best. The way the withdrawal symptoms were portrayed was very moving.

In the first story, there are even variations in the plot depending on how you react.

There are hardly any puzzles; I only had to think four times, otherwise you are always told what to do. I needed the walkthrough twice. You have to retrace life paths or memorize what listeners said and in what order. That had a pleasant level of difficulty; otherwise, it was too easy.

The problem with the graphics was that you often couldn't see the objects

https://youtu.be/JcseQluDVjM

Hope you like it. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Over five years ago, we welcomed 2020 - the year of cyberpunk.

At the time, we had no idea how numerous the releases of adventure games would be over the next few years.

Now, join us as we try to determine the best adventure games released over the past half decade.

Some of you with a good grasp of maths may have noticed that the years 2020-2025 are actually six years, not five. But 2020–2025 looks better than 2021-2025, so don't be such a nerd and let's begin.

The rules:
Choose 10 adventure games released in the years 2020-2025 and rank them. Depending on their position, they will gain a different number of points:

1st place: 10 points
2nd place: 9 points
3rd place: 8 points
4th place: 7 points
5th place: 6 points
6th place: 5 points
7th place: 4 points
8th place: 3 points
9th place: 2 points
10th place: 1 point

Honourable mentions: You can list games that didn't make your top 10 but are too good to not acknowledge. Every honourable mention gets 0.5 points.

Dishonourable mentions: You can also list games that were so bad or so disappointing that you just need to talk about them. They won't receive any negative points, but it's a good way to voice your grievances. Hot takes and unpopular opinions are more than welcome.

In January next year, I will count up all the points for the games you posted and create a top 10 list.

Q&A:
Q: I'm new to adventure games/I don't play much nowadays/my tastes are way too refined for modern "games", so I don't have 10 games to put on the list.
A: Don't worry - you can list a fewer number of titles.

Q: I don't know if X is an adventure game or a different genre.
A: If you think it's an adventure game, then it is an adventure game.

Q: How many honourable mentions can I list?
A: As many as you like. But, since I'm the one who has to count all those points, please be merciful!

---

My top 10 list:

1. Lucy Dreaming
2. The Legend of Skye
3. Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Dry Twice
4. The Case of the Golden Idol
5. The Drifter
6. The Will of Arthur Flabbington
7. Loco Motive
8. PRIM
9. Not Another Weekend
10. The Brilliant Coup

Honourable mentions:
Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard
Born Punk
Chants of Sennaar
Elroy and the Aliens
Mindlock -  The Apartment
Slender Threads
Strangeland
The Abandoned Planet
The Hand of Glory
Unusual Findings
VirtuaVerse
Voodoo Detective
Wildwood Down

Dishonourable mentions:
The Adventures of the Black Hawk – I rarely see a game that was intentionally sabotaged by the devs themselves. While I can understand and even respect the developers' wish to create a p'n'c game in the spirit of early '90s games, they went too far. Especially in their stubborn ways of trying to inconvenience and annoy the players. You need to enter a password from the manual every time you launch the game, no QOL so I hope you like pixel hunting and major clues in one-time dialogues that you can't listen to again. And my personal nemesis: puzzles that should be solved in a logical manner, but can't be because the developer said so.