Where are PC adventure games headed? Ever since LucasArts scrapped the sequels to both Sam and Max, and Full Throttle, I (along with many other like minded people I would venture to guess) have been searching for an outlet to find games that are both funny and intelligent like the Monkey Islands of days-gone-by. There have been promising developments in recent months.

1) the formation of Telltale Games, consisting primarily of former-LucasArts employees who worked on games like Escape from Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and the eternally damned Sam and Max: Freelance Police.

This company has just recently announced it is working on a comic-book inspired game called "Bone", which will hopefully usher in a revival of point-and-click adventure games... this game should be out in the Fall, according to this interview with Telltale Games co-founder Dan Conners. http://www.cgonline.com/content/view/500/2/

2) the re-emergence of Adventure Game God Tim Schafer, who has founded his own game developing company, Double Fine Productions, and is creating a game for release on all platforms, "Psychonauts," which, although not widely viewed as an adventure game, still embodies the creativity and humor that games these days are sorely lacking. This company also has the capability to become a major player in the future of gaming and hopefully can influence the landscape of games to come.

The point is this-- though the adventure game situation is dire, and fans of games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max have had little to cheer about in recent years... things are looking up.

Then again, they can't get much worse.

links:

http://www.telltalegames.com/home

http://www.doublefine.com/