Category: Point-and-Click

Logical Journey of the Zoombinis – Guest review

  04/06/2013       St. Elmo's Fire      5 Comments

photo logicaljourney_zps12f7c243.jpg
I remember Zoombinis from when I was younger. My sister and I would play it obsessively. I don’t think we ever finished it, though. Revisiting it now feels somewhat strange – I don’t really remember enough for it to be nostalgic, but it’s interesting to try and see what entertained me as a child (and by extension, most children – Zoombinis was pretty popular) from an older perspective.

(more…)

   Point-and-Click, Video Games      , ,

Stasis

  10/20/2016       Farla      8 Comments

I generally interact with horror games through the medium of youtube. Sometimes I make ill-advised forays into actually loading a live game on my computer, but that generally ends with me retreating back to someone else playing – I like horror settings but don’t like being startled, and I really don’t like trying to detach myself from it enough to not be startled.

Stasis followed the opposite track. I started to watch someone play and became so engaged with the game that watching someone else play was intolerably frustrating. This is a point and click game with gorgeously bleak atmosphere and even more gorgeously bleak prose popping up whenever you mouse over things. The opening is absolutely perfect, so much that, as soon as I’d seen a few minutes of the game, I knew I’d recommend people play it just for that alone even if the rest didn’t live up to it.

…which, it turns out, is good, because the rest did not. I’d still strongly recommend checking it out, and if you’re good at just kind of coasting on lovely horrific atmosphere without getting caught up in putting things together the whole game might be fun, but if you hit a point it feels like it’s gotten bad, just quit, it’s not going to get better and you don’t really want the answers. You can also check out the demo instead – it doesn’t have quite the polish of the finished game, but it’s of the best section of the game. Definitely do one of those two things before continuing, because most of my complaints are the most spoilery parts of the game. (more…)

   Point-and-Click, Video Games      ,

Detective Games, Pt 3: Lacuna

  12/21/2025       Act      11 Comments

Good detective fiction, as we’ve seen, can use the genre to make meaningful critique of the socially constructed nature of the law and the unstable identity of crime and the criminal.

Bad detective fiction is a vigorous defense of the status quo, a reification of the mandate that the Institution in every form must be protected at all costs.

(more…)

   Point-and-Click, Puzzle     

Detective Games, Pt 4

  12/28/2025       Act      Add Comment

Inside: Brok the Investigator, Song of Farca, Chicken Police: Paint It Red

CW for alcoholism and depression/suicide in the Chicken Police review — I talk a bit about how Chandler died, largely because I don’t like how the game treats drinking as a character quirk.

(more…)

   Action, Adventure, Point-and-Click, Puzzle, Video Games, Visual Novels      , ,

Detective Games, Part 5

  01/04/2026       Act      4 Comments

A real eclectic bunch this time.

Inside: Inspector Schmidt: A Bavarian Tale, Overboard!, Detective Case and Clown Bot in: Murder in the Hotel Lisbon, On Your Tail, Little Locked Rooms, Emerald City Confidential

The recs are Inspector Schmidt and Emerald City

CW: One of the games uses a homophobic slur and I briefly talk about it.

(more…)

   Action, Adventure, Point-and-Click, Video Games      , , , , ,

The Blackwell Series

  01/05/2026       Act      Add Comment

It’s such a treat to see a writer improve. It’s what I love about teaching stupid freshman, and it’s one of the reasons I also go through developer catalogues chronologically; it just makes me warm and fuzzy.

The remainder of the Blackwell games are pretty good. I’d actually rec just skipping the first one (or reading a plot summary) and playing the rest. The puzzle design is golden, the characters are compelling, and it’s just a great supernatural mystery series. I didn’t love the final conclusion which marred it a bit for me, but there’s definitely a lot of good stuff here.

CW, both in games and below reviews, for depression/suicide.

Spoilers abound inside, though I’ve tried to black out the more severe ones. I care less as time goes on though, sorry!

(more…)

   Point-and-Click, Recommendations, Video Games      , , ,

Tokyo Dark

  01/18/2026       Act      1 Comment

Split this from the group detective posts because I ended up having way more to say about it than I thought I would!

CW: Tons of mental health stuff in the game, including PTSD, sexual coercion, and suicide attempts. FWIW it’s not explicit and I think it’s handled pretty well, but it might be worth having someone screen it for you if those are normally triggers.

(more…)

   Point-and-Click, Recommendations, Visual Novels