Where do you draw the line for adventure games? Myst is definitely an adventure game, just a first-person one. (Although I must admit that I have never played Myst. I haven't even found a puzzle to solve yet.)

If it's just about solving puzzles, then you can also include the latest Indiana Jones game or Skyrim, because you have to solve puzzles in those too.

And games like “Gerda - A Flame in Winter,” “Martha is Dead,” and probably “What Remains of Edith Finch” are walking simulators that are sometimes more challenging, sometimes less.

For me, this is not a list of the best adventure games, but simply a list of games that people enjoy playing.

A lot of people also prefer adventure games with directly interactive 'other characters' in them - hence, I imagine, the dislike or non-acceptance for things like Myst, The Witness, Edith Finch, etc. Just a hunch.

I've been thinking about this some more, why we are okay with some games being in the genre of Adventure Games and others not; and why can't we call walking sims, visual novels, and other non-traditional games just another step in the progression of the Adventure Game genre.

Here's the thing:

When the genre evolved from Text Adventures to Graphic Adventures, the game was still essentially the same: Explore an environment, pick up items, talk to people, solve puzzles by giving/using items, by observing the environment (the 'spit' puzzle in Monkey Island 2, for example), sometimes by solving a logic puzzle, occasionally but rarely solving a puzzle that involves some time sensitive actions (usually to the player's chagrin).

Going from text to graphic w/text parser, we removed a lot of the reading, but were still performing the same actions.
Going from graphic w/text parser to graphic w/point and click, we are still performing the same actions, but we don't have to type to perform them.
Likewise, going from text to the Legend style interface, we were able to type OR select our actions from lists of nouns and verbs, while also clicking on a picture for help. But the essence of what we were doing was still the same.

Once we progress beyond that point, the actions we are doing change significantly. Visual novels have almost zero to completely zero exploration. Walking simulators have zero to few puzzles and zero to few inventory items, and often zero to little player autonomy as far as where to go --they're more on rails, like a visual novel where you walk between events. Games like Portal and The Forgotten City have puzzles, but play nothing like the original games that coined the genre of Adventure Games. Purely narrative games with no gameplay beyond clicking through text and making the occasional dialogue choice are often superficially similar to Adventure Games because the can look like Adventure Games and prominently feature two elements of Adventure Games, but their lack of puzzles and autonomy kind of make them genre cousins.

Games like Phoenix Wright make a strong case for being a branch of the Adventure Game genre which could be categorized as Adventure Games. Phoenix Wright involves exploration, talking to characters, observation, inventory, puzzles, and story --all in a manner very similar to the original Adventure Games. In short, they have far more in common with the genre than 'not in common'. Likewise the same case could be made for some games which have been called walking sims. I'd call Gone Home an Adventure Game. Likewise Little Misfortune.

I haven't really spent enough time with Obra Dinn (just a couple of hours) and haven't played many other logic/deduction adventure games to comment. Hope to play Golden Idol soon. Oh! I did play Detective Grimoire and am in the middle of Tangle Tower. I'd call those adventure games, but I'm not sure if other people would call them 'logic/deduction' games!

In other news, several of the replies in this thread have made me feel like I have company in my reasons for loving this genre so much. That relaxed sense of pace, doing things on your own time, playing how you want to play.

 That relaxed sense of pace, doing things on your own time, playing how you want to play.

That, for me, is the essence of what I consider an adventure game to be. Being able to leave the character standing without fear of death or injury and not having to manoeuvre (anyone who can spell that word correctly first time: well done!) the character in an athletic or reflex-critical way. I will make allowances for the occasional small action-sequence, like those in Shadow of the Comet, for example. Really everything else - story, puzzles, exploration - is incidental and could be found in any genre of game. 

It's why I would never consider Outer Wilds, Portal or Journey - for me the least-adventurey game on the list - to be adventure games; there's just too much action involved. I keep a list of the adventures I play (have done since about 2009) and although I loved Outer Wilds, Portal and Journey, none of them are on it. But Firewatch is, as are Life is Strange, Chants of Sennaar, the Witness, etc. 

Fear of time running out is a slightly different matter as it is used in some otherwise very sedate games (like The Colonel's Bequest).

@BaronBlubba: Just like graphic adventures, text adventures have evolved over the years. Text adventures can do exactly the same things. And much more! They include all the (sub)genres you don't consider real adventures: Walking sims, choice-based games with no puzzles (in the vein of The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us); puzzle games without much story; puzzle games without an inventory; Mystian games where you don't meet a single soul, and so on. Even in some of the ancient Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls text adventures gameplay consisted mainly of literally following people around to see what they were up to and figuring out what was going on. In short: Text adventures are not proof of anything.

I don't concern myself much with how people define an adventure game -- it's all interpretive, all subjective, all good -- but I do take very seriously people's concerns about the amount and difficulty of action in an adventure game. That's why, for example, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle wasn't eligible. But I know people who NEVER play action games and yet could play and fully enjoy all of Outer Wilds, Portal(s) and Journey. Do they require a bit of hand-eye coordination? Yes. Are they predominantly focused on action? No. Is the action based on quick-twitch reflexes that the vast majority of even adventure game diehards couldn't master? In my experience, no.

So, totally fine if other people draw the line somewhere different. But for the site, a great deal of consideration goes into what should and shouldn't be eligible.

with such broad definitions though every puzzle game could fit in. do they need reflexes? mostly no. should stephen's sausage rolls be called an adventure game? well, i would not call it that. e.g. the thinkygames website database has a nice tagging system which solves these category issues in its own way: https://thinkygames.com/search/

So, totally fine if other people draw the line somewhere different. But for the site, a great deal of consideration goes into what should and shouldn't be eligible.

Me too, and like I said in my first post in this thread, I think it's a great list It definitely makes me want to try the games on it that I don't know and to replay a lot of the ones that I do.

Thanks for the list. A few suggestions:

Syberia II is as good as Syberia I

Edna & Harvey: The Breakout is probably the most complex and well thought-out adventure game since Day of the Tentacle. There’s no other game quite like it, and I’m surprised it didn’t make the list.

The Black Mirror (2003) - I really liked this one.

Runaway: A Road Adventure (2001) - or the third game in the series - could also be considered, especially the first one, which brought back strong “golden age” qualities at a time when everyone thought adventure games were dead as a dodo.

Also, Keepsake holds a special place in my heart, I thought it's a really unique mix of Myst-style puzzles and 3rd-person gameplay

I love Keepsake as well. Some of the greatest views in AG history, walking around on those balconies.

I'm going to pass the genre discussion, even though I love doing stuff like that and my resolution is to be 10% more sardonic.

You know.. I like a couple of wildcards on a list.

In the spirit of suggestions I would add more games from THE DARK AGES. Throw a little Return to Mysterious Island in the mix. Counterfeit Monkey
to get a text adventure in there as well.

And The Epsilon Outcome. Just to give that game a shoutout, it has a special place in my heart.