INKY SQUIGGLES

Whether you're new to gaming or just hankering after something to lose yourself in that isn't weighed down by complicated mechanics or repetitive grindfests, I've got the perfect list of adventure games for you. Crucially, these won't send your blood pressure soaring with jump scares or game over screens (just good old-fashioned emotional trauma). Many can even be – and are compelling enough to be – completed in just a few sittings (or even just one). And, as much as I love the classic adventure games, I've opted for more modern titles where you're unlikely to be stumped for months on end by mind-bending moon logic puzzles involving, say, having to craft a fake moustache disguise using cat hair, maple syrup and the last shreds of your sanity.  Night in the Woods At first glance, I wasn't sure how I felt about this game's quirky art style featuring cartoonish anthropomorphised characters, but as soon as I started playing it, any misgivings quickly dissip...

With lockdown easing (i.e., becoming rapidly non-existent) here in the UK, the prospect of wider travel is, maybe, hopefully, starting to seem not so dim and distant after all. My Google Maps timeline update for July even cranked up from one visited place to – get this –  two . These are heady times. Meanwhile, in adventure game terms, these past few months have seen me exploring a foreboding ancestral manor in Suffolk, England , the vibrant electronic markets and maid cafés of Akihabara, Japan , and the idyllic mountainside landscape of a fictional  provincial park . I think it's safe to say that, through lockdown and beyond, games like these will continue to fuel my spirit of adventure. Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars , Paris, France 'Paris in the fall, the last months of the year, at the end of the millennium. The city holds many memories for me – of music, of cafés, of love... and of death.'  –  George Stobbart Broken Sword's first entry s...

I might be unable to venture much further than the sheep-dotted Teesdale hills near my small hometown due to nationwide lockdown, but one can still dream of broader horizons. One of my favourite ways of travelling vicariously is through adventure games. These often emphasise immersion in another place or time, whether real or imagined, and the best examples achieve this through a combination of carefully constructed characters, mood-making music and fully realised settings. Rather than focus on the characters, who act as the natural faces of the games, however, I'd like to direct the spotlight to lesser-recognised characters – the locations themselves. From sleepy small towns in the Japanese countryside to the far-flung Wyoming wilderness, these game locations have inspired my own travel bucket list and creative writing as well as eased my anxiety during times of high stress and uncertainty (like now). The Longest Journey , Venice, Newport (New York's East Village), US ...