Not a banner year for me in adventure gaming, I'm afraid, as I was distracted by Lord of the Rings Online. But 2013 promises to be better as my interest in LOTRO has slipped somewhat and there are some really promising games coming up this year.

Anyway, my list:

Drawn: Trail of Shadows

What to say? It's a Drawn game. Nice art, dead easy puzzles. Probably the shortest Drawn game, with a rather abrupt ending.

Jurassic Park

I can't say it was disappointing as it was just about what I was expecting after the mess that was Back to the Future. The adventure sections are rudimentary, and the quick time events are badly programmed. The story was interesting enough, that's about the only good thing I can say.

Return to Mysterious Island

I really enjoyed the Macgyver like quality to the puzzles. A bit small though -- I wish I could have seen more of the island.

Nibiru

A quite mediocre inventory puzzler. Lousy translation, with typo ridden subtitles, tepid voice acting,  utterly forgettable characters, and a main character with no personality, not even a stereotype. The way the story ended felt like they ran out of money half way through development and had to wrap things up. The parts I did like were the ones everyone seems to hate, the stand alone puzzles like the colored marble puzzle or the Mayan number puzzle. They weren't difficult, but at least provided some contrast to the rather bland inventory puzzles.

Botanicula

Short, but sweet. Somewhere between Samorost and Machinarium in difficulty and general design. Quite charming, very funny. Fiddling around with incidental things to see what happens is as much fun as the main part of the game. Highly recommended.

Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion

A definite step forward from the first two Nancy Drew games. It's not a large game in terms of areas to visit, but the developers made good use of the space they had. Quite satisfying to explore -- lots of secret nooks and crannies to find, and important clues are almost everywhere.

To The Moon

Just barely a game, but with a very bittersweet and quite moving story. Well worth playing for that alone.

Azada 3

Jarringly dark compared to the earlier Azada games, but probably the most adventureish. I wish it had retained the charm of the earlier Azada games, though.

Same with me Andromus, 2012 was a slow year for me and not because I didn't want to play adventures. Since I have played about everything I have ever want to play I am now left with waiting for new releases that I am interested in and they are become scarce. I always keep a runing track of the games I play every year and here are my completed games that I played for the first time in 2012.

1953 KGB Unleashed
Ambers Blood: A Carol Reed Mystery
Artifact, The
Corrosion: Cold Winter Waiting
Five Cores, The
Haunted (begrudgingly)
Haunting at Cliffhouse
J.U.L.I.A.
Kairo
Last Half of Darkness (Original 2000 Release)
Lost Chronicles of Zerzura
Secret Files 3
Testament of Sherlock Holmes
Yesterday (begrudgingly)

THE CAT LADY

The best of the best - 10/10

Walking Dead:  8/10

Dear Esther:  8/10

Yesterday:  7/10

Journey:  7/10

The hype-meter of ANB was 10....the game was 2/10.

Drawn: The painted tower

Beautiful, but too easy and too short. While not a bad game, I feel that it really should have had more content.

The Blackwell Trilogy (First 3 games in the series)

All of them were rather short & easy, but they had a good amount of charm, and were overall quite fun.

Scratches: Director's Cut

A really nice horror adventure game. While it did not scare me, I found it to be cozy, like a good horror story rather than horrifying, like Amnesia.

Samorost 1 & 2

Short, and I never found the puzzles to be all that engaging. Nice art though.

Reversion

And another short one (quite a trend, eh?). Really nice art though, and it is free. Also, it has a very different feel compared to most adventure games that I've played.

To the moon

I have to admit, it was sometimes hard to hold back the tears while playing this game/semi-interractive story. It had absolutely no challenge what so ever, but the story was well told, and beautiful.

Puzzle agent

More of a puzzle game than a real adventure game (similar to the Professor Layton games). Good puzzles though

Jolly rover

Though a bit on the simple side, I thought Jolly Rover was both fun and charming. 

Space Quest 1

I can't say that I liked it. It was frustrating, and unfair, much like the other early *Quest games. 

Leisure Suit Larry in the land of the lounge lizards

See Space Quest. Not a big fan of it, though I can see why people would like it. 

I also got quite far into A new Beginning, but got sidetracked somewhere along the way. Lengthy game for an AG.

Looking back at the games that I finished last year (there were quite a lot of them), most were relatively short indie games, many of which were shorter than 3h. Most time spent was probably with strategy games, followed by CRPGs. 2012 also marks the year that I started playing multiplayer games again, due to me getting to know a few people who actively play games together. 

AlternativA: never finished 3/10

Botanicula: 10/10

Rhem & Rhem 2 : 8/10

Casebook Episode II: 8/10

Drawn 3 : 9/10

Kaptain Brawe : 6/10

Stacking : 10/10

Unmechanical : 9/10 (could've been a 10 if i hadn't encountered a gamebreaking bug at the end)

The walking death: 9/10

Adam's venture ep.1 : 2/10

...

@andromus: Azada 3?!!! how did I miss that release, i'm buying that game right away

My overall expectations have been downgraded so keep that in mind.

A New Beginning: Interesting story potential but the game couldn't keep up the pace. Somewhat disappointing. B-

Baron Wittard: This game really started out OK but took its toll on credibility. I suppose if one is into counting symbols with little or no apparent logic it might be appealing, just not for me. C

Black Mirror 3: Finally got around to finishing this just to say I completed the trilogy. 'nuff said. C+

Blackwell Deception: Love this cast, just wish they looked better. B+

Book of Unwritten Tales: Great game marred by one deplorable action sequence. Gotta love those ghost mushrooms A-

Captain Morgane: Not a bad game, decent length and somewhat memorable characters. It just wasn't written for me though. B-

Cognition Ep. 1 The Hangman: Cognition - more than just P&C. A

Corrosion Cold Winter Waiting: Sorry, I know this was an indie effort, but there really wasn't much to say. I assumed the backstory was meant to be disturbing but the flat progression and lack of an ending did little. C+

Deponia and Chaos on Deponia: ...Waiting for the final installment. 

