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Joe's little corner for his little reviews - Joe - 06-05-2026 So, this is the topic where I will post my long comments/short reviews that I previously posted on the Discord server.  Sorry for the spam. The Secrets of Jesus: 3/10. Difficulty: 8/10 Wasn't very good, moon logic and constant misdirections. At least it doesn't have pixel hunting.  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1142230/The_Secrets_of_Jesus/ The Sundew 6/10. Difficulty: 5/10 Solid game, not too hard; you can finish it in 5 hours or even less. Nice pixel graphics. The story is a bit confusing, and I think some things got lost in translation (the devs are French). https://store.steampowered.com/app/1468380/The_Sundew/ The Cabinets of Doctor Arcana 7/10. Difficulty: 7/10 It turns out that this is not a P'n'C game, but a puzzle game. The difficulty of each puzzle varies, but none of them is overly complex or difficult. Even if you get stuck, the game is very generous with its help. There are hints on where to look, instructions on what to do for each puzzle, and a walkthrough in the main menu. If you're still stuck, there's even an option to skip the puzzle altogether. Overall, a good game if you like those kind of things. https://store.steampowered.com/app/831070/The_Cabinets_of_Doctor_Arcana/ The Silent Sky Part I: 6.5/10. Difficulty: 5/10 Graphics: Somehow it reminds me of Kentucky Route Zero. It's simple, but clear, and you know what's what. This changes when you enter the forest, and now it's hard to see. So, all in all nice, but please, less dark areas next time. Gameplay: I understand that it's chapter 1, but it's really short. It took me about 2-3 hours to finish. Bold move with "hiding" the setting in the main menu. I wish there was an option to double click to fast-forward to the next screen. Sometimes using items or interacting with objects felt unresponsive. Hotspots don't have names. This was really weird. I think the last time I saw something like this was in Gobliins 1 in 1991. It wasn't a big deal until you got to the forest part, when it was hard to see. Puzzles: Pretty logical and not too hard. There were moments where I was doing things without knowing why I was doing them. But that's pretty common in p'n'c games. I didn't like timed and precision puzzles (hide from dad, climb the tree). I bring nothing but frustration to the game. And I think I bypassed the last puzzle with a screwdriver. tl;dr: too short and needs some QoL, but otherwise a solid game, Still waiting on part 2 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1632590/The_Silent_Sky_Part_I/ Warp Frontier 6.5/10 Difficulty: 5/10 ~6h game about a space cop and the case of 10,000 missing people. Hard cyberpunk story in space. The plot is definitely a strong point of the game, but it can be a bit overwhelming at the beginning (when you get a bunch of names, terminology and history thrown at you). Unfortunately, due to the short length of the game, the story felt a little rushed. I think if it had been made back in the days when p'n'c games got proper budgets, it could have been a classic. The puzzles are ok, no moon logic here. But the execution can sometimes be a little unintuitive. It's worth mentioning that there are several endings (and puzzle solutions) depending on your choices during the game. There are also plenty of QoL features: hotspots, a hint system, and when you hover an item over a hotspot you can see if it's a valid action without having to click on it (the same goes for combining items in your inventory). https://store.steampowered.com/app/226280/Warp_Frontier/ Mindlock - The Apartment 7.5/10. Difficulty: 4/10 ~5h game about a guy getting ready to go to a job he hates. Things get complicated when his front door disappears. I had a blast playing this. It's a surreal story about self-esteem and well-being. What I found refreshing is that MC is as confused as the player, constantly questioning the reality around him and trying to come up with an explanation. There is no silent protagonist who takes strange things at face value. The puzzles are wacky and surreal, but stay in the realm of logic. Some are timed, but nothing too frustrating. The MC almost always has interesting things to say about items and hotspots. No generic "I can't do that" or "I can't combine these items". There's even a ruler item, and you can use it to measure every item and hotspot. Bonus points for the metric system ? Graphics and sound are well done. The VO is great. QoL: there is option to show hotspot, but no double click fast travel or hint button. But I have few complaints. The MC walks like a snail. Fortunately, the screens are quite small, so it doesn't matter too much most of the time. The puzzles are pretty simple, which is good for newcomers to the genre, but won't be a challenge for veterans. The biggest gripe for me is that at around the 7/10 point of the game, it becomes more of a visual novel than a point-and-click game. You just walk and talk, with little interaction except for few trivial puzzles. Still, I recommend it to everyone and it looks like the developers want to make a "Mindlock" series out of it. So if you're looking for a new game to play, give it a try you won't regret it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2669150/Mindlock__The_Apartment/ Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest 4.5/10. Difficulty: 8/10 ~20h episodic game about this one guy from the movie Interstellar who was stuck on the spaceship for years. I liked the graphics, I liked the plot, and the music was ok too. But the puzzles. Boy, oh boy, where do I even begin? Puzzles come in many different types, but they all have one thing in common. They are hard. The game walks a fine line between hard and frustrating, and it crosses that line multiple times. There are various reasons why they are hard. Some have moon logic (not that many, to be fair), some are timed, some are cryptic, some have a very strict order to solve them. At least 2 of them have pixel hunting (despite the option to show hotspots), and there are plenty of items that don't disappear after you use them, cluttering up your inventory. Most importantly, you get almost no feedback from the MC. Most answers are generic and unhelpful. You get no information on whether you are on the right track in solving a multi-step puzzle, where to go next, or what exactly is missing from the solution. You are left without any little hints to guide you. Another thing they have in common is that they are not fun to solve. You do generic things like fix the computer or find the keycard, and each problem is broken down into many small, tedious tasks. In the end, instead of feeling satisfied, I just felt tired after solving the puzzles. It seems that using the hint system was intended way of playing this game. And I must admit that I had to use a hint once in every episode (except Ep2, where I managed on my own). The next problem is with the characters. I had a really hard time liking them. One is constantly nagging and the other is constantly lazy and nagging. There was supposed to be some kind of brotherhood between them, but I didn't see it. Disclaimer: If you enjoy getting stuck for hours on end, or are a genius who can solve every single puzzle with ease, or don't mind using the hint system every 2 minutes, then the overall rating goes up to 6, maybe even 7. https://store.steampowered.com/app/645820/Odysseus_Kosmos_and_his_Robot_Quest_Complete_Season/ Guard Duty 5.5/10. Difficulty: 4.5/10 ~3h british game about a bloody block that works with the fuzz but has to save the lass, pretty mental if you ask me, so get on with it, guv'nah. Not much to say. I liked the graphics and the cutscenes, the music is nice but repetitive. The puzzles are on the easier side and get easier as you go. The endgame is borderline visual novel. There is a lot of talking and no option to show hotspots. I guess in an attempt to make this short game a little longer. https://store.steampowered.com/app/872750/Guard_Duty/ Monolith 6/10. Difficulty: 6/10 ~10h game about a space explorer who has crashed on an alien planet and suffered a serious case of amnesia. Backgrounds and music are nice. But the 3D models are crude.  We are talking about the PS2 level of 3D graphics. The same goes for the VO, which could be better. Puzzles are ok. Challenging, but not too hard. There is an option to read a walkthrough and an option to show hotspots. There is a problem with puzzles that many sf p'n'c games have: puzzles are "technical". You have to find the right tool to manipulate other tools or machines to solve the problem. So you end up with a whole toolbox full of items and other gizmos. There is a twist at the end, but I thought it was not telegraphed very well, and it came out of nowhere. Game also take way too long to explain it(the epilogue is about an hour long). https://store.steampowered.com/app/1542390/Monolith/ Dropsy 6.5/10. Difficulty: 5.5/10. ~5h game about a creepy nightmare clown who just wants to make everyone happy. This one is just built differently: They manage the impossible (for modern P'n'C games) - not even a single reference to Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max or any other old P'n'C game. Truly groundbreaking. There is no dialogue. Everyone speaks in pictures. Someone wants you to help them with their work? There will be pictures of "work", "clown" and "give". This adds another layer of puzzle to the game. But it can also be confusing. "Item" "=" "money", does that mean they give you money for the item, or you can buy the item with money? About half of the game is optional. You can help people and make their day better, but you don't have to, and just stick to the main plot. I'm not an achievement hunter, but I'm sure it'll appeal to people who are. It can also double your playtime from 5 to 10 hours. The graphics are nice and bright. Animations are fluid. Sound effects are okay. The music, on the other hand, is atrocious and I muted it pretty quickly. You can find other soundtracks in the game (in the form of cassettes) and change the music. But they are also scratchy and unpleasant to listen to. Unfortunately, there is no option to display a hotspots, so pixel hunting will be a thing. There is a lot of walking around, but you soon unlock the option for fast travel. https://store.steampowered.com/app/274350/Dropsy/ Sumatra: Fate of Yandi 7/10. Difficulty: 4.5/10. ~3h game about a logger lost in the Indonesian rainforest. From the devs who made "The Excavation of Hob's Barrow". Short and sweet. Despite its short playtime, it manages to tell an interesting story. The puzzles are logical and on the easy side (but not trivial). Simple but clear and charming pixel art. SFX are ok, there is almost no music and no VO. No option to show