Independent archive · 8 posts in draft
Adventure games that still work, on a shelf you can read
Notes on the PC adventure games of 1990 to 2010 — what they did, why some of them hold up, and how to play them today without borrowing someone else's files. Plus the small studios keeping the form alive.
The shelf
Every post, by decade
History: the 1990s
Why adventure games from 1990 to 2010 still work
One technical reason and one design reason explain why old adventure games still play today while many games of the same era broke: a durable content format, and a pace that does not depend on reaction time.
No. 1History: the 1990s
From text parser to point and click
The move from typed commands to clicking: why the command line was replaced, which series mark the milestones, and what was lost as the interface got simpler.
No. 2History: the 1990s
The two studios that defined the 1990s
Two opposing design schools in the 1990s: one prioritised hard puzzles where failure was possible, the other prioritised story and freedom from dead ends. That difference still decides which games you like today.
No. 3Play them legally
Running old games legally: the engines that make it possible
Three lawful routes to playing old adventure games on a current machine: reimplemented engines, official re-releases, and freeware releases the rights holders themselves allow. Plus how to check whether a download is legitimate.
No. 5Play them legally
Getting a 1990s game to look right on a modern screen
Why low-resolution games look blurred on a modern display, three fixes (integer scaling, shaders, an official re-release), and how to choose between them for a specific case.
No. 6
History: the 2000s
The 2000s: a smaller audience, and a new way to buy games
Why adventure games narrowed in the 2000s without disappearing: the audience moved to other genres, digital distribution arrived, and small studios kept making adventures while the mainstream market turned away.
No. 4Play them legally
Running old games legally: the engines that make it possible
Three lawful routes to playing old adventure games on a current machine: reimplemented engines, official re-releases, and freeware releases the rights holders themselves allow. Plus how to check whether a download is legitimate.
No. 5
Featured: 5 of 6 posts, starting with “Why adventure games from 1990 to 2010 still work”
Find one thing
Search the shelf
Type a game, a year, an engine, or a studio
Four sections
Browse by subject
History: the 1990s
The years when point-and-click adventures were a mainstream PC genre: the studios, the formats, the design conventions that took hold.
History: the 2000s
The decade the audience narrowed, digital distribution arrived, and small studios started finding players again.
Play them legally
How to run old games today without piracy: emulation engines, official re-releases, and freeware releases their rights holders published.
Small indie games
Modern adventure games from small teams, and how to judge one before you spend an evening on it.
A note on the name
This is not the old studio's site
Until 2008 this domain belonged to Brethren Entertainment, a small game studio. That studio's pages, forum and downloads are gone and are not being restored here. A new owner has run this site since November 2026, and it publishes writing about adventure games — nothing else.