Best Free Adventure Games

Best Free Horror or Survival Game

Either a 3rd person or 1st person perspective game in which the player has to survive an onslaught of undead, human, animal or monster like opponents, usually in claustrophobic environments. Horror film elements are used liberally. The player’s goal is generally to escape from an isolated house or town that is inhabited mostly by zombies and monsters through shooting and puzzle solving.

• Cry of Fear [ Site | Download | Steam ] Cry of Fear is a psychological single-player and co-op horror game set in a deserted town filled with horrific creatures and nightmarish delusions. Cry of Fear started as a mod for Half-Life 1 and now has turned into a total conversion. You play as a young man desperately searching for answers in the cold Scandinavian night, finding his way through the city as he slowly descends into madness. There are multiple endings, multiple difficulty levels, 24 unique weapons, lots of unlockables and a full co-op game for up to 4 players. The engine also features advanced animated cutscenes and many other surprises.
• Penumbra [ Site | Download ]  In Penumbra, the player finds himself in an underground base on Greenland, searching for his lost father. It’s an adventure horror game, free from classic FPS elements, with an emphasise on puzzle solving and exploring. Constantly on your toes, you will never know what to expect, with no weapons how do you protect yourself? The game uses advanced artificial intelligence to respond realistically to noises and light. Not only is it powered by a 3D engine utilising cutting edge technology, it also has an advanced physics system which allows for a never before seen environment interaction, puzzles and combat.
• Erie [ Site | Download (Install game->View standalone downloads)]  Erie drops you into a visually stunning, yet terrifying scenario where your goals are to investigate, survive, and finally escape. It’s first person horror meets intense dark-ride with hidden, rotting cats. Erie begins in October 1966, when the Fermi 1 Nuclear Power Generator suffers a partial meltdown, and locals begin disappearing from a sleepy Michigan town. Oliver Victor is a Red Cross Investigator sent to find missing locals, but quickly finds himself trapped underground and being hunted by a product of forced-mutation experiments. Oliver’s rescue mission quickly turns into a struggle to survive, escape and uncover what’s been happening under the nuclear plant on the shores of Lake Erie.
• Other great games in this category:

• • Spotlight: SCP Containment Breach is a free survival horror game (still in alpha) written in Blitz3D . You are playing as one of the workers of an SCP Containment Site, when something goes wrong and you find yourself trapped inside the dark building with several escaped SCPs. Features a randomly generated map thus every playthrough is different [ Site | Download ]
  • Slender: The Eight Pages: The game is based on the fakeloric figure known as Slender Man, who is known for the abduction of children in mysterious, dark settings. [ Site | Download ]
  • Euthanasia: The game features surreal gameplay in the dreams of Shaun Randall, loads of riddles and puzzles, and a disturbing atmosphere. [ Site | Download | Patch ]
  • Which: A short and creepy game where you look for a way to open the door out of the small house. [ Site | Download ]
  • 1213 (Series): A psychological adventure in the style of Flashback, as in running shooting climby up ledges etc. It’s about an amnesiac who wakes up in a cell not knowing how he – hey, where’re you going? [ Site | Download ]
  • Candles: Nasty imp creatures have taken over your house, and you need to move careful around, lighting candles to scare them all away. [ Site | Download ]

Best Free Interactive Fiction Game – Graphic Adventure / Point ‘n Click

Adventure games that use graphics to convey the environment to the player. Point-and-click adventures are the most common type of graphic adventure where the player uses a mouse to interact with the environment and solve puzzles while interacting with the environment. The camera usually follows the player’s movements.

• Sam & Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die [ Site | Download ] Abe Lincoln Must Die is the 4th episode in the series. It is a graphical adventure game that has cartoonish 3D graphics, challenging puzzles, clever humour and writing, and a set of unconventional characters. It has a point and click interface with a low learning curve. The gameplay is quite intuitive with environment exploration (clicking hotspots/highlighted items) triggering item descriptions or interactions and dialogue choices providing values for humor as well as clues for puzzles having logical solutions. You may also use the items that you’ve discovered onto other items or characters by selecting the item from the inventory and clicking it on the target.
• King’s Quest III Redux [ Site | Download ]  Kings Quest III Redux is an animated graphic adventure game that resumes from where it’s previous remake King’s Quest II: Romancing the Stones ended. Featuring stunning new background artwork, an innovative digital musical score, high quality voice-acting, and a number of refinements and additions, this is easily the best installment in the series. Experience a new adventure engulfed in a magical story book interface like never before. Command powerful spells against wind and weather. From lush green meadows to snowy mountain peaks danger abounds on your journey homeward.
• Chzo Mythos [ Site | Download ]  The Chzo Mythos series is a series of amateur adventure games made by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw. It is a four-part series centered around the fulfillment of the prophecies of Chzo, a wicked pain elemental, and his attempt to create a Bridge between the two realms of Magick and Technology throughout many centuries. The game ties together the events of 5 Days a Stranger and 7 Days a Skeptic with the events of Trilby’s Notes and 6 Days a Sacrifice. While the former two have traditional point-and-click interface, the latter requires the player to move with the keyboard & type commands with a text parser.
• Other great games in this category:

