Are you still doing video game recs? My wife just got their Steam account working and I'd like to help them find some more games. They grew up playing 7th Guest and Baldur's Gate, and while I can find games for the Baldur's Gate, I never really got into the point-and-click adventure/puzzle game genre/s. Any suggestions for games that would be similar in gameplay to 7th Guest?
Sure thing. As a preface, there are a couple of major strands of point-and-click adventure games: those where the puzzles mostly involve obtaining important objects and using them in appropriate contexts, and those where the puzzles are mostly abstract math and logic problems that don’t necessarily correspond to anything that really exists in the game-world. The 7th Guest is of the latter type, so in case your wife has a preference I’m going to indicate which sort of puzzle predominates for each entry – “inventory puzzles” for the former, and “logic puzzles” for the latter.
The Eyes of Ara - I’ll start us off with something that’s very close to The 7th Guest as far as gameplay goes. Thematically and storywise it’s admittedly a lot closer to Myst and its various imitators, but it has quite a bit of that gothic aesthetic going for it, if that’s your wife’s preference. As you’d expect, it’s a pure logic puzzler.
Lumino City - This one changes up the FMV puzzler genre with beautiful cardboard dioramas rather than realistic environments. Probably the most intensely tactile logic puzzler I’ve ever played. Don’t be afraid to consult a guide; the game prioritises stylish presentation to the extent that it’s occasionally unclear what it expects you to do!
Please, Don’t Touch Anything - I’m throwing this one in mostly for interest’s sake: it’s a single-room logic puzzler with no defined victory conditions. You just mess around with a mysterious control panel to see what happens. There’s an achievement for finding all 25 endings, if your wife is the goal-oriented sort.
NAIRI: The Tower of Shirin - A super-cute hand drawn puzzler whose story goes to more serious places than you’d expect given its visual aesthetics. Unusual in that the types of puzzles it focuses on shifts over the course of play; it starts out as a nearly pure inventory puzzler, while the final area is a relentless barrage of very tricky logic puzzles.
Oxenfree - Mostly a choice-based walking simulator with a few logic puzzles thrown in. I’m including this one in case your wife enjoyed The 7th Guest for its meta brainfuck elements – this one has that in spades! Not strictly point-and-click, as it was designed for gamepads; the keyboard-and-mouse controls are awkward but serviceable.
The Room - This one’s a clear choice for a 7th Guest fan because it’s basically a spiritual sequel to it. It’s the first game in a series, but it doesn’t really matter where you jump in – each entry stands alone very well. As its antecedents suggest, it’s mostly logic puzzles, with its inventory elements rarely rising above “find the key to this door”.
Rusty Lake: Roots - A good mix of inventory and logic puzzles, leaning toward the latter. Don’t expect the story to make a whole lot of sense; the Rusty Lake series has buckets of backstory, and while Roots is probably the most accessible of the lot in its gameplay, its plot is indecipherable without context. Fair warning: lots of body horror.
Technobabylon - You knew I was going to throw in at least one conspicuously retro game, and this is that game. Another mix of logic and inventory puzzles, with the former being exceptionally well-integrated into the game’s environments; you’ll almost forget to ask why on Earth someone would hide a message in the genetic code of alien plants!
The Witness - Don’t let its FPS-like appearance fool you; its puzzles have no real-time elements and can be completed with the mouse only, though they keyboard is required to move about between puzzles. A logic puzzler making no pretense that its puzzles aren’t purely abstract, and very difficult in its later areas.
I’m also going to throw in a plug for The Talos Principle, which is a wonderful entry into the logic-puzzler genre, but I’m not including it on the main list because it’s even more FPS-like than The Witness, and includes some tricky real-time platforming that puts it firmly outside the point-and-click puzzle arena.
(You may notice that I’ve avoided games that focus mostly or entirely on inventory puzzles for the sake of staying in the same ballpark as The 7th Guest gameplay-wise. Just let me know if you’d like recs for those as well!)