Lost Chronicles of Zerzura: Solid 3rd person adventure with gorgeous artwork along the lines of titles such as Secret Files 2 and Lost Horizon. I'm not a history buff so I can't be certain as to the historical accuracy of the games setting during the Renaissance and the Inquisition. B

Resonance: Another keeper from WEG. Admittedly though I probably didn't fully utilize the long and short term memory features. A-

Testament of Sherlock Holmes: Another imaginative case with twists and turns galore and told from a rather interesting perspective. Thankfully this game wasn't overburdened with deduction boards and laboratory analyses. A-

Good-bye 2012.

It has been quite a while since I've played more than 10 Adventures in a year (I used to play over 30). I keep track of all the games I play, and here is my 2012 list. The ones in blue are casuals; those with an asterik, I particularly liked.

2012

*Pahlia Revelations

Phantasmat (liked the match 3)

Botanicula - lots of fun, enchanting game

Shiver Poltergeist

*Eternal Night Realm of Souls

*Enigmatis Ghost of Maple Creek – lots back tracking, but many scenes.

*Surface Mystery of Another World

*3 Days Amulet Secret

AGON Lost Sword of Toledo - July 21 – Aug 4. Too many conversations to be a great game.

Spirits of Mystery Song of the Phoenix

Yoomurjak's Ring – Aug 4 – 6. I found this game to be very difficult. Sometimes I didn't really know what my objective was.

*Royal Detective Lord of Shadows

Corrosion Cold Winter Waiting – Aug. 11 – Aug. 18. I wasn't a fan of the horror/spooky aspect, but otherwise I liked the exploration and puzzles.

Final Cut Death on the Silver Screen

*Eternal Journey New Atlantis

Grim Tales The Wishes CE

*Theater of Shadows As You Wish

Dreamatorium of Dr. Magnus

1953 KGB Unleashed – Sept. 9 – 22. Very similar to Corrosion Cold Winter

*Alchemy Mysteries Prague Legends

*Agency of Anomalies the Last Performance CE

1000 Doors the Palm of Zoroaster

Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsene Lupin. Some good puzzles, but way too much dialogue. 

Agent of Anomalies Mystic Hospital

Dark Parables Red Riding Sisters

An extremely poor year for me, could be the poorest of the past 10-15 years...

Only 6 adventure games, most of which pretty short ones. And only 1 survival horror game (and a pretty disappointing one too)

Adventures (from best to worst):

Resonance

The Book of Unwritten Tales

Amber's Blood
The Journey Down: Chapter 1
Ben Jordan - Case 8
Epsilon 9: The Revenge of the Stingons

Well, they're all good anyway, so this was actually "from best to just good". Btw, I do NOT play episodic games. I hate this episodic trend with a passion. The only reason I played TJD was cause I won the episode in a contest, so I gave it a shot. And it only amplified my feelings about episodic gaming...

Also, in 2012 I bought a PS3. Bought it just for 4 games. Being a fan of the Siren series, I wanted to try out Blood Curse. Disappointed. It was a sorta remake of Siren 1, but severly butchered. (started out as an episodic download, yeah, no surprises there...). Also started Silent Hill Downpour. Disappointed, never finished it. My PS3 purchase has been a bust so far...

I can't remember many of the games I played last year.

Mostly I played casual games.

I don't have the large blocks of time I used to have to play games.

The only full adventure games I remember playing in 2012 are Sherlock Testament and Haunted, though I might have played another game early in the year and forgotten.

Well... I started too many I didn't finish or even get far into. Lots of delightfull little indies that I intend to return to [thank you GoG], and a triumverate of oldies which are loaded and started: Majestic/Simbiocom/Zero-Critical. I played about 1/3 of Majestic when it first came out so this is the one I need to wrap up now. I like their pure sci-fi themes. Started Fallout 3 and played a few hours but wasn't really pulled in... yet - need to give it more effort. Character generation/character abilities stuff doesn't excite me is part of the problem.

Finished Corrosion, which I enjoyed for it's bleak mood and tricky puzzles.

Dear Esther as well, nice little non-game.

But mostly I fussed with my computer and retro PCs... Upgrading my main box as we speak..

I managed to get through few last year, that pesky little work thing kept me going.

In no specific order -

1.) The Testament of Sherlock Holmes - Without a doubt, the best of the lot.

2.) Deponia & Chaos in Deponia - Both were quite good, I'd like to see another.

3.) Haunted - An easy game, but none the less enjoyable.

4.) The Louisiana Adventure - such a stinker, Pssssst, hey guys, a little Beta testing goes a long way.

5.) The Book of Unwritten Tales, The Critter Chronicles - Funny game, if you haven't played it, do...

6.) The Journey Down - Not too bad, but I'd rather have a whole game.

7.) Dark Fall Lost Souls - My annual replay for Halloween. 

The ones I can remember (in no particular order)-

• Black Mirror II & III
• Gray Matter
• Runaway 3 Twist of Fate
• A few casual games (can't believe I've played any as I used to think they were silly but as other's have mentioned, large blocks of time are not that frequent anymore. side note- as there were 2 released as downloads for Project Fedora Kickstarter contributors that were a mix of a little adventuring with lots of puzzle/find parts and were pretty entertaining)
• Started playing through all the Tex Murphy series games in preparation for Project Fedora
• There were probably a couple other games that I can't remember at the moment