A little mechanical clunkiness can’t hide the heart beneath Tales, which shines with a love of stories, puzzles and humanity.

TOHU serves up a charming little sci-fi narrative in a lovely cartoon style, but outside of one particularly egregious arcade sequence, its true strength is in its variety of interesting puzzles.

Insomnis on the PlayStation 5 isn’t quite a next-generation experience but is nonetheless a thrilling haunted house adventure worth playing should you have missed out on the original release.

Shapik: The Moon Quest ticks almost every checkbox for lovers of charming, atmospheric puzzle adventures. What it lacks in narrative depth it more than makes up for with fun gameplay and impressive production values.

Falling just a little short of instant classic status, Primordia is still a gorgeous, clever, and melancholy science-fiction parable.

The genre-bending Nauticrawl successfully turns intentionally confusing submarine controls into an immersive journey of discovery where understanding leads to incremental progression and exploration is key to your survival. It’s by no means perfect, and feels like it could have been more, but it’s nevertheless an unforgettable experience.

Nelly Cootalot’s latest voyage is overflowing with charm and heart – and puns, oh the puns! It may not be the stiffest challenge out there, but it’ll leave you with a warm feeling inside.

Enypnion Redreamed, a brainteasing adventure, uses creative, surreal visuals and sound to bring dreams to life.

Once the momentum picks up, the three-part Bear With Me is a funny, well-written point-and-click adventure, with memorable characters that will stick with you for a long time.

While the storytelling is not as tight as in the base Cloudpunk game, the dual narrative, new characters, and quality-of-life improvements make City of Ghosts a worthy DLC expansion that is substantial enough to be a full-fledged sequel.

Though padded somewhat by a repetitive combination of puzzles, strategy and RPG elements, Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights finally gives gamers an adventure of substance on the Nintendo 3DS.

P.O.L.L.E.N is a slick, atmospheric and unnerving experience that is let down by its short length, confused plot and tired storytelling devices.

Though certainly not a conventional adventure game, Caravan SandWitch is fortified by interesting characters and an overarching, quest-driven tale. Puzzles involving navigation may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s no combat, no death, and no timed challenges; frustrating at moments, but pretty chill. You will find it intriguing if you’re up for exploring and navigating landscapes with chunks of story on the side.

Whilst Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged is a great visual improvement on the original, an unequivocal recommendation for what is essentially a graphical update doesn’t really fit our rating system – especially not when certain other areas of the game could have been improved upon.

The surreal presentation may draw a lot of the attention, but Maggie’s Apartment proves equal parts strange, artistic, and entertaining as you slowly peel back the quirky layers of a mystery that proves deceptively deep.

It's a solid puzzler that atones for a few rough edges with homegrown charm, but your mileage with MacGuffin's Curse will ultimately depend on whether you enjoy block puzzles.

Wayward Strand is an intriguing game; a gripping story brought to life by well-executed graphics, music, interface, and voice acting.

Oniria Crimes introduces a welcome variation on mystery adventure conventions in an intriguing, attractive futuristic noir world with a rich backstory to be discovered. While some aspects could be improved, it’s definitely worth a look for players seeking out something different from the usual kind of detective game.

GrandMa Badass - a crazy point-and-click adventure is an amusing tale brought to life by well-executed graphics, music, and interface. However, the lack of dialog prevents the narrative from reaching its full potential.

A different kind of casual game from the norm, My Brother Rabbit is a charming, beautiful fantasy adventure whose scavenger hunting gameplay successfully dangles the proverbial carrot on a stick for the short time it lasts.

The combination of realistic architecture, history, surrealistic gods and magic will draw you in, but the been-there-done-that take on the puzzles and the journey's short length might not be enough to hold your interest.

Although still lacking much challenge beyond working through its more confusing story, Dead Secret Circle is a longer and more diverse game than its predecessor with the same creepy, immersive atmosphere introduced in the series debut.

If you’re looking for a creepy mystery adventure game with less emphasis on traditional point-and-click mechanics, Children of Silentown could be for you. However, some bland characters hinder it, and most of the storyline is confined too long in one play area.

Though not as polished as its famed inspirations, Krabat and the Secret of the Sorbian King does a good job of evoking the spirit of LucasArts and Sierra classics.

Despite a few arbitrary cracks, Dire Grove is another (frozen) solid entry in the growing casual adventure library, and a worthy addition to the Mystery Case Files series.

All told, the second episode of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People includes a little more talking and lot more collecting than Homestar Ruiner, with the same marginal amount of small-scale puzzling in between.

Despite a poorly conceived save system and a sense of aimlessness in seeking out multiple endings, the debut installment of Pamali: Indonesian Folklore Horror is a unique choice-driven horror experience with an impressive amount of educational and replay value and an unexpectedly strong narrative core.

A very entertaining game that successfully transcends its edu-tainment leanings.