[PC] Return to Monkey Island (2022)

How:
Got it through GOG for my birthday!

Pros:
- Several genuinely funny moments
- Great music, colorful graphics, several cutscenes
- Great voice-overs in general, with some misplaced accents
- Solid puzzles, although a bit on the easy side

Cons:
- Inventory grows fast pretty soon, although it does not get too confusing
- Some very sad vibes
- Some graphics are a bit below the bar
- Could have been longer

A small cameo of the purple tentacle from Day of the Tentacle (on the table).

[PC] Atlantis II: Beyond Atlantis (1999)

How:
Got it on GOG after playing the first Atlantis game.

Pros:
- Gorgeous visuals, decent voice-overs
- Really gives a sense of adventure
- Lots of zany characters
- Great music

Cons:
- Tons of obscure puzzles
- Unclear and confusing exploration
- Lots of pixel hunting
- Frustrating action scenes
- Boring and confusing new age story

Quetzalcoatl was a joy to see.

Lo Pan with long nails and everything!

[PC] The Legend of Kyrandia - Book One (CD-ROM version) (1992)

How:
Read about it since Amiga times, got on GOG.

Pros:
- No explicit actions: just one click for everything, which works surprisingly well
- Great pixel art graphics and smooth animations
- Good voice-overs overall
- Fast movement, can skip dialogues
- Autosave

Cons:
- Can get into an unwinnable state without knowing
- The game structure and puzzles feel like a King's Quest 1 remake
- Basic inventory puzzles and lots of trial and error
- Too many useless mazes and random items
- Limited inventory slots

You transmute into a pegasus!

Mixing potions time! This is completely random and I created all possible potions.

[PC] The Inner World (2013)

How:
Got on GOG during a point and click sale.

Pros:
- Soothing, relaxed atmosphere
- Well-balanced puzzles
- Nice voiceovers and characterizations
- Cute graphics and animations reminding of Edna & Harvey
- Just the right length

Cons:
- Some interface glitches

[PC] Atlantis: The Lost Tales (1997)

How:
Read about it on Adventuregamers, got on GOG during a promo.

Note:
I played the "extended cut" version, which is an unofficial patch that fixes some bugs and adds back some unused music and dialogue.

Pros:
- Just the old school graphics I like
- Great atmospheric music
- Lots of cutscenes

Cons:
- Lots of bugs and glitches, even with the patch installed
- Annoying action scenes to complete via trial & error
- Unfair, obscure puzzles

At one point you dress up like a woman, and the character even makes a falsetto voice.

[FM-Towns] Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988)

How:
Heard about it since Amiga times, got on a GOG summer sale.

Pros:
- Nice puzzles, some have multiple solutions
- Nice graphics
- Some ideas will later appear in Monkey Island (e.g. the cannibals in MI1, the mazes in MI2, the two-headed squirrel, the monkey wrench, ...)

Cons:
- Too many dead ends
- Too many mazes, which are also very difficult to map
- The need for money for traveling makes the game unnecessarily difficult

[PC] Neighbours from Hell 2: On Vacation (2004)

How:
Got it on GOG together with the first game.
Pros:
- Retains the good things from the previous game
- Adds some difficulty
Cons:
- Same as the previous game

Got all golden statues again!

[PC] Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within (1995)

How:
Heard of it since Amiga times, got on GOG during a Halloween sale.
Pros:
- Relaxing gameplay, nice mysterious atmosphere
- Good acting with authentic German speakers
- Some nice puzzles
Cons:
- Many puzzles are just a matter of going back and forth talking to people
- Overly slow cutscenes
- Extremely tedious arcade sequences
- No subtitles
- Some aggravating pixel hunting
- Handwritten letters have keyboard-specific typos, completely ruins immersion

Ending scene, with my tiny 679/679 score in the top-right.

[PC] Amerzone (1999)

How:
Heard of it after playing Syberia, got on GOG during an Anuman Games sale.
Pros:
- Relaxing gameplay
- Nice environments and adventurous atmosphere
Cons:
- Motion sickness caused by the camera movement
- Very easy puzzles and little exploration

Somebody thought this is nice face modelling.

[PC] Anna's Quest (2015)

How:
Got it from a GOG winter sale.
Pros:
- Very nice graphics and smooth in-game animations
- Some nice cutscenes
- Quite lengthy with nice variations and quite adventurous feeling
- Overall good puzzles
Cons:
- Annoyingly naive main character
- Very bad and unfair ending towards Winfriede
- Several open threads are never explained (e.g. who's the fox?)

The chapter with Winfriede as a playing character is actually better than the rest of the game. Also, this explores the connection between magic and science!

[PC] Thimbleweed Park (2017)

How:
Got from a friend's Humble Bundle.
Note:
I got the repair kit from the hotel room by exploiting a bug that would leave the door open, without having the ghost zap the electric lock.
Pros:
- Nice graphics
- Several references to classics in the form of puzzles (e.g. the sheet of paper flying away)
- High degree of (at least perceived) non-linearity
- Nice multi-character puzzle design
- Memorable clown character
- Too many red herrings
- Nice puzzles
Cons:
- Music doesn't loop well and is a bit repetitive
- The in-game radio is terribly annoying
- Unskippable dialogues
- Some unresolved threads

The navigator's head makes an appearance!