• • Beneath A Steel Sky– This is a classic, and must-play futuristic adventure game with a well written story, beautiful graphics, effective music and addicting gameplay. [ Site | Download| ScummVM ]
  • Out of Order– A comedy thriller, with high resolution and high color graphics and an adventure that goes across 30 rooms that took 3 years to make. [ Site | Download ]
  • The Journey Down: Over the Edge –A twisting tale of intriguing adventure [ Site | Download ]
  • Ben There, Dan That– This one is a knockabout point-and-click comedy game, in the vein of the old classic Lucasarts adventures. [ Site | Download ]
  • The Museum of Broken Memories– A story set in a museum and about war, death, love, friendship, imprisonment, the scars we all bear, and the way to freedom. [ Site | Download ]

Best Free Interactive Fiction Game – Text Based / Narrative

Text based narrative games are simply like reading a novel. But it’s still more interactive than reading one. While the gameplay is kept at a minimum, these games may also include various puzzles, choices etc, and even lets the reader to explore the ‘environment’.

• Blue Lacuna [ Site | Download ] Blue Lacuna is among the largest text-based interactive stories ever produced, a full-length novel and adventure game in one. As a wayfarer, you will find new worlds to explore, complex characters to befriend or anger, choices to make that affect the fate of worlds, and a story whose ultimate meaning and resolution is defined by you. Blue lacuna features dynamic room descriptions, complex characters, a novice friendly keyword navigation system, a drama manager and even provides a choice between story & puzzle mode for your tastes.
• Lost Pig [ Site | Download ]  Lost Pig is a text adventure game about an orc named Grunk and a pig who would much prefer to remain lost. The story is told entirely from Grunk’s perspective, in his own words (just words — no pictures), so the player gets to experience the world through Grunk’s unique point of view. It’s entirely up to you to figure out how he’s going to find that pig and get it back home. Along the way, you’ll get to discover a lost underground shrine, solve a few puzzles, practice your conversational skills, and maybe even learn a thing or two about alchemy.
• Violet [ Site | Download ]  Calm down. All you have to do is write a thousand words and everything will be fine. And you have all day, except it’s already noon! Violet is a one room puzzle game where the protagonist has to write a thousand words for his dissertation. If that doesn’t happen his girlfriend, Violet has threatened to leave him. He also faces a number of distractions which includes a view of the whole campus through the window, and a computer with access to blogs and webcomics. The protagonist hence must reconsider and risk wrecking his career and relationship.
• Other great games in this category:

• • Aotearoa– An entire continent of untamed wilds, and the last place on Earth where dinosaurs still roam. If only you’d come ashore under better circumstances… [ Site | Download ]
  • Slouching towards Bedlam– In the beginning was the Word, and it was hungry. Enter a steampunk adventure set in a London that might have been… And in the darkness – in the alleys and the side shops – hide secrets. [ Site | Download ]
  • Blue Chairs– A party…You’re offered a mysterious green fluid…Passes out….Awoken by a man who brings phone message from long-lost love. The adventure begins…Is it a hallucination or a reality? [ Site | Download ]
  • Vespers– A horror themed morality game, the game actively encourages the player to take the evil path and hence decisions taken, create multiple endings. [ Site | Download ]
  • Suveh Nux– You play a magician’s servant who gets trapped in your master’s vault; you’ll need to learn some of his tricks if you want to get out. [ Site | Download ]

Best Free Interactive Fiction Game – Visual or Graphic Novels

Games in which the story is told through text overlaid on a graphical background representing the scene being described. The player’s input is confined to periodically making choices which might affect the direction and outcome of the story. Mostly regarded as a branch of Japanese adventure, but Western examples exist as well.