hotspots. There is an environmental message in the game. Not very subtle, but it does not beat you over the head with it either. https://store.steampowered.com/app/610900/Sumatra_Fate_of_Yandi/ Haven Moon 4/10. Difficulty: 7/10 ~3h Myst-like game about a kidnapped nameless person trying to get out of some oceanic moon. It's one of those games where it sucks to be stuck. And the reason is: travel time. There are 4 tiny islands to explore, and you have to move between them all the time. To do this, you use an airship and a teleport. In both cases there will be unskippable cutscenes (teleport 20s, airship 40s). So take the "~3h" with a grain of salt. If you get stuck, you'll see these cutscenes a lot, and the game time will skyrocket. There is one particularly nasty puzzle (the only time I needed a hint) where you have to adjust 2 levers, both of which can be in one of three positions. You don't get an audio/visual hint if you've chosen the right position. It takes 6 teleportations and 2 airship cutscenes to check a combination. And even if you have chosen the right combination, there is another, hidden layer to this puzzle, so you may not know that you are on the right track. There are also other little things that like to waste your time, like riding in a lift or rotating a telescope. Pixel hunting is also a thing (not much, but still). Which I find unacceptable. For me, Myst-like games are about cold, brutal, uncaring, but fair logic to figure out how these strange, often non-intuitive machines work and how to operate them. Not looking at every nook and cranny in the hope of finding some hidden switch or button. Finally, there is the odd, choppy movement, as if the game is running at 20fps or less. This will be nothing to most people, but for someone like me, who suffers from crippling motion sickness, it makes the game physically painful to play. If you want to play some Myst-like game, skip it, and just play Quern. https://store.steampowered.com/app/493720/Haven_Moon/ Vlad Circus: Descend Into Madness 5/10. Difficulty: 4/10. ~5h game about a clown who has gone to a reunion with other survivors of a freak show circus fire. Before playing this game, you should ask yourself two questions: Do I like walking? Do I prefer story to gameplay? If you answer yes to both questions, you can easily raise the rating from 5/10 to 8/10. 80% of the game is walking, 15% is reading, the rest is puzzle solving and fighting. The story is nothing new, but interesting. Characters are well written. The pixel art is nice, as is the music and sounds. Puzzles are simple and logical, so it is unlikely to get stuck for a long time. But the whole game is just walking and backtracking. You can't fast travel, you can run, but only for a brief moment. There is also a fighting that adds absolutely nothing to the game and I wonder why it is there at all. Overall, this game is a mixture of survival horror games like Sillent Hill (arcade controls, combat, limited inventory) and visual novel/interactive movies like Heavy Rain/Detroid: Become Human (QTE, easy puzzles, story over gameplay). https://store.steampowered.com/app/1702430/Vlad_Circus_Descend_Into_Madness/ The Wardrobe 6/10. Difficulty: 7/10. ~10h pop culture exposition about an undead jerk trying to get to the person who killed him. Yo dawg, I heard you like references, so we put references in your references so you can reference while you reference. You know, P'n'C games like to make one or two or three references to other games, like Secret of Monkey Island or Grim Fandango. But not this one, oh no. At first I had the idea to list all the references in the game here, but after 1h of playing I realised that it would be longer than this whole post. So I'll just give you the number of references I recognised. It's 74, and I didn't count recurring references like Pokemon, Harry Potter or Back to the Future. It's like this ADHD developer just can't control himself to tell you all about his favourite games and movies. So he put every single media franchise he knew into his game. OK, but why am I still talking about this? Because it's omnipresent in the game. There are references in the art, in the dialogue, in the items, even in the sound. They. Are. Everywhere. Every single screen is cluttered with a nonsensical collage of pop culture artefacts. And while it's funny at first, it gets really tiresome really fast. The puzzles are a mixture of straightforward, clever and a lot of moonlogic. It's a tough game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/497730/The_Wardrobe__Even_Better_Edition/ The Phantom Fellows 5.5/10. Difficulty: 5/10. ~8h Non-Darkside Detctive spin-off, non-Blackwell rip-off, about a mentally stunned guy and his ghostly "friend". Ok, first of all, your whole enjoyment of this title is based on your sense of humour. If you like dad jokes, sitcom level humour and most importantly "lol, so random" jokes, then you will love it. Otherwise, you are in for a rough ride. There are so many jokes that the game sabotages itself with them. In Chapter 5, there's this mystery that you spend your time trying to piece together, and at the end you get the classic "Gather round, now I'll tell you who the culprit is" scene. During this scene, the explanation is interrupted and restarted about 3 times so that the MC can insert his random jokes about puppets(?). At some point I just felt like I was looking after a not-so-bright, hyperactive 5-year-old while trying to have a conversation with another adult. There is a lot of text, not bad in itself, but you have to be prepared for 3 to 10 text windows every time you interact with something. And you can interact with everything (items, objects, NPCs, walls, floors, etc).  It reminds me of those old children's Putt-Putt games where you can interact with different hotspots, but instead of funny animations you get walls of text. I liked the puzzles. They were not too hard, but not trivial either. Be prepared for pixel-hunting as there is no option to show hotspots and everything is a hotspot. It's worth mentioning that some puzzles can be solved using different items from different locations, which reduces frustration and adds replay value. There is also a hint system, but I don't know how helpful it is. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1581490/The_Phantom_Fellows/ Return of the Phantom 3/10. Difficulty 6/10. ~3h old school game about the slowest detective that ever lived, trying to catch the titular Phantom of the Opera. This game is similar to Vlad Circus, but with less puzzles, less story and even more walking. Which is unfortunate, as the MC walks as if stuck in a swamp and the screens are vast and empty. Thank goodness for dosbox and the ability to speed up the game. There are 3 "acts" in the game. Prologue, where you talk to people and solve no puzzles. The Investigation, where you again talk to (different) people in the same scenery, but this time you have to collect exactly 7 items (still no puzzle involved). You better get them now or you will be forced to backtrack (you really don't want that) or get stuck in the 3rd act . The last act is the chase after the Phantom. To do this you have to go through the maze. So the maze. It's bad. You don't have a map, there's no logic or clever solution, the screens are very similar or exactly the same, you just have to force your way through. I thought I could wing it, but no. I ended up spending about an hour drawing an IRL map of the maze to be able to navigate. After the maze you get to solve some puzzles, like 5 of them. Some of them require information you get at the very beginning of the game (I hope you remember it) and some require items you get before you enter the maze. After that, you get the Ron Gilbert-tier non-ending. Congratulations, you have beaten the game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299710/Return_of_the_Phantom/ PRIM 8/10. Difficulty: 5.5/10. ~6h black and white game about the daughter of Death who wants to bring her friend back to life. I had high expectations and wasn't disappointed. Very nice cartoony graphics, pleasant and fitting soundtrack, great variety of animations, different types of puzzles that keep the game fresh (all time classic "do 3 tasks", inventory management, mini games, logical puzzles, deduction), variety of QoL (show hotspots, fast travel map, hints, faster walking), humour that is not forced, story is interesting and characters are likeable. But there are some problems. Nitpicks: Black and white graphics are stylish and nice, but have some drawbacks. Sometimes the cursor is hard to see and white text on a white background can be difficult to read. Annoyances: I understand that this is a Kickstarter game and you have to give the backers something to get the money. I don't mind. But this in-game card game is just there to please backers (backers get a physical copy of the game, and some backers are on the cards (sucks to be you Kevin, you are on the worst card)). It adds nothing to the game and is mendatory to play. The rules are brain dead, winning or losing depends on luck. Also, you need to collect at least 8 of these cards to play, and they don't show up on "show hotspots", so happy pixel-hunting. The Bad: English voice-over for MC. Listening to her make me think, I was watching some low-effort sitcom about middle-aged Karen from HR narrating her own unhinged Twitter posts in her snarky, nasal, annoying voice. I ended up switching to German VO, I didn't understand a word, but at least it was bearable to listen to. Also, the game is way too short. 6 hours? Make it 20 hours, you cowards! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1510470/PRIM/ Tourist trap 5.5/10. Difficulty: 3.5/10 ~2h TED talk about how big foreign corporations take over small town. Well, not just about evil corporations, but about many different things. Tourism, capitalism, geek culture, influencers, corruption, consumerism, colonialism. In short, western culture. It looks like dev has very strong (negative) opinions about these things and decided that he didnt want to write angry rants on reddit or twitter. Instead, he decided to make a game as a vehicle for his thoughts. A decision I fully support. But the problem is that there is almost no game in this game. Gampley is similar to visual novels "p'n'c" like Walking Dead, you hardly solve any puzzles and spend most of your time watching cutscenes and reading dialogues. Graphics are nice (very smooth animations), sound is good, there is no normal VO, every character literally just says "blablabla", which is annoying. No pixel hunting, as there is an option to show hotspots. By the way, +0.5 point for the rather unexpected ending. