The bad news is: if you’re old enough to have been around for the golden age of point-and-click games, you probably need to start a stretch routine. The good news is: there are plenty of new (and new-ish) point-and-click adventure games that truly live up to the classics of the genre. The best point-and-click games hook you with a great premise, double up with fun dialogue or iconic characters, and then keep you coming back to solve tough-but-fair puzzles and dig around in that ever-growing inventory.
The games on this list are hugely varied, from remasters of legendary old games to brand-new titles worthy of your best thinking-caps. We’ve got occult mysteries, folk horror tales, post-apocalyptic adventures, dreamy far-off worlds, police procedurals, and even a clown-based dialogue-free point-and-click with a toggle for squeaky shoes. If you’re looking for your next point-and-click game, we’ve got you.
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Riven
2024’s Riven remake already had the legacy of an all-time classic at its disposal, but also the benefit of almost 30 years of advancement in what these kinds of games can do. Fortunately, Cyan didn’t squander these gifts, and came out with a mesmerisingly beautiful solo adventure through some of the most beloved worlds in the Myst franchise. Stranded on a mysterious and seemingly deserted island, your mastery of various contraptions and puzzles is required to unlock a genuinely fascinating story.
Riven is a near-perfect point-and-click game for those who love to decipher languages, dig up clues, and tinker with machines. Puzzles still follow the same complex logic as the original, but have been tweaked and expanded for the benefit of those who played all those years ago, as well as newcomers expecting a more polished product than 1997 could offer.
The Darkside Detective
If you’ve wished your point and click games could have more of a buddy cop feel to them, The Darkside Detective might be the answer you’re looking for. Real point-and-click-heads will appreciate plenty of references to pop culture sprinkled between genuinely funny dialogue, in the vein of the old classics. Despite being faceless pixel art people, the characters come alive in their own right, adding charm to what is already a veritable toybox of twisty paranormal tales. Your job is to investigate these strange goings on, using your wits and puzzle solving abilities to solve cases involving bizarre and otherworldly threats. The Darkside Detective is lighthearted, fun, and a little spooky–it’s also the closest you’ll get in the modern day to that golden era feel.
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The Excavation Of Hob’s Barrow
Mixing folk horror and investigative mystery-solving is always a winning combination, add in some Victorian vibes and a creepy rural English town and you’ve got a bit of a masterpiece on your hands. The Excavation Of Hob’s Barrow is dark and gloomy, but tinged with an otherworldly magic and a deeply British charm.
As antiquarian Thomasina Bateman, you’ll soon get roped into suspicious disappearances, terrifying folk tales, and locals who all seem to fear the same thing. If you enjoy atmospheric narrative tales with clever puzzles, you’ll enjoy every minute of The Excavation Of Hob’s Barrow.
Dropsy
Dropsy is at once tragic and wholesome, a sad story of a clown looking for love and acceptance in a cold world. Using a traditional point and click interface but eschewing any use of intelligible language means you’ll have to really engage those brain muscles and start thinking outside the box.
Your mission is to cheer people up–not easy when you don’t understand what they’re saying and they all seem to hate you for some reason–but things quickly get derailed when your dad becomes unwell, leading Dropsy to team up with his animal pals and go deep into the sinister secrets of the town and its leaders. Underneath the darker elements of Dropsy’s narrative, the light shines through with touching, tender moments and big payoffs for solving genuinely complex puzzles in a colorful open-world.
Paradigm
Paradigm is weird. It’s a ridiculous, funny, surreal, surprising game for people who love classic adventure games like Monkey Island and Day Of The Tentacle, but want something new, too. Taking place in a post-apocalyptic Eastern-European country, mutated lab-grown Paradigm is the unlikely hero of the tale. While he dreams of making it big on the electronic music scene, he has to take a quick break to save the world, meeting potentially the most bizarre cast of characters in all of video game history.
Paradigm is the kind of game you can’t stop recommending to people once you’ve played it, but you won’t quite know how to explain it to them.
Shardlight
Another post-apocalyptic setting, Shardlight is an atmospheric adventure through a dying world from publisher Wadjet Eye Games, a sure sign of quality for modern point and click games.
The game paints a stark picture of what life is like after the bombs fall, with a deadly plague infecting those too poor to get their hands on the expensive vaccine. There’s a shortage of food, water, and supplies, and even books are a hard-won commodity. In order to qualify for a vaccine, protagonist Amy takes on government jobs and risks her safety to find what she needs. Shardlight’s beauty lies in its subtle storytelling, gorgeous artwork, and tough-but-logical puzzles.