• Katawa Shoujo [ Site | Download ]  Katawa Shoujo is a bishoujo-style visual novel set in the fictional Yamaku High School for disabled children, located somewhere in modern Japan. Hisao Nakai, a normal boy living a normal life, has his life turned upside down when a congenital heart defect forces him to move to a new school after a long hospitalization. Despite his difficulties, Hisao is able to find friends—and perhaps love, if he plays his cards right. There are five main paths corresponding to the 5 main female characters, each path following the storyline pertaining to that character. The story is told through the perspective of the main character, using a first person narrative. The game uses a traditional text and sprite-based visual novel model with an ADV text box.
• Narcissu 1 & 2 [ Site | Download | Part I & II Single Download ]  Death waits for us all, there’s no one who can avoid that. Nevertheless, life goes on and the world keeps moving. But what of those who are thrust into the position of being the ones waiting for death, unable to participate in the moving, living world? The 7th floor, the hospice. In that ward, Yuu and Setsumi meet. One, a college student only recently thrust into the life of a long-term hospital patient. The other, so used to the detached life of a hospital patient that she rarely shows emotion, or even interest in life. With nowhere else that they could go, nothing else to do but watch television in the lounge, the only thing that moves are the days. There, their journey begins…
• True Remembrance [ Site | Download ]  This is an ordinary tale of the ordinary days spent in an ordinary town by an ordinary girl who learns that everything in this world is extraordinary ― or that nothing is. For in this world, there is a young man named Blackiris; a Mnemonicide par excellence. And there is a young girl named La; sweet and warm and gentle in all the ways that count. This is their story. True Remembrance has high production value, warm artistic direction, and an intricately-woven story combine here to create a piece that must be experienced, no matter how new (or not) one is to visual novels.
• Other great games in this category:

• • Brass Restoration– Takiguchi Ryo a genius percussionist in high school loses his left arm in an accident and throws away his dreams and music. Will he be able to find hope in his life in spite of his handicap? [ Site | Download ]
  • Re: Alistair++– An Otome visual novel where Merui a video game lover is seeking revenge against Alistair for stealing a rare item from her while playing an MMORPG online. [ Site | Download ]
  • Digital: A Love Story– A ground breaking computer mystery/romance narrative set five minutes into the future of 1988. [ Site | Download ]
  • Red Shift – Find out how the most selfish girl in the world and the most selfish boy in the world make peace. [ [ Site | Download ]

Best Free Platformer (Adventure) Game

Adventure platformers combines platforming with heavy emphasis on exploration and unlockables. Usually by obtaining various items in your inventory and gaining new abilities the character will be able to explore new areas. These type of games requires less reflexes compared to action platformers.

• An Untitled Story [ Site | Download ] In “An Untitled Story”, you begin as an egg in your nest, and the rest is up to you to figure out. Fight 18 unique bosses, traverse a huge game world, and unravel a mysterious storyline. There are 5 different difficulty options for players of varying skill levels. Also included is a multiplayer capture-the-flag-style Heist mode. Hook up a USB gamepad before starting! Once you complete the game on the fourth difficulty level, the final difficulty level will be unlocked. At this difficulty, any hit will kill you instantly; hearts are only present for 100% completion.
• Treasure Adventure Game [ Site | Download ] Treasure Adventure Game is a huge, open-world, platform adventure game. The game is stocked with treasures, secrets, puzzles, characters, quests and a whole lot more. You’re a sailor searching for 12 enchanted items with the treasure maps and compass coordinates. You will be exploring the world; talking to characters and performing quests, finding hidden crests on land, underground or underwater. The weather might be rainy with lightning bolts at times and clear during the other, a day-night cycle, where different stores open only at certain points of the day, the same applies to the characters.
• Within a deep forest [ Site | Download ] Within a Deep Forest is a freeware 2D platform game for Windows featuring challenging gameplay, beautiful music, an evil doctor, and a deep forest. The game is set in a post apocalyptic world. Two attempts have been made to build a bomb, capable of freezing the entire world. The first was a failure, and resulted in a living blue ball. The second attempt was a success. Now the clock is ticking, and the world is in grave danger. That is, unless… find out while playing. You are The Ball, and it’s your mission to deactivate it, else the whole world will freeze, killing all living beings!
• Other great games in this category:

• • Knytt Stories– Each level has its own little adventure. One level is included with the game, where you have to stop a machine that draws the life out of the planet. [ Site | Download | Expansion Pack ]
  • Eternal Daughter– An epic platform game and a homage to Super Metroid & Castlevania: SOTN with innovative and varied challenges and tough enemies. [ Site | Download ]
  • La-Mulana– You play a whip-wielding archaeologist with many different areas to explore and dozens of items and weapons to find. Each area has a large variety of puzzles and traps. [ Site | Download & Patch ]
  • Frogatto and Friends– An old-school 2D platformer game, starring a certain quixotic frog, a big adventure with all the classic fun – you fight monsters, collect coins, talk to people, and buy new stuff. [ Site | Download ]
  • Escape from the Underworld– Play as a fallen angel and explore a vast cave system, slowly building your power so that you can escape to the surface. [ Site | Download ]

Best Free Mario Fan Game

Mario is considered to be the most famous character in video game history, and the Mario franchise is the best selling video game franchise in history. Mario first debuted in 1981 and still dozens of Mario games is released every single year. Apart from Nintendo’s creations, various fan-made Mario games are also available.