[PC] Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge (1987)

How:
Got with the Activion Quests sale at GOG.com.
Puzzles:
As in all Sierra games I played until now, I never cheated by setting game speed to "low" in any occasion.
Pros:
- Genuinely fun to play, with some funny scenes (hopping on the keyboard when miniaturized!) and funny commentary from the game itself
- Amusing ways to die
- Some quite challenging puzzles and red herrings
Cons:
- The parser does not improve much upon the previous episode
- Some illogical puzzles (give the Cubix Rube to the beast?)
- Not much of a plot
- Less climatic ending than in the previous episode (just push a button, enter a pod and sleep)

An amusing Alien reference - if you get kissed, a baby alien will eventually come out of your stomach!

Final score, and Alien ending!

[Amiga] Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992)

How:
Played the PC (CD) version but never finished it, finally got to play it again with ScummVM amazing support for Amiga files.
Endings:
Out of the three possible paths, I finished the game in the "collaboration" mode (with Sophia), both bad and good ending.
Pros:
- Multiple ways to solve puzzles and multiple game modes increase the game's longevity noticeably
- Excellent graphics, animations, and fitting music
- Marvelous, immersive sense of adventure
- Just the right amount of comedy one would expect from an Indy movie
- Likable, well outlined characters with custom animations
- Nice, well-balanced puzzles
Cons:
- No sound effects in the Amiga version

In an attempt to make Sophia run away from the cage, I managed to trap a crab inside with her.

My final score after finishing it the first time on Team mode.

[Android] The Lost City (2012)

How:
Read some review on Adventuregamers after explicitly looking for more Android games to play.
Pros:
- Beautiful graphics and very fitting animations
- Nice, well-balanced puzzles
- Fitting music
- Immersive atmosphere
- Nice game for some relaxed, light-hearted adventuring
Cons:
- Music is a bit repetitive, could be much better with a different theme per season
- Underwhelming, almost non-existing finale
- The overlaid text is too much in the way
- Essentially a back-tracking game, can get tedious
- Some mechanical puzzles can be solved before the PC has a way to find the solution, but the game does not accept the solution even if correct (e.g. combinatorial puzzles)

[PC] Flight of the Amazon Queen (1995)

How:
Didn't know the game before it was given for free on Ubuntu together with Beneath a Steel Sky. Finally played it after getting it (for free) on Gog.com.
Pros:
- Very nice animations and graphics
- Nice overworld map idea (Joe looks at the jungle from a pinnacle, with a nice parallax effect)
- Very good voice overs
- Several cutscenes
- Some amusing sections (e.g. dialogue with Death before taking the boat)
Cons:
- Cannot skip dialogues
- Mostly inventory oriented puzzles, with tons of inventory items
- Graphics, music and overall tone are too much reminiscent of Monkey Island and Indiana Jones
- Uninspired, sometimes annoying music
- Some bad jokes
- Must mouse over items twice to get a description

[PC] Jack Keane (2007)

Pros:
- A lengthy, fun adventure which is pleasant to the eye
- Beautiful scenery
- Nice music
- Nice, lighthearted mood overall with fun dialogues, likable characters and lots of humor
- Good voiceovers
- Nice puzzles with some red herrings
- You get to visit many places, and use two different characters
- Unexpectedly fun situations, e.g. you move Jack around on the ceiling completely naked covering his private parts and sneaking behind the bad guys with Amanda distracting them
- Climb up! Up! And up!
Cons:
- Even if simple enough, mouse control is unclear and glitchy
- Ugly inventory
- Some pixel (vertex?) hunting
- Animations have up's and down's
- It can be difficult to understand what locations are explorable, and instructing the character around with the camera moving can be a REAL pain
- Some movement glitches (e.g. when walking on stairs)
- Some buggy dialogues and inventory combinations, not taking into account past events, or preceding future ones
- Amanda somewhat lacks character, and that long coat doesn't fit her much 

[PC] Tales of Monkey Island - Episodes 1-5 (2009)

Pros:
- Very funny and likable
- Excellent dubbing
- Adventurous, intriguing story
- Excellent animations, facial expressions do their damn work
- Beautifully described characters
- Excellent music (as always)
- Excellent graphics and landscapes (as always)
- A plot full of twists, always keeps you wanting for more
Cons:
- Puzzles are very simple, although not trivial nor silly
- The movement system is incredibly unpractical and frustrating
- Some glitches, requires a good amount of computational resources to run fluently
- Too many recipe-like and map-like puzzles, too much arcade in the final segment

[PC] The Infinity String (2007)

Pro:
- Ottima grafica e musica (anche se la musica è presa in prestito da vari film)
- Belle ambientazioni e storia interessante
- Molto longevo
- Buoni enigmi
- Nel complesso non ha nulla da invidiare a molti giochi commerciali
Contro:
- Qualche bug
- Forse la storia è narrata un po' di fretta
- Si ispira un po' troppo ai grandi classici tipo The Dig

[PC] The Curse of Monkey Island (1997)

Pro:
- Divertente, rilassante e molto longevo
- Enigmi molto belli e ben congegnati
- Musiche stupende
- Dialoghi divertenti come sempre
- Doppiaggio ottimo
- Cut-scene ottimamente realizzate, così anche le animazioni e le ambientazioni
Contro:
- C'è di nuovo una prova di spada e di cannoni, che può annoiare (anche se si può scegliere di saltarla)
- La grafica molto cartoonesca rovina un pò il mood originale (LeChuck è addirittura simpatico)

[Amiga][PC (VGA,EGA)] The Secret of Monkey Island (1991)

How:
My father got the game for my Amiga in my last year of primary school.
Pro:
- Storia e sceneggiatura epiche
- Grafica, colonna sonora e animazioni meravigliose
- Enigmi geniali
- Si può fare di tutto e nulla è lasciato al caso
- Longevità eccellente
- Dialoghi ottimi
- Divertente e spiritoso
Contro:
- La prova di spada può seccare

Ending in the PC EGA version: