Move aside, Laura Bow. Nancy Maple is the reigning queen of retro-styled murder mysteries in The Crimson Diamond, a clever, engaging, and satisfying tale that is sure to entertain fans of Sierra’s text-driven EGA classics while being accessible to adventurers new to this style of game.

Autopsy Simulator’s puzzle elements may be dead on arrival, but the well-researched autopsy cases presented in the unsettling atmosphere of an isolated coroner’s office injects enough thrills to give the game some measurable signs of life.

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

Like a Sherlock Holmes investigation at the bottom of the sea, there are many compelling secrets to be unveiled in the gorgeous underwater scenery of Thalassa’s titular sunken ship.

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.

Packed with many hours’ worth of puzzles to solve, secrets to uncover, and plenty of jokes, Bilkins' Folly finds the sweet spot that combines a light and humorous presentation with a compelling gameplay loop of tricky treasure hunting that has deeper layers than you might expect.

Skeler Boy is a beautiful micro-sized horror adventure filled to the brim with scares and quirky challenges throughout its short runtime, though it ultimately feels like a compilation of homages that never manages to find a voice of its own.

Though not without its rough edges, Creepy Tale: Some Other Place is a series high point that moves beyond previous entries’ shortcomings with well-designed puzzles, a wickedly spooky atmosphere, and a more confident, less derivative art style.

Story fans should probably steer clear, but if you enjoy a good challenge, pick out your favorite musical playlist and settle in to explore Island of Insight’s gorgeous puzzle-lover’s paradise. Just be sure to pack accordingly, as you could be there a long, long time.

It’s Grim Up North’s first (and so far only) chapter puts a comedic twist on the concept of alien body snatchers in Yorkshire, delivering a fun but flawed point-and-click adventure/turn-based RPG combo experience.

Light on gameplay but rich in atmosphere, the short but sweet stories that make up Makoto Wakaido’s Case Files are full of entertaining misdirection and unique subversion of perspective.

Backfirewall_ is a unique and interesting look at the anthropomorphized inner workings of a phone, with fun gameplay, humorous dialogue and bright, colorful environments.

Cranking up the difficulty and empathy in equal doses, Road to Elysium threads a needle that most DLC expansions can only hope for. While a few of the challenges edge a bit into overly difficult territory, it’s an extraordinarily well-crafted and generous helping of brilliant puzzles and lovely emotional payoffs. One of the best puzzle games ever just got one of the best expansions around.

The Anchor of Memory, like all Isoland games, is a unique experience that will appeal to a player's quiet, thoughtful, poetic side. Light on story and heavy on bizarre puzzles, this game lives up to its predecessors in every way, making it a solid addition to the franchise.

Rauniot is the full post-apocalyptic experience, for better and worse. The story is slight but delicately layered, the detailed isometric graphics are gorgeous in a very monochrome kind of way, and the soundscape really rams home the feeling of remote isolation. The characters too, in their quiet endurance and occasional dark humour, are more affecting than if they had screamed or sobbed. The practical challenges you face are also reasonable and logical, even if finding the items you need can be tricky. If you're a fan of Fallout or Mad Max-style sci-fi, though, and you're interested in something a little off the beaten track, it could be exactly what you're looking for. Just be sure to pack plenty of dog food and watch out for tripwires!

After a long hiatus, the perennially youthful Nancy Drew is back in Mystery of the Seven Keys. The pendulum has swung back from the greater focus on story and character interaction in the previous installment, but fans of the classic series will doubtless welcome the renewed emphasis on puzzle solving this time around.

With its unique presentation and hybrid role-playing elements, Midnight Margo maintains the perfect balancing act between serious themes like depression and social acceptance and self-deprecating humor that makes it so much fun to play.

The Chinese Room’s Still Wakes the Deep sees man’s greed and hubris bring an unknowable disaster down upon an offshore oil rig in a tense, highly effective horror outing.

The Curse of Grimsey Island brings some interesting ideas to the table but struggles to make the most of them, with a sci-fi murder mystery still sorely in need of refinement and better connection to the gameplay.

The Mildew Children tells a great witch story with impressive lore and tricky dialogue challenges wrapped up in a beautiful side-scrolling presentation, though the endless roaming and long conversations are likely to take their toll on your attention span.

Focusing more on the story than the spooks (though the spooks are good when they materialize!), An English Haunting is a solid, user-friendly paranormal tale with strong production values, even if it lacks the compelling characters and dialogue of the best horror fiction.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is just a ton of fun. It’s a perfect replacement for a family movie night, with two funny and endearing hours of lightly challenging mystery and engaging story.

Bloated dialog bogs down what’s otherwise a fun search for a missing cat in the lightly humorous Scott Whiskers in: The Search for Mr. Fumbleclaw.

Lil’ Guardsman is a silly, high-fantasy take on Papers, Please that mixes deductive gameplay with goblins and wizards – what more could you want? Well, a tighter story with more consistent quality would have been great, but the end result is still very much worth playing for comedy fans.

With no story or any real puzzles to speak of, Path of Kami’s prologue will hold little interest for more hardcore traditional adventure game players, but the beautiful graphics and music do create an interesting world to explore at your leisure, if you think that alone will be enough to keep you interested for a couple hours.

Skaramazuzu’s strange, gray world and creepily adorable characters look and sound fantastic, but it’s hard to stay interested when it gives players so little of interest to think about or actually do.

INDIKA is an eclectic mix of graphic styles and gameplay about a young nineteenth-century Russian nun that will keep you glued to your seat with its challenging but mature reflection on faith and human morality.

It would be nice to focus solely on how the bleak setting is intriguing, the stealth missions often feel cool, and the characters are at least entertaining, if not quite appealing—but it’s tough to do that when Sunday Gold is simply overrun with punishing turn-based combat and related RPG-style skill mechanics, and the adventure side of this genre hybrid is consistently minimized.