• Super Mario Bros X [ Site | Download Add-ons ] SMBX is a massive Mario fan-game that blends elements from Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3, World and several other games, including custom elements that can be added using various graphics packs. It has many power-ups, such as the Ice Flower, Hammer Suit, Tanooki Suit, Kuribo’s Shoe, the Billy Gun, and several types of Yoshis. You can also play the game with a friend in the 2-Player Co-op Mode, where the screen seamlessly splits and combines as the players separate and rejoin. SMBX is most notable for its extensive Level Editor that allows you to create almost any kind of level you can imagine.
• New Super Mario Forever 2012 [ Site | Download ] The continuation of famous Mario Forever will allow you to play on over lots of levels placed over eight different worlds and secret stages. Use many powerups like tanooki, bomberman, Boomer-Man, Wegetable Super Power, Power star, Power Clock, Fire flower and much more! The diversity of the levels is very impressive. Game has also renewed graphics and much better scrolling in comparison to the original Mario. You will have to get through levels ranging from underwater caverns to levels filled with hot lava.
• Mari0 [ Site | Download ] What if Nintendo teamed up with Valve and recreated the famous Mario game with Portal gun mechanics? These two games managed to give Platformers and First-Person Puzzle Games a solid place in the video game world. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, play 4-player coop, with everyone having their own Portal gun! This game is a complete recreation of Super Mario Bros. with puzzle game mechanics from Portal. The game includes a built-in level editor and various map packs that can be downloaded online.

Best Free Stealth Game

This genre includes any game where gameplay strongly centers around not being detected, searching for hidden/secret items, and otherwise avoiding conflict. The protagonist is usually a spy or government operative, however any game that has stealth as its core gameplay mechanic qualifies.

• Stealth Bastard [ Site | Download ] A fast-paced, frenetic, one-step-away-from-chunky-death melange of sneaking, platforming, hacking and cursing. Hide in the shadows with a real-time shadowing system! Evade a wide range of eagle-eyed lethal robotic foes! Hack your way to the exit… and to the next challenge! Squeeze through doorways mere seconds before you’re sliced into pieces! Die in a variety of gruesome, cruel ways! Create your own fiendish death rooms and share them with the world – all in the game! Shave seconds off your playtimes and rule the global leaderboards!
• TRILBY: The Art of Theft [ Site | Download ]  In The Art Of Theft, the player controls Trilby in a 2D stealth adventure as he embarks upon a number of daring high-profile heists in various outposts of wealth and power across Chapow City. With an arsenal of thief skills at his disposal, he must lift the trinkets and valuables of the idle rich while making as little fuss as possible in this platform game with mission-based stealth gameplay. As a younger, more arrogant, more complacent Trilby, your goal is to infiltrate a variety of buildings, steal loot, achieve objectives and get out again with the subtlety of a flickering shadow in a ninja outfit.
• N: The Way of the Ninja [ Site | Download ]  N is an award-winning 2D action/puzzle platformer reminiscent of lode runner: you’re a tiny stick figure running around in a puzzle-y world inhabited by enemies. But in N, there’s a twist: the ninja is driven not only by a thirst for gold, but also by a sweet physics simulation. Expect to encounter death frequently, animated with bitchin’ ragdoll physics. Inadvertently homicidal robots, evasive ninja and a whole whack of style! N includes a built-in level editor, called Ned. You can make your own levels to share with the community or hoard for yourself.
• Other great games in this category:

• • Merry Gear Solid Series: A top down stealth action game that plays like a simplified version of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series with full featured AI with sight and hearing, ranking system, full voice acting and original music. [ Site | Downloads One Two ]
  • Kleptocracy: A 3D cartoony, fast-paced action game from Digipen students where you play as a thief involved in a competition with his peers to determine who the best thief in town is. [ Site | Download ]
  • Diety: A 3D stealth action game from Digipen students inspired by games such as Diablo, Torchlight and Batman: Arkham Asylum, encompassing stealth action in an isometric view. [ Site | Download ]

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