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Comment by nunodonato | Hacker News Reader

I need to play this game again... I really miss the good old times of adventure point-n-click games. Too bad we kind of lost the genre. My favourites were Monkey Island and the Indiana Jones series. There was always a good dose of humour in these games

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I recommend games from Wadjet Eye Games studio, they're really well made, with great story, voice acting, balanced difficulty and overall they feel like created in the 90s.

The Blackwell series from Wadjet is absolutely spectacular and 100% brought me back to that 90s adventure games feeling! Super recommend them too! (I also cried like a baby at the series conclusion)

Day of the Tentacle. Perfectly captures the height of the genre, or at least its first peak: Mature graphics given the technical constraints, 4th-wall-breaking self-deprecating humor (the game is a joke and it knows). Nothing is serious and you should be able to try anything and everything without any repercussions other than not progressing (if you don't, you might miss out on a joke).

Broken Sword was the second peak, when stories became more serious and played more like an interactive novel. There are still jokes, but the game itself isn't one anymore.

Sam and Max Hit the Road deeply influenced my humor. Best game memory of my childhood.

New Monkey Island this year from Ron Gilbert.

There's been quite a resurgence, and they keep coming. Search on steam!

In particular, Thimbleweed Park might be worth giving a shot.

It wasn't bad but I had to force myself to finish it. Same with broken age or the various "tales of" and deponia.

The writing and puzzles are just not as great as monkey island 1-2.

I enjoyed the rusty lake series and the journey down.

Not strictly point and click, but have you tried untitled goose game?

Titles like these are on the App store for the original iPad/iPad mini, and there was a short renaissance of the genre on that platform ten years ago.

I also want to recommend the Runaway series. They also have a catching story and charming characters

What made the genre die out?

I would argue that 3D games and consoles happened. People started demanding more from games: They had to be bigger, more immersive, visually more advanced. The niche gamers still existed, but the publishers didn't want to cater to them, for the most part.

The Broken Sword series is actually notable for surviving this trend, by transitioning to 3D and being console-friendly.

Fortunately, "the long tail" also happened, and the market has expanded in scale and improved ease of distribution (Steam, Itch, etc.) to the point that it's no longer true that every game has to be a big-budget "AAA" game; there's plenty of room for tons of niche stuff like adventure games, and it can be profitable.

It isn't dead. New games have been coming out ever since it's proposed death back then and all the way through to today.

Much like other "dead" genres like the text adventure before it or the RTS after, the thrust of the idea that point-and-clicks are "dead" is that they were once firmly in the mainstream and are now niche.

Well PC gaming in that case is essentially dead, beyond the enthusiasts. I would however contend that it's death is largely overrated.

My guess is that point and click adventures are not very profitable. There are no in game trinkets to sell, they don't fit a subscription model. I guess you can slowly release "chapters" and sell them independently and some developers do it these days but the user churn should be high as there is almost no desire to replay once you complete a chapter.

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