Day of the Tentacle Remastered
Ahead of its time in multiple departments, 1993’s Day of the Tentacle is still a wonderfully absurd point-and-click from the golden age of LucasArts. Finally remastered in 2016, Day of the Tentacle remains a masterpiece that helped lay the foundation for a genre that was about to reach its peak. The remaster is a perfect reminder of this, sharpening the visuals with original hand-drawn art, adding a high-fidelity soundtrack, and retaining all the classic gameplay that made this title a hilarious head-scratcher.
Grim Fandango Remastered
LucasArts at its very best, Grim Fandango’s tale of love and death is a sprawling adventure that plays out across several years. Packed with fantastic voice-acting and dripping with level design that set a new benchmark for games when it first arrived in 1998, Manny Calavera’s journey through the underworld is still regarded as the pinnacle of the point-and-click genre. The remastered version is well worth a look, and like the best games in that category, it’s packed with a number of substantial upgrades.
Monkey Island Collection
LucasArts had been on a creative roll since its formation, and in 1990 the studio continued to prove that it was a heavyweight force to be reckoned with when it released The Secret of Monkey Island. Witty, charming, and well-animated sequels further fleshed out the tale of wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood and the comical world he inhabited.
LeChuck’s Revenge and Curse of Monkey Island all contributed to creating an incredible trilogy of high seas adventure, and while additional titles might not have recaptured that magic, the whole collection is still worth checking out on PC. Return to Monkey Island is the sixth entry in the series and the first in more than a decade.
Sam and Max Save the World
Telltale Games found a recipe for success with Sam and Max, as the revival of the classic LucasArts IP came at the perfect time. Featuring an original story told in episodic fashion, the freelance police were back in action and ready to turn the town upside down in search of clues. Somehow managing to be both bizarre and logical, Sam and Max Save the World was a bonkers return to form for the duo. Later seasons might not have reached the same level of quality, but the tongue-in-cheek escapades of the first season is still a highlight worth experiencing.
The Walking Dead: A Telltale Game Series
At its peak, Telltale Games was a creative force in gaming that was regularly churning out well-received point-and-click games. The Walking Dead was the studio’s breakout game and led to a flurry of episodic adventures across numerous popular franchises. Building on the foundation set by earlier projects and defining the studio for a new decade, the Walking Dead Games are a haunting collection of cel-shaded episodic horror, fast-paced QTEs, and decisions that had tangible consequences.
Five games in The Walking Dead Telltale series were released. The first entry was always the best, and there were some less-than-stellar spin-offs, but the final story arc brought Clementine’s emotional journey to an impactful close. The Walking Dead’s structure and gameplay found its way into other Telltale adventures such as the brilliant Telltale’s Batman and The Wolf Among Us.
King’s Quest
Time has taken its toll on the King’s Quest series, but the original point-and-click is still an incredibly important part of gaming history. Essentially helping Sierra Entertainment evolve into a gaming juggernaut during the 1980s, King’s Quest was a pioneer with its use of animation and almost-3D environments to create a graphic adventure. If you’re looking to enter that kingdom and experience a less medieval point-and-click approach, check out the 2015 remake for a nostalgic dive into the past.
Thimbleweed Park
What happens when you mix Twin Peaks with X-Files? You get this gentle love letter to supernatural TV series that also throws in plenty of LucasArts influences into its mix of puzzles and retro graphics. The big draw with Thimbleweed Park was its creative approach to puzzles, as it regularly tested your grey matter with imaginative solutions for its various puzzles. Loaded with a regular number of “EUREKA!” moments when you figured out those enigmas, the game is an ingenious homage to the past.
Read our Thimbleweed Park review.
Myst
Myst is required gaming for any point-and-click fan, and easily one of the biggest titles in the entire genre. A blockbuster game that had some fiendishly challenging puzzles to solve, Myst also featured some of the best set design of its time. If you were going to be stumped, at least you’d get a great view in the process. In the years since it first arrived, Myst has been ported to a wide range of platforms and can be found on most modern consoles. To get the most immersive experience possible, check out the VR version if you’re able to.
Read our Myst review.
