<p>I’ve loved adventure games since I was young. It’s a passion that began with choose-your-own-adventure books and grew with the games for my wonderful 8-bit home computer. Now we have smartphones and tablets, and no matter how cool those early adventure games were, they can’t rival the fun, intrigue and drama of playing a point-and-click adventure on a touch screen.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Machinarium is one of the most entertaining of these games. The puzzle app has amazing stylised cartoon imagery that looks like Disney’s movie “WALL-E” crossed with animations from Monty Python.<br /><br />You play a little robot lost on a strange world, and your job is to move through each scene by solving the logic puzzles along the way. For example: How do you pretend to be a police robot to get over a drawbridge into the next scene? Easy: Paint a traffic cone blue and put it on your head.<br />To solve the puzzles, you tap the screen to make the robot walk around and tap on items in the scene to pick them up or interact with them (throwing light switches and so on). It really couldn’t be simpler to use this app, but the puzzles are so fiendish that you’ll probably struggle to complete them.<br /><br />Luckily, the app offers hints through an interface that’s helpful without making the game too easy. That’s partly because you can’t read the hints whenever you like. To access them you have to win a short game-within-a-game. Sometimes it’s tricky to tap on exactly the right part of the screen to get your character to act in the way you want, but it’s not a big impediment. The app is $5 (Rs 273) for iPad and Google Play and works best on tablet-size screens.<br /><br />Twisted Lands: Origin, free for iPhone and iPad, is a very different type of point-click adventure. It has a complex plot, explained with short video scenes, and animated graphics and moody music.<br />Playing is more like clicking on beautiful interactive paintings that tell a story as you move to a new one. The game has the familiar puzzles, like tapping a crane to lift a fallen beam, which then reveals a hatchway. There are many layers to these puzzles, and sometimes you’ll pick up an item in one scene and realize you have to go back along your path to use it.<br /><br />Part of this app’s appeal is its occasional item-finding puzzles where you’re presented with a complicated drawing and a list of things to find hidden in it. You simply tap on them when you spot them. Sometimes you’ll suddenly find an item, like a pair of scissors or a starfish, after staring at the image for a long time and realizing you’ve passed over it.<br /><br />The entire game will take you a while to finish, and it’s as satisfying to solve its puzzles as it is to finish a good crossword or a tricky Sudoku. The puzzles are occasionally so obscure that you can find yourself tapping randomly on the screen in frustration. But that’s really just part of the gameplay, and you can simply skip some of the more tricky puzzles.<br /><br />Yesterday, a $7 (Rs 383) iOS and $5 (Rs 273) Android app, is an adventure game that’s a cross between Twisted Lands and Machinarium, with a dose of noir thriller in the mix. You play one of three characters trying to prevent murders in underground, forgotten places of New York.<br /><br />The app’s graphics are a lot like a comic book, and its interface uses a comic-book visual too. In general, the puzzles are a little easier to solve than some similar games. But it’s adult-themed and violent in places, and some of the puzzles involve knowing how to play other games like chess, so it’s not a game for children or younger teenagers. The game’s biggest letdowns are that it sometimes moves slowly and some story scenes are very long. For a far simpler cartoon-style adventure puzzle, suitable for playing with children, there’s Mystery Lighthouse It $1 (Rs 54) on iOS and free on Android. This app is much more basic than the other games, with simpler puzzles and plain but still appealing graphics. It probably won’t take you long to solve its mystery, though you and your children will be happy with the surprising ending. Cool Quest comes from the same manufacturer, Digi-Chain Games, but is more complex. Although it has the same juvenile-style graphics, it’s definitely aimed at grown-ups ($1 or Rs 54 iOS and Android).<br /><br />Adventure games like this are ideal for distracting you on a coffee break, though they may make work itself seem much less fun when you get back to it.<br /></p>
<p>I’ve loved adventure games since I was young. It’s a passion that began with choose-your-own-adventure books and grew with the games for my wonderful 8-bit home computer. Now we have smartphones and tablets, and no matter how cool those early adventure games were, they can’t rival the fun, intrigue and drama of playing a point-and-click adventure on a touch screen.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Machinarium is one of the most entertaining of these games. The puzzle app has amazing stylised cartoon imagery that looks like Disney’s movie “WALL-E” crossed with animations from Monty Python.<br /><br />You play a little robot lost on a strange world, and your job is to move through each scene by solving the logic puzzles along the way. For example: How do you pretend to be a police robot to get over a drawbridge into the next scene? Easy: Paint a traffic cone blue and put it on your head.<br />To solve the puzzles, you tap the screen to make the robot walk around and tap on items in the scene to pick them up or interact with them (throwing light switches and so on). It really couldn’t be simpler to use this app, but the puzzles are so fiendish that you’ll probably struggle to complete them.<br /><br />Luckily, the app offers hints through an interface that’s helpful without making the game too easy. That’s partly because you can’t read the hints whenever you like. To access them you have to win a short game-within-a-game. Sometimes it’s tricky to tap on exactly the right part of the screen to get your character to act in the way you want, but it’s not a big impediment. The app is $5 (Rs 273) for iPad and Google Play and works best on tablet-size screens.<br /><br />Twisted Lands: Origin, free for iPhone and iPad, is a very different type of point-click adventure. It has a complex plot, explained with short video scenes, and animated graphics and moody music.<br />Playing is more like clicking on beautiful interactive paintings that tell a story as you move to a new one. The game has the familiar puzzles, like tapping a crane to lift a fallen beam, which then reveals a hatchway. There are many layers to these puzzles, and sometimes you’ll pick up an item in one scene and realize you have to go back along your path to use it.<br /><br />Part of this app’s appeal is its occasional item-finding puzzles where you’re presented with a complicated drawing and a list of things to find hidden in it. You simply tap on them when you spot them. Sometimes you’ll suddenly find an item, like a pair of scissors or a starfish, after staring at the image for a long time and realizing you’ve passed over it.<br /><br />The entire game will take you a while to finish, and it’s as satisfying to solve its puzzles as it is to finish a good crossword or a tricky Sudoku. The puzzles are occasionally so obscure that you can find yourself tapping randomly on the screen in frustration. But that’s really just part of the gameplay, and you can simply skip some of the more tricky puzzles.<br /><br />Yesterday, a $7 (Rs 383) iOS and $5 (Rs 273) Android app, is an adventure game that’s a cross between Twisted Lands and Machinarium, with a dose of noir thriller in the mix. You play one of three characters trying to prevent murders in underground, forgotten places of New York.<br /><br />The app’s graphics are a lot like a comic book, and its interface uses a comic-book visual too. In general, the puzzles are a little easier to solve than some similar games. But it’s adult-themed and violent in places, and some of the puzzles involve knowing how to play other games like chess, so it’s not a game for children or younger teenagers. The game’s biggest letdowns are that it sometimes moves slowly and some story scenes are very long. For a far simpler cartoon-style adventure puzzle, suitable for playing with children, there’s Mystery Lighthouse It $1 (Rs 54) on iOS and free on Android. This app is much more basic than the other games, with simpler puzzles and plain but still appealing graphics. It probably won’t take you long to solve its mystery, though you and your children will be happy with the surprising ending. Cool Quest comes from the same manufacturer, Digi-Chain Games, but is more complex. Although it has the same juvenile-style graphics, it’s definitely aimed at grown-ups ($1 or Rs 54 iOS and Android).<br /><br />Adventure games like this are ideal for distracting you on a coffee break, though they may make work itself seem much less fun when you get back to it.<br /></p>