[SFC] Clock Tower (1995)

How:
Heard of it after watching the Clock Tower 3 movie.
Endings:
I got 2 on my own, +1 by following a walkthrough.
Pros:
- Great creepy atmosphere and some scary moments
- Excellent graphics
- Fitting music, although quite repetitive
- Cool randomized events and visual scenes
Cons:
- Very few puzzles
- The outcome of puzzles depends on the order in which you do things (even examine things!)
- Some glitches
- The multiple endings are not really a matter of player choices, but sheer chance
- Annoying controls which make Jennifer difficult to maneuver in panic situations
- Some items get no description even though they can be selected

[PC] RAM Ghost (2012)

How:
Got with the AGS Bake Sale.
Quiz:
Where is the ghost in the picture above?
Pros:
- Rather addictive
- Couldn't find any use for the treasure chest in the attic
- Decorating the house with wallpapers and new furniture is naively fun
- Nice pixel graphics
Cons:
- Becomes repetitive pretty soon
- Starts difficult, ends easy
- The spook minigame is not a game at all
- Some items (e.g. the cow) feel a bit out of place
- No music

[Android] Strange House (2011)

How:
Looked for the "best" escape-the-room game for Android out of curiosity and just picked the most popular free game with a nice icon.
Pros:
- Nice graphics and mood
Cons:
- No music
- Figuring out puzzle solutions earlier doesn't work (e.g. typing the correct telephone number before letting the character reach the same conclusion)
- Some aggravating pixel hunting
- Gameplay is very clunky and the need to precise tapping soon gets annoying

[PC] Dark Parables: Curse of Briar Rose (2010)

How:
Tried the demo of the second episode on BigFishGames website, liked it and bought the whole series.
Pros:
- Beautiful graphics, fitting music
- Some amount of non-linearity
Cons:
- Adventuring elements are limited to very repetitive inventory puzzles, the rest is pure HOG
- Shallow storytelling
- Lots of backtracking
- The diary gives away some puzzles
- The puzzles per se are trivial, one specific puzzle appears at least three times (place colored balls on colored tile)
- Only a few events, no character interaction (starts with the princess appearing, to never see her again) 

[PC] King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella (SCI version) (1988)

How:
Bought the 4+5+6 bundle on GoG during sales after finishing King's Quest II.
Pros:
- Very nice graphics and fluid animations
- Nice, short music punctuates the main events
- Very logical puzzles, some of which are rather challenging
- Some lightweight creepy moments and night scenes
- The game changes to zoomed-in visuals in interiors
- Very likable main character
- You get to play as a frog!
Cons:
- It's sometimes hard to see where is the main character due to screen clutter (e.g. when appearing behind a tree), and it's easy to get stuck
- No sound effects
- Some extremely annoying arcade sequences (e.g. the usual narrow paths and climbing the whale's tongue)
- Some dead ends
- Unpredictable random events make puzzles more difficult than they should be (e.g. cupid taking a bath in the pool, the cave monster appearing at times)
- The parser is sometimes very strict (e.g. play sheet music), sometimes very forgiving
- Unnecessary items have just the standard description

[PC] Oz Orwell and the Crawling Chaos (2012)

How:
Read the review on AdventureClassicGaming, got convinced by the graphics. Was already keeping an eye on Midian Design anyway.
Pros:
- Nice graphics and mood
- Plays well in general and it is far from boring
Cons:
- Very short, a lot of wasted potential
- Clunky animations
- No voiceovers
- Most inventory items are never used
- General lack of care for descriptions and dialogues
- Out of place humour
- Incredibly clichéd
- Very few puzzles

[Browser] Guilded Youth (2012)

How:
Covered in the monthly freeware games feature on adventuregamers.com.
Pros:
- A fun and lighthearted augmented IF game
- Nice idea of the BBS game mode
Cons:
- For some reason sound effects do not work

[PC] The 7th Guest (1993)

