This batch of Windows adventures ranges from old-fashioned inventory puzzles and interactive fiction to hidden-object mysteries, with a few very strange detours along the way.

(T)Raumschiff Surprise: Periode 1

In the sci-fi spoof adventure, Captain Kork, Mr. Spuck, and Schrotty tackle inventory puzzles aboard a parody starship, including getting a music box working for the “Miss Waikiki” contest. The mouse interface uses left-click actions and a right-click context menu, while the original cast supplies more than 1,600 recorded lines.

101 Dalmatians: Escape From DeVil Manor

Patches' mansion escape puts Patches in Cruella De Vil’s mansion in a first-person “Puppyvision” view, searching rooms, secret passages, and puzzles for captured puppies. Wizzer the bird provides hints, and adjustable difficulty keeps the bone-shaped keys and matching games from becoming too punishing.

1½ Ritter: Auf der Suche nach der hinreißenden Herzelinde

Sir Lanze's rescue mission sends the hungover Sir Lanze out of a dungeon and after Princess Herzelinde, who has been taken by the Black Knight. Its action coin separates looking, using, and talking, with item-combination puzzles joined by a Happy Families card game and chicken roulette.

15 Days

the divided art-heist investigation follows activist art thieves Cathryn, Mike, and Bernard as they steal a Cecil Rhodes portrait, while Special Agent Jack Stern investigates a death connected to its transport. The case alternates between the two sides, using third-person point-and-click investigation and puzzles rather than a fast heist pace.

1893: A World’s Fair Mystery

the Chicago fairground case begins with a diamond theft at Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition and expands into kidnapping, murder, and conspiracy. Its text-led investigation uses a fairground map, visitor’s guide, optional hints, and more than 500 historical photographs.

1916: Der unbekannte Krieg

the raptor-filled trench escape drops a German soldier into a World War I trench maze where the immediate objective is to find a ladder before raptors find him. Thrown body parts can distract the creatures, while limited rifle rounds, flares, notes, and a gas mask shape the route through the trenches. How does this bare-bones chase setup compare with other short survival-horror oddities you have played?

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo

the Nautilus object hunt adapts Jules Verne’s undersea voyage as a hidden-object tour of the Nautilus, from observation deck to engine room. Finding listed objects is broken up by small tasks such as assembling a compass or repairing a control panel with spare gears.

2112: A Field Trip

the doomed Mars school trip is a text adventure set during the final 24 hours of a UNASA Mars colony, after a middle-school field trip goes badly astray. The player explores the spaceport, F.A.K.E. bio-dome, and Conformity Corner while working through Lt. Cecil Kraven II’s ciphers and dealing with Oona, a holographic AI.

3 Cards to Dead Time

Jess's Halloween convention mystery follows Jess, a woman who speaks with the dead, to a Maine Halloween convention after a shadowy dream figure gives her clues. Each chapter opens three tarot-card scenes where category prompts can ask for any matching object, alongside vinyl-record jigsaws, portrait puzzles, and mechanism challenges.

3 Cards to Midnight

Jess Silloway's tarot reconstruction begins with Jess Silloway waking without her memories, guided through seven chapters and a finale by three tarot-card choices per chapter. Its hidden-object scenes build compound words such as “night owl,” while rune puzzles, astrological matches, and restored documents add tougher stops between scenes.

Which of these setups would you most want to revisit: a political art-theft investigation, a historical fairground mystery, Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, or a Mars colony’s final day?