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2206660/Tourist_Trap/ A Twisted Tale 5/10. Difficulty: 6.5/10. ~5h game about a unwilling dimension traveller trying to get back home. First of all, it's an episodic game (currently there's only 1 episode out of a planned 7), which makes it difficult to talk about plot, other than the fact that there is none at the moment. All we know is the MC's name and the fact that she ended up in another dimension/planet. While the graphics and sounds are ok, the game is pretty janky. Saving doesn't work properly, characters speak at different volumes, clicking is unresponsive and sometimes takes several tries, action descriptions don't work on one screen, etc. Puzzles are quite challenging, but for the wrong reasons. There's no show hotspot, items don't disappear after use so you're stuck with them for the whole game, logic can be pretty thin in a few places, and MC isn't very helpful with item/action descriptions. The second chapter is supposed to be bigger and betterer, but we will see. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1751680/A_Twisted_Tale/ RE: Joe's little corner for his little reviews - BobVP - 06-05-2026 A welcome addition to the forum! RE: Joe's little corner for his little reviews - srnickolas - 06-05-2026 I like them, keep them coming. I read them in discord too when i come across them, but I am not very active there. I like the forum more RE: Joe's little corner for his little reviews - Joe - 06-05-2026 Here we go: Slender threads 7.5/10. Difficulty: 6/10. ~5h Stephen King's game, if Stephen King was in the game making business. You are an aspiring writer, struggling with inspiration, stuck in a small town (which may or may not be in Maine) while spooky things happen. Very good on almost every front. VO is great, graphics are nice (kind of reminds me of Return to Monkey Island, but thankfully much, much better), engaging story and sparse but actually funny jokes. What is remarkable is the large number of screens. Normally you get ~10 screens, but here it's easily three, if not four times more. And you can get to most of them early in the game. So no 3 screens at a time kind of gameplay. The downside is that some of these screens are pretty empty gameplay-wise, an item to collect, an action to perform. You get most of the QoL features that any new p'n'c should have. Show hotspot, speed walk, quick travel map, notes on what the main objective is. There is no hint system though. As for the puzzles, they are pretty straightforward and logical. Combine items and use items on hotspots. To be fair, they lack the variety that PRIM had. -0.5 point for the ending. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1116480/Slender_Threads/ The Brilliant Coup - 8/10. Difficulty:  7.5/10. ~12h heist game about a British bloke who wants to get rich by robbing a bank. A little game that could. I enjoyed it very much, which is strange since it should be a game I wouldn't like. Let's start with the UI. It has old school SCUMM-like verb-based controls, which is fine on its own. But here it feels very clunky, in other similar games you left click on something, the game assumes what action you want to use, e.g. if you click on door you automatically use "open", if you click on NPC it's "talk", item - "pick up" etc. But not here, left-clicking doesn't do anything on its own and you always have to select a verb first, so first click "open" then "door". Same with items, if you want to combine them, first "use", then item, then another item. Luckily, the right-click is always "look at". Another thing is no VO. Personally I don't mind it. I would rather play a long game without VO than a short one with it. But I guess reading is going out of fashion, so some people might see it as a deal breaker for them. There is almost no QoL. Pixel hunting is a thing, no map, no fast travel. There are some items that you literaly can throw away in the trash, but there are others that stay with you for the entire game, cluttering up your inventory. There is no hint system (but the dev has made a walkthrough on the official site). Despite all this, the game is great. It has the unique promise of planning the heist, gathering information and preparing for the big day. I wish there were more p'n'c games about thieves (especially since almost all p'n'c MCs are kleptomaniacs), there is even a subplot to make sure you have a way out if things go wrong, and the game has 3 different endings. The puzzles are hard but logical and very satisfying to solve. Some of them have multiple solutions, which is nice, but it means you end up with a few useless items in your inventory. Anyway, it will probably fly under the radar with all the big games coming out that everyone has been waiting for 5+ years. So for anyone who wants that old school, challenging p'n'c feel, I highly recommend giving it a try. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2709360/THE_BRiLLiANT_COUP/ Primordia - 8/10. Difficulty: 7/10. ~6h game about a robot handyman trying to get his battery back. "But dude," I hear some of you say, "how could you never play Primordia before? It is one of the games that restarted the p'n'c genre. Have you no shame?" And it is true. I am very ashamed to have beaten it only now. To be fair, I've played it twice, but both times I got stuck in the exact same place early on. I didn't want to spoil the fun, so I decided to play it "later". Now I man up and solve the stuck part, play about 90% of it and get stuck again. But this time I really didn't want to put it on the shelf for another 5 years, so I took a hint. So here it is, my p'n'c sin: I have only just beaten Primordia and I used the hint to do it. So about the game. I don't know if there's anything to say at this point. I could just as easily talk about Grim Fandango or Monkey Island. Everyone knows it, everyone has played it. But I will say this - I really wish this game came out with a show hotspot option, the game is mostly brown and pixel hunting was a bit annoying. https://store.steampowered.com/app/227000/Primordia/ Murder On Space Station 52 - 5.5/10. Difficulty: 4.5/10. ~5h Sci-fi, aquatic, noir murder mystery in space. A phrase you don't see very often. And it's the game's biggest strength. Very interesting setting with pleasant audio-visuals. Scenes are hand-drawn, with occasional odd perspectives/angles. The music is nice and fitting, but the VO can sometimes be quite "dry" or in poor quality. Too bad the rest is not so good. The game has 9 chapters. Each chapter has 3-5 screens and 5-9 items that are lost between chapters. While in theory the puzzles can be quite challenging, they are actually trivial as you have very limited options/hotspots to interact. It's worth mentioning that there are quite a few mini-games with varying levels of difficulty. The story could also use some improvement. You don't really solve anything, you just do some odd jobs for NPCs, so in return they can point you to the next character so you can do more odd jobs. In the end you end up with a list of suspects with their personal traits and based on the murder profile you have to decide who is the killer. Overall, I think Dev ran out of time/money and had to finish the game to send it to the backers.  Which is most noticeable in the sudden, abrupt ending. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1872780/Murder_On_Space_Station_52/ The Beekeeper's Picnic - A Sherlockian Adventure 6.5/10. Difficulty: 5/10. ~3h game about Sherlock's adventure during his retirement. Pretty wholesome story about long-term friendship. During which you will solve few low key mysteries (like where is the cat, or how to find a strange looking dead rat). Puzzles are ok, but not really difficult. There is a lack of some QoL, such as fast walking and showing hotspots. Animation is choppy and scrolling is pretty bad. On the other hand there is a hint system, good VO, nice pixel graphics and you make some choices that are reflected during the epilogue. I think there are many references to the Sherlock Holmes books, but I haven't read any, so it may not be 100% true. Overall pleasant little game, but to be fair I think it is a little too short, a few more puzzles would do wonders here. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2248890/The_Beekeepers_Picnic__A_Sherlockian_Adventure/ The Abandoned Planet 8/10. Difficulty: 5.5/10. ~3h Myst-like game about a space explorer who has crashed on a mysterious planet. I have a difficult relationship with Myst games. On the one hand I love the atmosphere of loneliness, exploration, logic based puzzles and deducing what is actually going on. On the other hand, I hate FPP games, as I suffer from motion sickness and they make me physically ill. So Myst like game + 2D pixel graphics is a match made in heaven for me. And boy oh boy! This one has the soul. Graphics, audio, feeling, variety of puzzles, (almost) everything is as it should be. But there are a few things. First of all, it's not really difficult. It's not trivial, you still have to understand the "laws" of the setting, you can't just fumble your way through and hope for the best. But if you've played Myst games before, it won't be a (big) challenge. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and I think Abandoned Planet is a great entry point for anyone who wants to give Myst a try, but has heard horror stories about the difficulty and isn't really sure if it's for them. Next is the length, there are lots of screens, but you won't be doing much on most of them. If you don't get stuck, you'll breeze through the game. Last is the VO. It's not bad per se, but it just doesn't feel right. The MC acts like crashing on an alien planet is a typical afternoon for her. And her comments during the game make me feel like I'm on a school trip or watching a children's educational TV show. "Oh look, this brick looks like it's part of something bigger. I wonder what that means? Hmm..." Overall, highly recommended for Myst fans and Myst curious. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2014470/The_Abandoned_Planet/ Elroy and the Aliens 7.5/10. Difficulty: 6/10. ~7h game about a young scientist trying to save his father. This one has very consistent quality throughout the game and all it's aspects. Graphics are good, VO is good, puzzles are good, audio is good, plot is good, jokes are good, length is good, animations are good. Seriously, I think the last time I saw this level of consistent quality was Lucy Dreaming. I have a hard time coming up with complaints that are not nitpicks. So here are the nitpicks: Cutscenes cannot be skipped. Normally not a problem, but there are multiple endings and if you want to see them all, you have to sit through the same few minutes of cutscenes (alt tab does not help). There are multiple characters you control, but you can't choose who to control at any given moment, the game decides for you. It's not Day of the Tentacle. The game is divided into 10 chapters and each chapter is it's own thing (screens, items, puzzles). This makes the game quite easy, since you will solve only a few puzzles at a time and will be limited to a few screens. There is nothing groundbreaking about this game. Everything is great, but nothing is excellent. It's the problem that 99.9% of games wish they had. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1082190/Elroy_and_the_Aliens/ Rosewater 6.5/10. Difficulty: 6/10. ~13h Wild west game about a bunch of strangers who team up to search for a hidden treasure. First of all this game is about characters. The story comes second and the gameplay is just there to keep those two aspects together. There are likable and exceptionally well written characters. A thief and a boxer who became a journalist. Charismatic but slightly goofy cowboy. Young Asian kid, good at cooking and shooting. Empathetic Native American healer. Mexican revolutionary demolition expert. And tough African stagecoach driver and tracker.  Basically cast for the Villige People music video. Story will take you through an alternate history of the Wild West with steampunk and weird science, meeting new people and places along the way. There are 3 acts: introduction to the characters, the journey and conclusion at the destination. Based on your decisions throughout the game there will be different endings and epilogues. Gameplay wise, you will jump from one situation to another, solve trivial to low-mid difficulty puzzles and make some decisions that will change your relationships with your companions. Just like The Walking Dead, The Quary or The Wolf Among Us, but with actual puzzles. I understand that I'm not the target audience for this. I prefer gameplay>story>characters. I don't really care about replayability, so I won't replay the whole game just to see a few changes and maybe a different ending screen. That said, I recognize quality when I see it. The production value is very high, the game is pleasant to look at and listen to (even if some cutscenes are lacking and different characters speak with the same voice). Story and setting are interesting (maybe less deus ex machina ending next time). So even if it wasn't for me, I appreciated it for what it is and had fun playing it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1226670/Rosewater/ The Flayed Man 6/10. Difficulty: 4/10. ~30m horror game about a guy with VERY thin skin. It's like one of those game jam games. You have 4 screens, few items to interact with, short story and few puzzles. Pixel art is pretty good (and quite gruesome), puzzles are not very hard (and there is a hint system), good music and there will be some pixel hunting. Overall fun game and it's free, not anymore. So check it out. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3471670/The_Flayed_Man/ Neon Hearts City: 5.5/10. Difficulty: 5/10. ~2h cyberpunk game about a cop, androids, and an evil corporation. For me, games from Cosmic Void are hit or miss. I really liked Corruption Within. Twilight Oracle was weird but fun. Blood Nova had way more backstory than such a short game should have. Devil's Hideout was straight up unfinished with an abrupt ending. I think there's one persistent problem with Cosmic Void games. The settings are very creative and rich with backstories, but the games are short and mostly unfullfilling. I wish they would create one setting and make multiple games in it to expand on those fun, interesting worlds. Back to Neon Hearts City. It's interesting. It's short. It feels unfinished. There is weird, random item placement. The puzzles are technically hard but actually trivial due to a lack of screens and hotspots. The pixel art is okay, and the OV is good. Overall, it feels like an extra-long Game Jam project. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3316640/Neon_Hearts_City/ Dragonsphere: 7.5/10. Difficulty:7.5/10. Score: 240/250 ~7h classic point-and-click game about a king on an epic quest to defeat an evil sorcerer. I must say, this game cured my p'n'c fatigue. After playing all those easy/narrative/short games, going back to the past was the right move. Pros: - Surprisingly good animation that is very fluid with a large variety of moves. - Good music and sound effects - Nice plot with some twists. - Detailed descriptions of basically everything - No dead ends. However, you can block yourself from the best ending if you miss something or do things in the wrong order (like I did). - Many items, locations, and hotspots. So trying everything on everything is not (a valid) option. - The biggest pros is the just-right difficulty level, hard, but not insanely hard. Solving them was very satisfying. I never felt like, "Oh, come on, that was the solution?" or got bored with basic, casual, non-puzzles. That said, some puzzles were quite devilish. For example, making a poem from a few dozen words or getting past the spirit maze. Cons: - The king walked as if he were on vacation, not on a quest to save his kingdom. Thankfully, you can press the space bar to hurry him up (but it doesn't always work). You can also use the DosBox speedup (Alt+F12). - The art is quite muddy and blurred which is ironic since the only time I used hint was because I missed the "mud" item. - The voice-over is low quality, which is fine since it's an old game. However, the VO actors were quite wooden, stiff, and emotionless. - There is no modern QoL features. There is no show hotspot or fast forward. There is even password protection right in the middle of the game. - The interface is not that bad, but it's still quite clunky. Read the manual before playing to get a hang of it. Overall, it's a great game, but it could use the remaster treatment. I don't know how it plays on Steam since I played the GOG version with DOSBox. https://www.gog.com/pl/game/dragonsphere D3AD HAND: 7/10. Difficulty 6.5/10. ~4h indie point-and-click game about a Russian soldier amidst the Cold War arms race. Actually, it's two games, or more accurately, two chapters. D3AD HAND is like a one-hour prologue with mostly logic/math/IQ-test-type puzzles. It's short and sweet, but heavy on fourth wall jokes. R3D STAR is where the game shines. It's longer (three hours) and has more exploration and puzzle variety. There are multiple locations to discover, two characters to play, and even multiple endings. The puzzles are mostly fair, but expect some minor pixel hunting, as there is no option to show hotspots. On the other hand, there is a hint system. I've experienced some bugs and things I shouldn't have been able to do, as well as occasional game freezing. But nothing truly game-breaking. It's cheap, fun and charming, go play it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3140810/D3AD_HAND/ Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer — 7.5/10. Difficult 6/10. ~7h horror detective game is about finding a serial killer terrorizing the local community. I played KR1 a few years ago, but I barely remember it. There have been quite a few p'n'c games with a female main character solving mysteries with supernatural elements. Thankfully, there is a recap before starting the game, which is surely needed. If you haven't played KR1 in a while (and especially if you haven't played it at all) I'd say it's a good idea to play it before this one to fully understand the story. Now, the plot. While it's not the most complicated or deepest murder mystery ever, it could be quite convoluted because of the large cast of named characters. It shouldn't be a problem, but I recommend playing it in one sitting to better keep track of what's going on. Other than that, it's standard learning the story by talking to people, gathering clues and enjoying the occasional spooky scene. A big part of the game is the MC. It feels like the developers made a "bad girl" bingo out of her. She drinks, does drugs, rides motorcycles, curses, has daddy issues, wears a leather jacket and ripped jeans, has a sarcastic attitude, has dyed hair, acts like a bitch, has facial piercings and overall is kind of a parasite. I don't know how she has any friends other than that they are needed for the plot. Okay, I get it; she's a bad apple. But at some point, I found her to be over the top and comedic. At least she didn't go on a rampage of punching people in the face. Puzzles. They are the standard kind. They were a little bit hand-holding, not that difficult and logical. But there were also three harder deduction-based puzzles (a test quiz, cracking the code, and hacking a computer) that I found really fun and satisfying. Even with many strong titles like PRIM and Rosewatter, KR2 dwarfs them in terms of artwork. It had been a while since I had seen such nice pixel art. I was truly amazed by the level of detail and work that went into this game. I don't think we'll see anything of such quality for some time (Other than The Drifter, but it has a more obulky style of pixel art) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466390/Kathy_Rain_2_Soothsayer/ The Drifter: 8.5/10. Difficulty: 4/10. ~7 hours fast-paced p'n'c B-movie horror game. It's the game I was most excited about this year. And it delivers. Pros: - It has a great atmosphere and style. The music and art are both great. I especially liked the lighting and hard shadows. - The plot starts off strong. You don't have to wait for 90% of the game to start for creepy stuff to happen. You're thrown into the deep end from the beginning. - I usually don't care about VO. But this time, the MC's narration adds a lot to the atmosphere. It's emotional and intense when it should be. - The puzzles are logical and fun to solve. They're a little on the easy side. There is also a heavy emphasis on timed puzzles. I think they're a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they give rise to a feeling of danger and are awesome to solve on your first try. On the other hand, they can be frustrating if you get stuck on them multiple times, and some people may feel defeated when they finally beat them. - Awesome flawed MC. He's not your standard beautiful, competent, strong character. Rather, he's a deeply flawed average Joe who gets thrown into serious trouble and desperately tries to survive. He is somewhat like John McClane, beaten time and time again, yet manages to come out on top in the end. For me, this is more badass than a character who effortlessly punches hustlers on street corners. Cons: - The game frequently fades to black, providing only narration of what is happening. I guess it's because of budget restraints, but I found it jarring, especially in contrast with the insane production value of the rest of the game. - The game is divided into chapters. This means that every hour or so, the locations and items reset. Which makes the game easier than I would like it to be. At a few points, it feels more like a visual novel. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1170570/The_Drifter/ RE: Joe's little corner for his little reviews - Joshua AGH - 06-06-2026 This is a great idea. I love when you make your reviews on our Discord. Now they won’t get buried RE: Joe's little corner for his little reviews - Joe - 06-06-2026 Old Skies: 7/10. Difficulty 4.5/10. ~12h interactive fiction about a time travel agency agent doing odd jobs over the span of 200 years. It's a pretty nice story where small and big choices have unforeseen consequences. One thing leads to another, like a domino effect or the butterfly effect. It's also about belonging, change, and loss. It's about how all of that affects you. But that's it. It's mostly a story. Similar to Rosewater, you solve some fairly easy puzzles, but most of the time, you read or listen to dialogue. On more than one occasion, I found myself wondering, "Why isn't it a book?". The puzzles you get are more "event" based than "item/hotspot" and some of them require repetition to solve them. The game looks good, and so does the VO. The music really didn't work for me. I get tired of this music really fast. I understand the desire for a more somber atmosphere, but it makes me feel like I'm in a dentist's waiting room. One more thing to note: There are strong DEI elements in this game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1346360/Old_Skies/ Loco Motive: 8.5/10. Difficulty: 5/10. ~9h old-school point-and-click game about solving a murder mystery on a train. I finally played it and it only took me almost a year. There isn't much to say about it that hasn't already been said. It plays well, sounds nice, and looks VERY nice (those animations are stellar). The puzzles weren't too hard, but they were proper puzzles, and it was good to play a new point-and-click game that wasn't 90% visual novel. But I have some nitpicks. I'm not a fan of chapters in point-and-click games. They make the game look small and heavily lower the difficulty. Most of the game takes place on a train, and the carts are obviously in a linear order. This makes for a lot of running if you're in the last car and need to get to the first one. It's not a big deal, but it would be nice to have a map. It can be wordy at times, but not as much as other new adventure games. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709880/Loco_Motive/ The Biggleboss Incident: 6.5/10. Difficulty : 5/10 ~3h p'n'c parody of corporate culture. You are late for work, and you need to give a presentation on a project you know nothing about. But that's fine; you're a slacker extraordinaire, so you'll manage. The worst part is that you can't get to your office because of myriad (corporate) obstacles in your way. It's a pretty solid game. The art is okay (the characters are quite bland), the music is serviceable, and the plot is fun with some twists. Everyone is snarky and a wiseass, so the dialogue can become tedious after a while. There are many screens, but usually, you only need to do one thing in each of them. The puzzles are okay—neither too difficult nor too easy. While it wasn't necessary, I really liked the "to-do list" feature, which keeps you on track with your objectives. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2967630/The_Biggleboss_Incident The Hand of Glory: 7.5/10. Difficulty: 6.5/10 ~12h Broken Sword-like. I was surprised by this game. I had no expectations and thought it would be one of those cute, little indie games. However, I quickly realized that it's a great game that is unfortunately held down by a myriad of little things. But first, the pros: - The puzzles are great—the real highlight of the game. They are challenging but logical. There is a fair variety of them, with many hotspots, items, and locations, so brute-forcing solutions is not a viable way to solve them. There are also many helpful little hints to ease the frustration. For example, when you try to use a tool on a powered-up object, you don't get a generic "I can't do it," but rather, "First, I need insulation to avoid electrocution." - The characters are likeable and have unexpected depth. - The intriguing detective story has some supernatural elements. - It's a lengthy game. Even though it's in two parts, each part could easily take six or more hours. The nitpicks: - The graphics are bland but not without charm. The characters look especially flat, and the backgrounds are better but also nothing to write home about. - The only good thing I can say about the music is that it isn't annoying. - The voice-over is uneven. Fortunately, the MC has good-quality VO, but some characters sound like they're talking through a pipe, and others have different volumes of speech in the same sentence. - I admit that I'm not good at remembering names (of locations and people). So, when the game throws a bunch of them at me — many of which are Italian — I get a little confused at times. - It didn't bother me much, but there is a linear way to do things. You can't take items before doing other things or talking to a specific person. It gets to the point where MC blatantly tells you, "I don't need it now. I'll steal it later." As I said, it doesn't bother me much since it increases the difficulty of the puzzles, but I feel it's a little arbitrary which items you can take immediately and which you can't. - In some places, lines of text are unreadable. The fonts are often the same color as the background, to the point that I thought it was a deliberate move by the developers. While there are technically two MCs, you can rarely play as Alice. It's a shame, since she has her own little fun gimmick. Anyway, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to scratch that Broken Sword itch. There should be a sequel soon(ish): Roots in the Sky — The Hand of Glory 2. This time, I have high hopes for it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/961010/The_Hand_of_Glory/ Brain Hotel: Remodeled: 5.5/10. Difficulty 6/10. ~1.5h game about stopping the mad scientist from destroying the whole hotel. You are a delivery man living in a town populated by super villains. After your girlfriend ran away with your dog (after he rapidly evolved, gained sentience, started walking on two legs, and stole your girlfriend), you decided to become a delivery man. Now, you need to deliver a package to a villain and stop him from using it to do evil. This remake of an old flash verb-based game. It's short, small, and plain-looking (with six screens and a dozen items). Despite that, it's challenging at times. Mostly because it won't hold your hand at all. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2648510/Brain_Hotel_Remodeled Wildwood Down: 8/10. Difficulty 7/10 ~10h game about a guy with Down syndrome trying to find his missing sister. At first, I thought it would be one of those games that prioritizes representation and "messages" over gameplay. But I was wrong. Sure, the main character has Down syndrome, but it's not the core thing around which the whole game spins. There is no pandering or signaling how brave and powerful he is for being different. He's just a guy, and I love it. There's a lot to like. - The puzzles are varied and challenging. They range from standard inventory puzzles to spotting patterns during a wrestling match to sneaking around in underwater warehouse. - There is also extra stuff, like playing games at the arcade. It's not necessary to finish the game, but it's fun if you're into it. - The music is awesome and really fits the vibe of a seaside party. - The story is crazy but fun. It's a mix of comedy and thriller with twists and turns at every corner. It's like watching a B-movie comedy from the early 2000s. - The characters are easy to like or hate. Especially Miggy (the MVP) she's fully invested in your story and will support you emotionally and actively. No questions asked. The cons: - The art style wasn't my thing, a weird mixture of pixel art and 3D. - The camera was horrible, constantly moving and panning. The angles were often weird. - There are also some questionable arcade/stealth puzzles. There is one truly terrible one near the end. Thankfully, you can skip it. Overall, it's a fun and surprisingly challenging game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2575370/Wildwood_Down/ The Supper: New Blood: 6/10. Difficulty 3.5/10. ~3h story about a motel manager dedicated to serving his guests (if you know what I mean). It's a game cooked by our friend and gentleman @Octavi Navarro In short, this game is like stew made of: Day of the Tentacle (art style), The Addams Family (tone), and Hannibal Lecter/Psycho (themes). It's a delicious looking black comedy. You are tasked with judging your guests and bringing them to justice, culinary style. There is a game loop: choose a guest, interrogate them, find the ingredients, cooking time and go to sleep. Finding the ingredients is the meat of the game but is very easy, borderline trivial and shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes. The cooking has QTEs that you can slow down in the options if you don't like them. The rest is reading, about 80% of the game. It boils down to two questions: Do you play for the story, characters, and vibe? Do you think puzzles are pesky annoyances that keep you from advancing the plot? If so, disregard my rating; it will be an 8/10 for you. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3032010/The_Supper_New_Blood/ Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken: 7/10. Difficulty 3/10 ~15h Silent Hill-like game about a girl looking for her dead brother's soul in the sleep world. It's the 4th installment in the Deep Sleep series, and it diverges greatly from the old formula. There are barely any puzzles to solve, and the ones that exist are quite easy. It's a game about story, exploration, fighting, but most importantly, resource management. You have four things to look after: health, mana, items, and XP. Mana is primarily used to create new items. You can use XP to buy new skills, level up your stats, and gain access to new items. All of these resources are in limited amounts and cannot easily be replenished. Even items can only be used a few times before breaking down. So, the gameplay looks something like this: There is an enemy in the room. You can fight it to gain XP, but you will probably lose some HP. Do you have weapons for the fight? You can always make a new one using mana. However, there's a chance you'll need that mana later to craft a screwdriver, shovel, or pickaxe to solve a puzzle or clear an obstacle. Fights can be hard, especially if you mismanage your resources or show up unprepared. There are a bunch of bosses and secret minibosses. Defeating them gives you access to powerful items. As I said, it's a sequel to the Deep Sleep trilogy. While you can play it as a standalone game with no problem, it's still a sequel. To fully understand the story, it would be a good idea to play the previous games before playing this one. They're pretty good, and you can finish all of them in under two hours. There are also references to the Don't Escape series, but they aren't important to the plot. The biggest con of the game is the constant backtracking. It's a shame, especially since you already have an in-game map, so making the fast travel function should be an easy thing to add. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1868360/Deep_Sleep_Labyrinth_of_the_Forsaken The Order of the Thorne: The King's Challenge: 6.5/10. Difficulty 5/10. ~2.5h game is about a wandering bard who takes part in the yearly royal game. I had never heard of this game before I stumbled upon it by pure chance. I'm glad I did, since it's a solid game. It's not long, and some QoL features would be nice to have. The VO and music weren't to my liking, but maybe that's just me. Other than that, it looks nice, plays well, the puzzles are fun and the story is OK. There's some simple charm to it. Good people are good, and bad people are bad. There are no crazy plot twists or subverted expectations; you get what you see. It's supposed to have a sequel, but it's been almost 10 years, so it's safe to say it won't happen. https://store.steampowered.com/app/425600/The_Order_of_the_Thorne__The_Kings_Challenge/ Carnival: 6/10. Difficulty 4.5/10 ~3h visual novel about an English journalist walking around 1930s Venice and discovering spooky stuff. It's mostly talking, with some trivial puzzles here and there. It's a shame, really. Their last game, Abscission, was a solid point-and-click game with creepy visuals and an interesting story. Here, we still have a cool story, but it's told in a bizarre way. For the first three quarters of the game, you talk to people about whether they like Mussolini and if Venice should be part of Italy or an independent republic. But then the game goes from 1 to 100 in no time. Creepy stuff comes into play, mixing Eyes Wide Shut with typical eldritch horror. I hope the developers return to a more traditional point-and-click style in the future, especially since it looks like they want to create a shared universe for their games. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2928770/Carnival/?curator_clanid=44812749 Neyyah: 6.5/10. Difficulty 6.5/10 ~15h Riven-like reading comprehension test. Oh boy, this one was tough to rate. It gets a lot right, but at the same time, other things just flat out miss the mark. It doesn't help that I enjoyed it most at the beginning and end, while the middle part just made me grumpy. I believe some people will have the exact opposite experience. It's heavily inspired by Riven, so I will be making comparisons to it (the old one; I didn't play the remake). Controls - for my positive surprise, the controls are not full 360-degree free roam (like in Myst 3 or Quern), but rather, old-school warping through screens (Myst 1/Riven). I really appreciate this, since it allowed me to play the game without feeling unwell (I have motion sickness). I can barely play Quern, and sadly, I can't play Firmament for more than 15 minutes. That said, I'm pretty baffled by this decision and wonder why it's not full 3D. To be fair, at the beginning of the game, moving between screens can be confusing. Where am I? What am I looking at? How did I get here? Did I just turn around? QoL - it is one aspect of the game that is better than Riven. You have a handheld teleporter. While not flawless, it speeds up travel through zones. Next, in options you can turn on fast travel. It works so that you can click on any visible location, and you will be transferred to it without having to travel through every screen. You can also highlight hotspots. This is great, but it doesn't always work. The only time I needed a hint was when the "show hotspot" feature didn't show me the brown object on a brown background. It was literally the last thing I needed to finish the game, and I'm still ?  about it. Visuals - Similar to Riven, you find yourself in an aquatic environment. You walk through small rocky islands and listen to the sounds of the native fauna. However, in Riven, you are in more rural areas with sporadic high-tech machinery. Here, you are in a more industrial zone, constantly surrounded by arcane technology. It looks pretty, but it lacks the mysterious, lonely tone of Riven. There are also cutscenes with live actors. I don't know if it was deliberate, but the acting was campy and awkward. Gameplay/puzzles - the biggest difference between this game and Riven. At first, you're doing the same thing. Walk around and try to understand what is going on. But, as in Riven, you can explore at your own pace, making observations and notes. In Neyyah, you are BOMBARDED with terminology from the very beginning: "Welcome to Olujay. Now, take this jalood and fly to the Felitsu Island, where you will find the Taleeta Portal. Normally, it would teleport you to the Niyashka Pool, but right now, it will take you to the Payeeta Factory." Wut? You might think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. There are 10 different types of portals, each with its own name, and dozens of places with names in both the native language and "modern" terms. There are also different plants and animals. Tech and concepts. You will constantly be juggling dozens of similar-looking names and trying to figure out what they mean. To help you with this, there are journals, books, and notes. This is where the majority of the gameplay lies. There are easily 300 pages of text scattered throughout the game. You will carry seven journals with you - around 100 pages. You will constantly read them to figure out from the context what different words mean, what the codes are, how a specific piece of machinery works, and its function. The gameplay looks something like this: Read about what to do. Go to the place. It's locked. Find the note about the lock and the key. Go to the location of the key. You need a code. Look for the book about codes. The information is somewhere on those 20 pages. Gather everything you need and turn on the machine. Repeat. It sounds like the game is trivial; you just need to read what to do. But remember, first you need to understand dozens of alien words, and then you need to look for this specific information on a specific note on a specific screen. Since transition areas between screens are not highlighted in the show hotspots option, it's quite easy to miss some of them. There is a "hint" system to guide you with notes like "I need to input a color code on this console. Where did I see those colors before?" I honestly don't know if it's a hint system or if you're supposed to use them in normal gameplay. Maybe they make the game less confusing and tedious. I don't know; I didn't use them. Overall, I had a both good and bad time with this game. Most of the time, I mindlessly walked from one tower, machinery, or console to another and pushed buttons without knowing what they were for. After I figured out what everything meant, I started to enjoy the game more. But by that time, I was almost at the end of the game. So take my rating with a grain of salt. If you're more into deciphering the meaning behind the words and combing through hundreds of pages for information, you'll like it more. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1289720/Neyyah The Darkest Dusk: 5/10. Difficulty 5/10 ~3.5 h free game about an evil cyberpunk corporation and a guy who somehow decided to stop it. Okay, listen. I don't want to bash this game too hard. It's the first game from a solo developer. It's free, the graphics are interesting (think Another World meets synthwave), the music is mostly okay, and there's some interesting world-building. But it's not a good game. In one word, I would call this game tedious. There is a very specific chain of events that needs to happen for the game to move forward. At some point, you need to try every possible combination before MC will say, "I can't do it. Let's talk to this guy and ask for help." You can't just talk to someone before the game allows it. You can't just pick up an item; first, you need to look at it. You can't double-click to exit a screen immediately. And when you get the option for fast travel, it doesn't work for some reason on some screens. You can skip the dialogue line by clicking the mouse button, but only after 2 seconds (???). There are a few easy puzzles and a plot with unbelievable and forced relationship. There's about an hour of gameplay that was stretched by constantly wasting your time. At some point, I just wanted the game to end. That said, I don't think it was deliberate and the developer was just inexperienced in game design rather than actively malicious (as in The Adventures of the Black Hawk). And I hope he makes more and better games in the future. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3851650/The_Darkest_Dusk/ Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice: 9/10. Difficulty: 7.5/10. ~15h long and hard (pun intended) classic p'n'c game in style, execution and form. I played the first Wet Dreams a while ago and it was OK. So when I started playing this one, I didn't expect anything too spectacular. But oh boy, was I wrong. But first, the bad. Mainly the bugs. There are a lot of them. Thankfully, none of them are game breaking. Most of them were tied to the translation (I haven't played it in English). So, if you're playing in English or German, you should be fine. The gameplay is exactly what I was looking for. No tiny chapters, no small locations and no trivial puzzles. In old-school style, after a few hours of gameplay, the game opens up and leaves you to explore the world with its many characters and locations. You will travel between different islands, solving puzzles that require items and clues from all over the place (think Monkey Island 2). There is a good variety of puzzles (in terms of both type and difficulty): typical inventory-based puzzles, mazes and dialogue-based puzzles (there is one that tests your knowledge of Sierra games and nerd stuff). There is one recurring puzzle type where Larry needs to assemble a device from blueprints using less than ideal, mostly improvised parts. The plot is simple: save the girl, save the day. It's a typical story, but with the expected silliness and wackiness. However, there is one thing the plot doesn't want to do. It doesn't want to end. Just when you think you're at the end, surprise. We're not done yet. Humour: well, this one is subjective. As you can imagine, there are a lot of sex jokes. But other than that, they poke fun at a lot of things: nerd culture, e-celebs, corporations, gender, political correctness, and more. Basically, all the weirdness of the modern world is commented on from the perspective of a clueless man who was literally taken from the '80s and thrown into the present day. What is surprising is that it's a game from 2020, the middle of the age of hypersensitivity. Yet the game doesn't shy away from making 'unsafe' jokes that spare no one. I love it, but if you are easily offended, or worse, offended on behalf of others, you may want to skip this one. Production value: it has nice, cartoonish graphics and decent VO work. All of the QoL are there so it's should not ba any frustration on ths front. It was partially funded by the EU, and it shows (mostly in the game's length). Once again, I highly recommend this one to anyone who wants the classic p'n'c experience and isn't easily scared by (a lot of) sex jokes. