Being a feline makes Cats and the Other Lives a fun and playful game for the most part, though the storyline you uncover along the way gets darker and darker, and all the more compelling because of it.

The unapologetically strange Exit: A Biodelic Adventure drops you into a hallucinatory dystopia and challenges you to find your way through. It’s a heartfelt and often hilarious journey through a living, breathing world that may overwhelm the senses but certainly never bores.

Arsene Lupin: Once a Thief doesn’t pose much challenge or risk, but the chance to play both as the criminal AND the police in this fun cat-and-mouse-style detective game makes it quite a catch.

While it teeters on the brink of succumbing to genre pitfalls at times, Riddlewood Manor is a delightful series of ghostly escape rooms tied together with a playfully macabre tale about spirits and dark magic.

Not all aspects bridge the decades-long gap seamlessly, but as a modern re-imagining, Alone in the Dark is at once a comprehensive love letter to the venerated original and hands-down one of the best forays into Lovecraftian horror yet.

With Your House, Patrones & Escondites return to their unique style of interactive storytelling with a prequel to Unmemory, offering another intriguing combination of book-style text and visuals in a thoughtful tale of drama and mystery.

Despite the occasional patience-testing puzzle, CLeM’s inventive gameplay and exploratory style make this quirky hand-drawn “Psychotic Adventure” worth a peek.

Windy Meadow uses the visual novel format to tell a moving, thoughtful story about growth, decisions and community in a gorgeously realized setting. While not a modern classic on the scale of the original Roadwarden, those who go in with the proper expectations will find it a solid, rewarding narrative adventure.

Clicking through the short, experimental visual horror story Without a Dawn is so chilling that you’ll probably be willing to overlook the complete lack of gameplay usually found in a Jesse Makkonen adventure.

It gets more repetitive with each new playthrough, but the fun presentation, delightful characters, and significant freedom of choice give Quantum Witch enough replay value to want to find everything you can in this magical fantasy universe.

Once a Tale more than compensates for some rough edges with gorgeous stop-motion animation, solid puzzle-platforming gameplay, and a strong finish.

A strong contender for champion of League of Legends spinoffs, Song of Nunu is fairly lightweight but presents a charming, beautiful 3D platforming adventure for franchise veterans and newcomers alike.

If you’re used to a simple point-and-click interface, Tachyon Dreams Anthology might take some getting used to, but its humor-filled sci-fi story is a wonderful homage to the text parser adventures of the 1980s.

Shuten Order breaks up the traditional visual novel experience with a gameplay conceit or two you’ll love, plus a few you’ll likely just need to deal with, to tell a compelling sci-fi mystery with a unique take on the genre.

The steampunk-styled world of Verne: The Shape of Fantasy provides a fun way to ease lovers of written fiction into interactive storytelling. It could have been written by Jules Verne himself, and although never very challenging, it is intriguing enough to keep more experienced gamers glued to the screen as well.

With a supremely old-school gameplay format, Neyyah evokes the best aspects of Myst and Riven in a way we rarely see anymore. While it’s somewhat bound by its faithfulness to what's come before, the heart and soul behind this game shines a bright, cyan-tinged glow.

Paper Perjury doesn’t fall far from the Phoenix Wright tree, but that’s absolutely part of its appeal. Content to give a familiar formula its own distinctly breezy atmosphere, the game’s occasional nebulous solutions are ultimately made up for by a charming presentation and endearing cast of characters.

It will likely leave you praying for more, as Scholar Adventure: Mystery of Silence takes you on a very short and simple but intriguingly eerie mission in a mysterious abbey teeming with secrets.

Amusingly written and simply enjoyable to play, this isn’t just an adventure for heavy rock fans. Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die! may have a few flaws, but it’s a wild ride that should appeal to any adventure game fan looking for a light and engaging story.

If you enjoy side-scrolling puzzle-platformers, Unleaving is a fun afternoon snack. The esoteric narrative is too clumsy for its own good, but the team at orangutan matter is incredibly talented, and they’ve earned their stripes when it comes to gameplay and design.

Its length – or rather its extreme lack of it – is difficult to overlook, but Beyond the Wall is a cute and charming little adventure in the same style as many of the classic Amanita games.

Phoenix Springs will land well with anyone looking for a complex, experimental mystery with striking art and a surreal atmosphere, so long as they don’t mind wrestling with a strange, disjointed narrative and a few obtuse puzzles in an increasingly bizarre second half.

Splittown’s retro spy adventure charms you with its pixel art presentation, humor and puzzles, though uncovering all of its optional content and background information requires quite the deep infiltration.

Combining a slick presentation, unsettling vibes, and an impressive list of talented actors, Dead Take is a solid FMV thriller with a unique Hollywood spin that would benefit most from an alternate ending.

It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those looking something unlike anything else out there, Promise Mascot Agency offers a bizarre flavor of storytelling that feels inventive and fresh. It doesn’t have the staying power to keep its repetitive gameplay interesting throughout, but the richness of the world and unapologetic insanity more than make up for its excesses.

It’s a bit too short for its own good, but when you get used to the wonky camera controls, KAPIA is a beautiful and charming game, serving up a colourful cast and fun puzzles.

Mutants Ate My Carrots suffers from an unfortunate lack of polish, but the fun factor of running around a raunchy cartoon fantasy world as a butt-kicking angry rabbit makes up for its (easily fixable) shortcomings.

Simple but short, stylish, and surprisingly comfy, The Blackinton Curse turns a traditional whodunnit into a bite-sized mystery adventure with the feel of a visual novel and a hint of old-school JRPG flair.