How:
Always heard about it from my junior years, always wondered what kind of game that was. Finally came out on gog.com, bought it right away.
Pros:
- Very nice retro creepy graphics mixing simply textured 3D with FMV
- The main character (Ego) speaks!
- Nice music fitting the creepy atmosphere in a mocking way
- Thankfully it's short
- There is one interesting puzzle
Cons:
- The game mostly consist in moving randomly around the house looking for puzzles
- Movements and gameplay are so f*cking SLOW that solving and looking for puzzles is a pain more than anything else
- Puzzle difficulty is utterly unbalanced, with few original puzzles
- The game flow is continuously and annoyingly interrupted by a mocking Stauf or Ego himself
- Music and voice-over are unbalanced
- The storytelling is broken and confused
- Acting is sub-par

[PC] He Watches (Demo) (2011)

Pros:
- Very nice retro graphics
- Nice atmosphere, and also the story is promising
- Nice objectives and data gathering system
Cons:
- Very few puzzles
- Descriptions are definitely lacking
- Cannot skip text
- Underwhelming music
- The main character doesn't seem to feel any tension or whatever

[PC] Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst (2006)

Cons:
- Pure HOG with a letdown story and few motivations
- Hidden object scenes are always the same, often need to find the same objects over again
- Cannot detect objects quickly, have to wait some seconds after each detection
- The diary puzzle sections are silly
- Overly lengthy and repetitive
- Repetitive sounds and spare music

[NES] Uninvited (1989)

Pros:
- Nice music, consistent graphics
- Nice, creepy setting
- Atmosphere builds well
- Puzzles are not too difficult but there are many red herrings (many inventory items you never use, including one magic spell)
- A pleasant game overall
Cons:
- Maybe too easy, at least easier than Shadowgate, and shorter
- Moving the cursor with the directional pad is very impractical
- A couple of puzzles are a little bit illogical (a spider for the spirit?), even though they're not essential to complete the game
- There is a constant fear of being stuck at an unwinnable state (even though actually there is none that I'm aware of)

[Browser] Earl Grey and This Rupert Guy (2010)

Pro:
- Grafica carina e calzante
- Passatempo simpatico anche con un replay value dovuto a 8 semplici achievement
- Simpatica l'idea degli occhiali
Contro:
- Musica ripetitiva
- Pieno di bug
- Animazioni pessime che non rendono giustizia ai disegni

[PC] Which (2010)

Pros:
- Original visual effects
- Gorey
Cons:
- Slow, nauseating movements
- General lack of inspiration
- Could have been a much better game with a little more effort

[PC] The Marionette (2009)

Pro:
- Grafica e ambientazioni particolari
- Storia interessante
- Quattro finali diversi per tutti i gusti
Contro:
- Troppo immediato e breve

[PC] Phantasmagoria (1995)

Pro:
- Suggestivo
- Taglio decisamente cinematografico
- Gore
- Piuttosto longevo
Contro:
- Un bug può rendere impossibile il proseguimento
- In genere per procedere bisogna semplicemente rivisitare tutti i luoghi
- Le parti arcade (verso la fine) possono essere frustranti

[PC] 5 Days a Stranger (2003)

Pro:
- Storia avvincente e misteriosa
- Grafica ed animazioni risultano gradevolissime dopo pochi minuti di gioco
- Enigmi ben congeniati ed originali
- Sistema di controllo semplice e funzionale
- Il gioco ha molti gradi di libertà, accade sempre qualcosa e non è mai noioso
Contro:
- Colonna sonora tratta dai midi di AGS...
- Un pò breve

[PC] Dark Fall: The Journal (2003)

Pro:
- Storia accattivante, piena di sottotrame non necessarie ai fini del completamento del gioco
- Enigmi ben bilanciati e di diverso tipo
- Bella grafica con ottimo materiale (foto, ritagli di giornale, etc.) che si lascia analizzare con spirito investigativo
- Le ambientazioni mettono i brividi (se giocato al buio completo con le cuffie) anche se si ripassa per gli stessi luoghi più volte (c'è un generatore casuale di eventi)
- Ottimo doppiaggio
- Piuttosto longevo e mai noioso nonostante l'intrinseca desolazione
- Per risolvere degli enigmi è necessario prendere un minimo di appunti
Contro:
- A volte gli oggetti di interesse spiccano troppo sull'ambiente
- Qualche bug di interfaccia
- Difetti di localizzazione