My App Smart column this week was about point-and-click adventure games. These apps build on a long tradition of computer-based adventures. Great graphics and touch screens on today's tablets and smartphones make these games much more fun to play than before. The idea is that you interact with items in the game's various scenes by tapping on the graphics, solving puzzles as the game's story progresses.
For super-simple click-adventure fun, Mystery Lighthouse 2 and Spooky Manor are big favorites of mine. These games have very basic but charming graphics, and while the puzzles are tricky in some places, there aren't too many of them and they're very satisfying to solve. This makes these games, which are light-hearted in tone, great for spare moments for adults, as well as for playing with younger children. Mystery Lighthouse 2 is $1 on iOS and Android, as is Spooky Manor (iOS, Android).
Far stranger than these simple games is the surreal app Year Walk, which costs $4 on iOS. The story is set in mysterious woods and has unique graphics that look like an animated painting. Its puzzles are cryptic and complex, and the app is designed to not give you too many hints or even overly complex controls. It's beautiful if confusing to play, but it's worth sticking with it until you appreciate its look and feel. Occasionally, the app's interface doesn't work how you'd expect it to. For example you may find yourself, like I did, tapping or swiping on a part of the game's images to move in a particular direction, only to find the app requires you tap on the opposite side of the screen to make that move.
The Room, a $2 iOS app uses more complex 3-D graphics for a very different look and feel from Year Walk, but it's equally surreal. Whereas Year Walk is about roaming a strange landscape, the Room is more about interacting with complicated puzzle objects - all of which are activated with taps or gesture-swipes on the screen. It's more of a brain teaser app, and it will take you a long time to work out some of the puzzles.
The Lost City, a $1 Android app, is another point-and-click adventure game that comes with impressive graphics - its imagery looks just like paintings. The plot has you lost in the jungle, needing to solve puzzles in the Lost City to escape. This app also has great sound effects and music. Its one problem is that you wish there were more of the game to play when you finish it.
Perhaps the most famous point-and-click adventure game is Myst, which was converted from its original Mac edition into a $4.99 iOS version some time ago. It's an amazing game full of tricky puzzles and wonderful graphics. The storyline is compelling too. But stay away from this app if you don't like spending hours deeply absorbed in game playing. Keep away too if you're quickly irritated by seemingly impenetrable logic puzzles because some of the ones in Myst really are strange. It's also a big app, with the download taking up over 500 MB on your device, which may be a problem for some users.
Happy adventuring!
Quick call: Evernote, the popular note-taking and list-making app, has just been updated to version 3 for Windows Phone. It's a major overhaul, bringing several new features to the app, along with a new home page that's designed to be easier to use.