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1373430/Leisure_Suit_Larry__Wet_Dreams_Dry_Twice RE: Joe's little corner for his little reviews - Octavi Navarro - 06-07-2026 Nice! I love your reviews and thanks to this thread I won't miss any. I'm on a quest to play more p'n'cs this year, so this will be a great guide. RE: Joe's little corner for his little reviews - Joe - 06-07-2026 Splittown: 6.5/10. Difficulty: 4/10. ~5h “jagged” spy game in the style of the Cold War. This is one of those games I've been waiting for for a long time, interested in the style of the graphics. And when it comes to the audio-visual execution, there aren't many things I could complain about. The music is catchy and fits the spy atmosphere, and the graphics are reminiscent of LucasArts games. Strange, sharp angles, things in the foreground, flat colors with shadows. The QoL is on par with today productions, with a fast travel map, hint system, and hotspot highlighting (which can be turned on and off in the options, which will satisfy pixel hunting enthusiasts and those who are not interested in it). Unfortunately, the controls are lacking. The bizarre switching between actions is not intuitive and takes a moment to get used to. The puzzles are partly standard inventory-based and partly spy-like:  codes, ciphers, and cryptic devices. Overall, they may not be trivial, but they are not particularly difficult. The last puzzle is timed with a 30-minute limit (I had 6 minutes left when I finished). It is worth noting that some things are optional, especially one “big” puzzle. The story/plot is about an agent of a fictional intelligence agency during the Cold War. And this is where the game's biggest drawback begins. The whole thing is “disjointed.” We're talking about characters we haven't seen before and won't see again. The aforementioned side quest is about the fate of one of these characters, which made it difficult for me to get interested. In addition, there are weird characters like a humanoid badger. In the background, we have mayoral elections, information about the war, and the past of some characters. There is also information about the titular Splittown, which is not really “split” and does not feel like a “town” because we are in one district throughout the entire game. Combining this with the fact that many items remain in your inventory after use, and some of them may not be used at all (the reward for a side quest is an item that bypasses another puzzle), the whole thing made the game feel “chaotic” to me and left me with an “uneasy” feeling. Ultimately, the game left me with the feeling that it was a much bigger game that was partially left behind. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2117400/Splittown/ Utter a Name: 7.5/10. Difficulty: 7/10. ~2h detective game about mysterious murders in an old mansion. Essentially Obra Dinn in 2D. Minimalist sound and graphics. Nevertheless, very stylish and aesthetic. Simple graphics are also deliberately used to “hide” certain elements and “emphasize” others at the same time. If something looks distinctive, it probably means it's important. Despite its short length, the game does not hold your hand. You are thrown in at the deep end and it is up to you to figure out what to do and how. No context, no tutorial (except for basic controls), no hint system. Just you and your brainpower. Good luck. At first, the slow movement of the characters may be off-putting, but fortunately, there is fast travel to rooms we have already been to. The controls are a bit “stiff” and mainly use the keyboard. But you can get used to them fairly quickly. It is relatively unknown; I came across this game by accident and was surprised by its quality. I recommend it to anyone who is not afraid of slightly more difficult games. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3213430/Utter_a_Name/ Scholar Adventure: Mystery of Silence: 6/10. Difficulty level 3/10. ~90m p'n'c horror game about a mysterious abbey. Not much to say about this one. It looks good, very atmospheric music, standard gameplay. The puzzles are rather easy and straightforward. The story is standard: something creepy is happening in a creepy place. There are two different endings depending on whether you did an additional thing during the game. Overall, the whole game gives the impression that it's not trying to be a big, serious production, but rather a short, light-hearted story among many similar stories to come. If that's true, I'm looking forward to the next installment. I recommend it if you happen to have some stew cooking and nothing else to do for the next few dozen minutes. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3929410/Scholar_Adventure_Mystery_of_Silence/ Alice in the Manor: 7.5/10. Difficulty: 8.5/10. 64 puzzle-long escape room type game in which you need to help the titular Alice pass her final exam. You are a wizard Alice and we welcome you to the magical university. But there is no room for dimwits here. First, go to the manor where we will test your perception, logical thinking, pattern recognition and deductive skills. After four months, I finally beat this game. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy. Most of the time, I was stuck on a puzzle and needed days, or even weeks, between gaming sessions to gather my thoughts. Most of the time, this helped. With a fresh mind, I could solve puzzles that I had previously spent hours trying to figure out. That's why I think it is pointless for me to tell you how long the game is, since (even more than usual in p'n'c games) playtime depends solely on you. As I said, there are 64 puzzles across many rooms. They vary from medium to very hard in difficulty. There is no difficulty curve. The first room is as difficult as every other room in the game. In fact, the first room (after the tutorial) was one of the trickiest for me. The game provides you with the bare minimum of clues to solve the puzzles, and if you can't make a specific connection between them, you'll get stuck. Luckily for those who struggle, there is a hint system that can help you with the puzzle you are stuck on. I used it 5 times after solving the puzzles, as I had accidentally managed to solve a few of them after trying things out and wanted to check what the intended solution was. There is no real plot here, no NPCs or dialogue. Almost every line of text relates to the puzzles. The art is simple yet clear and effective. You will know what is what without any cheap tricks, such as numbers looking alike or colours that are very similar. Nothing is accidental, and every single thing on the screen could be a clue to help you solve a puzzle. I would highly recommend it if: - you want to challenge yourself - you don't give up easily - you don't mind a purely gameplay experience without any fluff. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3424980/Alice_in_the_Manor/ Cult Vacui: 7/10. Difficulty: 3/10. ~90 minute p'n'c game about stopping an evil cult from summoning a demon. I really enjoyed playing this game. The pixel art is creepy and well done. The music is fitting. The plot is basic but interesting. The game has three acts that revolve around the titular cult. Each act has a time limit, but it's not in real time. Some actions take a certain amount of time, so you need to hurry if you don't want a bad ending. The game is pretty generous with this, though, so you will probably finish the act with some time to spare. The puzzles remind me of the Don't Escape series. You need to complete a number of tasks, and you will be rated on how many you finished before the time ran out. Unfortunately, the puzzles are very easy, and most of the time the game will tell you exactly what to do, or at least heavily hint at the solution.  This makes the game quite short, as it's unlikely that you'll get stuck at any point (unless you fail to notice an item or hotspot). Overall, I wish there was more to the game. But for this low price, I think it's fair. I recommend it to anyone who wants a quick creepy game for an afternoon. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3564670/Cult_Vacui/ Shadows of the Afterland: 6/10. Difficulty: 3.5/10. ~3h p'n'c game about a ghost entering the afterlife with messed up memories. I'm afraid that, other than the very nice audio-visuals (the music reminded me of the Psychonauts), it's a pretty average game. The story is about a struggling mother who died in unusual circumstances. After arriving in the afterlife, her memories were replaced by those of another person who had not yet been born. So, you need to figure out what happened. In doing so, you will travel between the afterlife and the world of the living. The plot is intriguing at first, with some twists, but it feels rushed at the end. You can talk to ghosts about how they died. This is not connected with the main plot at all and feels like padding to make the game a little longer. The game makes quite a few references to historical events around WW2, so it feels quite 'Spanish'. For someone who doesn't know much about Spain, like me, it was more confusing than educational. The puzzles are linear, especially at the end. You talk to someone, they tell you where to go and what to do. You do it and then go to another person for new directions. Throughout the entire game, there are perhaps two occasions when you need to work on more than one puzzle at the same time. The puzzles themselves are quite easy, as you almost always know where to go and what to do. The fact that the screens are pretty empty, with only a few hotspots, makes the whole thing even easier. Overall, it's not a bad game. It's a good-looking game. I enjoyed it, but it just doesn't offer anything exceptional. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2506100/Shadows_of_the_Afterland/ The Dark Rites of Arkham 6.5/10. Difficulty: 4/10. ~5h p'n'c game set in the world of Lovecraftian myths. From the creators of Nightmare Frames and An English Haunting, this time we’re not delving into the world of B-movie horror or classic "Penny Dreadful" tales, but into the world of Cthulhu. I’ll say right off the bat that this isn’t a hardcore horror story. Jokes and swearing appear regularly, and despite the brutal scenes and themes, there’s no depressing atmosphere. Instead, we get camp and pulp stories. The story itself is interesting, with a few plot twists, and we explore all kinds of places in Lovecraft's setting. Along the way, we learn a few interesting facts about his work. The art style is nice, and the music fits the setting (though I didn’t like it since I’m not a fan of jazz). There’s no VO, which isn’t a problem for me, but I know it might be very important to others. The worst part of the game, in my opinion, are the puzzles. Most of the time, the player isn’t required to think too hard about them. We move from scene to scene without much trouble, and even the lack of a “show hotspot” option doesn’t slow down the gameplay. It’s different in the game’s final act, where the puzzles are more complicated and require a bit of thinking. All in all, it’s a nice game for an afternoon, for those who want to delve into the pulp side of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3566870/The_Dark_Rites_of_Arkham/ Uncle Lee's Cookbook: Five Recipes for Disaster: 7.5/10. Difficulty: 5.5/10 ~2h time and space bending p'n'c game about young Ines fixing the reality that her uncle Lee is constantly messing up. Wow. I didn’t expect that. Very refreshing puzzles that are definitely the best part of the game. From what I’ve seen, there’s not much buzz about this game, so it’s time to change that. The game is divided into a prologue and 5 episodes. Each one has its own gimmick. Episode 1: You have to fix reality because Uncle Lee resets changes in the surroundings mainly your inventory with his gaze. Episode 2: On the way to the bathroom, it turns out that the rooms in the home are looped. Unfortunately, there’s no toilet. So you have to act fast and untangle the apartment. While you’re at it, you might as well help your uncle, who has turned into an eel. Episode 3: During a trip, Lee accidentally drove the van into the space between dimensions. Now you have to jump through time to collect parts from different eras for a device that will fix the situation. Episode 4: The longest episode with the most straightforward gameplay. Ghosts have taken over the town, and using the demo version of the spellbook, you must fix both present and past problems. Episode 5: During a birthday party, reality broke down again. Using your birthday gift, book of rules, you must add new entries to tweak reality so that it eventually returns to normal. In addition to very creative puzzles, another plus is the nice graphics and animations. The game features full voice acting; it's decent but nothing to write home about. The whole game has a lighthearted tone and often features dry humor. The MC is cynical but not annoying. There are QOL features like a hint system and a show hotspots option. But you probably won’t need them, because despite the theoretically complex puzzles, the game is small enough and doesn’t have enough items/screens/hotspots to get stuck for long. And with that, we come to the main issue I have with this game: its length. You can breeze through the whole thing, especially since the quality of the puzzles encourages you to play one episode after another. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3777930/Uncle_Lees_Cookbook_Five_Recipes_for_Disaster/ The Big Hollow: 1982: 6.5/10. Difficulty: 5/10 ~4h deduction game about finding a serial killer. As a rookie FBI agent still learning the ropes, you have a unique opportunity to investigate a series of murders alongside your mentor. I already have a problem with the plot. Namely, we aren’t saving lives or catching criminals. We’re here to learn something under the guidance of a mentor while solving already solved case. And that would be fine if this were the first of several cases. But it’s the entire game, with a possible continuation in a sequel. As a result, the whole game feels like one big tutorial. Not only because of the plot, but also because of the gameplay. We solve the case step by step, and our mentor carefully doses and limits the information and conclusions we can draw. We’ll be told repeatedly that “we’ll come back to this later”, “this will be useful later”, “don’t worry about this for now”. This is a stark contrast to other deduction games like Obra Dinn or Golden Idol, where we’re thrown in at the deep end and have to figure things out on our own. This results in 3 things: The game is easier The game has narrative continuity where new evidence and testimonies contrast with earlier assumptions, creating plot twists. The player learns the basics of profiling and drawing conclusions that can sometimes contradict first impressions or common sense. When I say the game is easier (than other deduction games), I don’t mean it’s trivial. In the second half of the game, there are plenty of clues and evidence, and pinpointing a single detail that fits the question at hand can be tricky. It also doesn’t help that sometimes several things fit the solution, but you have to choose the one the game designers had in mind. Sometimes you get a response like “well thought out, but try looking at it from a different angle,” but most of the time you’ll get a generic answer. The visuals are cartoonish, and there’s no gore or bombastic massacre scenes that often appear in p'n'c horror games, especially those with a Cthulhu setting. Despite this, the investigation deals with a serious matter. The developers didn’t hold back too much, and we’re presented with real-world problems and grim themes like poverty, physical and psychological violence, substance abuse, and prostitution. Despite the hand-holding, I enjoyed the game, especially in the second half. I hope the next installment will be more open-ended and that I won’t have to wait through the entire game for it to let me make the observations and draw the conclusions I noticed right from the start. https://store.steampowered.com/app/4012690/The_Big_Hollow_1982/ The Posthumous Investigation: 4.5/10. Difficulty: 2.5/10 ~15h visual novel about the mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire. “In the paradise city of Rio de Janeiro, a small-time private detective has been assigned a case out of this world. While helping his client, who is on his way to heaven, he must find out who is responsible for his death. Until he does, he is doomed to relive the same day... in the Twilight Zone.” To be honest, instead of a noir vibe, this plot reminds me more of an episode of The Twilight Zone. A deceased person who wants to find out about his own death. A day stuck in a loop. And a lack of information about the MC detective. That said, the case itself and its aspects are more down to earth. We’ll be questioning witnesses and uncovering their lives and all their vices and sins. Jealousy, infidelity, greed, lies, pride, addictions, lust. All the good stuff. The good: - The artwork is nice, with a comic book style. The characters are vivid and have well defined personalities. - The characters themselves are well written. They aren’t one dimensional, and during conversations, you can uncover their previously hidden depth. - The plot itself is interesting, and we’ll discover all sorts of twists and turns. But let’s be honest, this game is character based, not story based. The plot takes a back seat to getting to know the characters and their interactions with one another. - The game is exceptionally user friendly when it comes to organizing clues, testimonies, and connections. Everything is sorted and always available to review so you can refresh your memory on a plot thread or who’s who. The bad: - Aside from the fact that there are only a few puzzles, they range from easy to trivial. They often involve a minigame, or we are told exactly what to do to solve them. - There is no VO. Personally, I consider this a good thing, given how much text there is in the game. Listening to the dialogue would likely extend the game by another 5 hours. But I know that for some people, a game without voice acting is unplayable. - The translation has a few odd phrases and occasional typos. Nothing too serious. The ugly (oh boy): - You could call this a detective game, but not a deductive one. At no point is the player required to  figure things out on their own. All you have to do is talk to people, and the game will automatically save clues and important testimonies. At the end of the day, our dead employer will draw his own conclusions and explain to us what it all means. Even if the player figures out a connection or twist on their own beforehand, there’s no way to act on it in any way. All they can do is wait for it to be explained to them five hours later. Which is very unfortunate, because when interrogating suspects, you can read clues about what’s really going on from their body language and the way they speak. But as I said, the game doesn’t let us do anything about it. - Gameplay, or rather the lack thereof. The entire game consists of walking from place to place. The only decisions we make are where to be at what time and talking to the person who is there. - Time wasting. The game developers are absolutely convinced that wasting the player's time is the best thing ever. Many tasks must be repeated over and over again. Which is understandable in a game with a time loop. But it’s done in the worst possible way. You have to buy bread a dozen times, and each time you have to click through a conversation about whose account to charge the bill to. Each time, you have to click through a “funny” conversation where you give the bread to another character. When you enter a location, you have to click through 3 to 8 sentences before they let you inside. When we talk to a character, time flies, so we won’t finish the conversation before the character cuts it off before it ends, and the next day we’ll have to go through all the steps again to reach them and finish the conversation. The amount of pointless clicking in this game is maddening. It’s borderline criminal. This is a game that’s maybe 3 hours long but has been stretched out to 15. I know I’m not the target audience, so I had trouble rating this game. Especially since I went through various stages of grief while playing. - denial - when I deluded myself that there was more to this game than it initially seemed - anger - when I had to click through a conversation I’d already had dozens of times - pleading - not for the game to be better, but for it to finally end. However, when after 7 hours I saw that I was at 50%: - acceptance - not of the game’s quality, but of the grim realization that I had to grit my teeth, man up, and endure to reach the end of the game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2466900/The_Posthumous_Investigation/