Maniac Mansion
The game that introduced the world to the revolutionary design of the SCUMM interface, Maniac Mansion paved the way for LucasArts to create some of the best point-and-click games of all time. At the same time, Maniac Mansion is more than just a genre-defining tech showcase. It’s a game that pokes gentle fun at horror films and B-movies, always having fun with its subject matter and thinking outside of the narrative box. Technology comes and goes, but the genuine affection for its cinematic inspirations and heartfelt humor helped define an era of gaming. You can pick up Maniac Mansion for cheap on Steam.
Phantasmagoria
Point-and-click mechanics have been used across a wide variety of genres, but Phantasmagoria was one of the few titles brave enough to use the format for horror. A huge departure from the more family-friendly King’s Quest that Roberta Williams had created, Phantasmagoria mixed FMVs with terrifying encounters that was groundbreaking for its time. While some of the visuals might look dated by today’s standards, the game still has a talent for being constantly unsettling. It’s an interactive B-movie with some of the best overacting around. A cheesy classic that was unique for its time.
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The Longest Journey
Credit to Funcom, as The Longest Journey certainly lived up to its title. A sweeping odyssey set across time, The Longest Journey is seen as one of the last great point-and-click games during the twilight of the genre. Released in 2000, it was a beautifully-rendered visual masterpiece, loaded with dialogue, and filled with foul-mouthed characters. If you have plenty of time to spare, give it a look on PC.
Kentucky Route Zero
Fans and supporters of Kentucky Route Zero had to exercise extreme patience for this episodic series, but with each chapter released, developer Cardboard Computer reminded people that the wait was more than worthwhile. Delayed satisfaction wrapped up in intriguing layers of mystery and fresh perspectives, Kentucky Route Zero is one of the finest point-and-click games of the modern era. If you’re just checking it out, the good news is that you can grab all five acts of this magical realist adventure game in one complete package. No waiting years between chapters required.
Read our Kentucky Route Zero reviews.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Harrison Ford’s whip-wielding hero of archeology was destined to be a video game headliner, and in 1992 he got to embark on what is arguably considered to be the best Indiana Jones game. Fate of Atlantis was an adventure that would have been impossible to realize on the silver screen, a swashbuckling tale of mystery and danger that offered versatile play styles. An Indiana Jones game that was heavy on cerebral challenges and punch-powered action, it was another feather in the LucasArts fedora when it first hit the scene.
There is no game: Wrong Dimension
There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension is as high-concept a title that you can point and possibly click at, a collection of meta-commentary and silliness that never takes itself too seriously. It’s one of those titles that has to be played to be understood, as its abstract design and clever puzzles create one of the best paradoxes you’ll ever interact with. It’s a game, but it also isn’t one. And the only way for that statement to make sense, is to try this underrated gem out for yourself.
The Procession to Calvary
Every great point-and-click game has an element that helps it stand apart from others in its genre, and for The Procession To Calvary, that X-factor is its beautiful absurdity. Taking a museum’s worth of fine Renaissance art and using those assorted canvases to paint a puzzling picture, the game runs wild with Monty Python-esque humor. Whip-smart dialogue and bizarrely fun puzzles make this game a must-play on the bucket list for anyone who’s a fan of the point-and-click genre.
Gorogoa
A point-and-click game in an arthouse movie format that blends sliding-tile puzzles into its elegant design, Gorogoa still manages to use these cathartic themes to create exciting moments within its world. Some of the puzzles may leave you scratching your scalp raw, but nothing beats the feeling of successfully completing its visual riddles. Even if you can’t solve those puzzles, the game is gorgeous to look at, an artisanal and hand-crafted mystery that’ll challenge your perception.
Read our Gorogoa review.
Norco
An adventure game that features a more retro inspiration in its art direction, Norco is a more somber tale of life in the South. Melancholic characters inhabit a land that bears the scars of the merciless march of the oil industry, environmental ruin has set in, and a community is under siege in a game that has deep layers of storytelling. It’s leagues more somber than anything else on this list, but Norco still manages to provide a thin sliver of hope within its pixelated tale of decay.
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Device 6
Mobile devices have become the perfect platform for point-and-click games, and the 2013 game Device 6 still stands apart from the pack for its novel approach to taking advantage of that technology. What starts out as a text adventure quickly evolves into a highly interactive puzzle game that’s backed by a jazz soundtrack and a unique layout. It has an eye-catching design that uses the iOS medium to tell a fantastic story.
