Thought I'd come to the experts with this. I want to buy a new computer game for my parents, but they prefer the more logic/mechanical puzzle type games. They don't really like ones with lots of inventory puzzles or lots of dialogue & character interaction.

They loved all the Myst games, the Rhem games, Schizm: Mysterious Journey. They did also play Keepsake last year and enjoyed it, which does have some dialogue & characters so a little of that is okay, but not too much.

Does anyone have suggestions on a game I could buy them that's along these lines? Nothing too old, as they have XP and wouldn't want to deal with a lot of fiddling to get the game to play.

Thanks in advance for any help!


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I thought Azada from Big Fish was a great puzzle game. It is available by download or in retail package at many stores. You can try a demo at the Big Fish site. Safecracker 2006 and Inspector Parker/Betrapped are good too.

Azada

There are demos or videos for the other games as well at http://www.bigfishgames.com/

Besides the ones Pokey mentioned,
Alida
Mysterious Journey 2 (aka Schizm 2)
Sentinel (aka Realms of Illusion)

Alida uses QuickTime, like RHEM does.
Mysterious Journey 2 and Sentinel require a video card capable of hardware Transform & Lighting, which would be Geforce 2 or newer.

And there are the games from Peter Hewitt, like Xiama, Magnetic, and Magicama
http://www.mulawa.net/cgi-bin/download/choice.pl

Aura and The Sacred Rings are my favorites in that area.
Easier than the Myst games, but for me that was a good thing, and they are full of all types of logic puzzles.
And I've been recommended to play Keepsake because I loved Aura (that's now on the shelf).

Aura I and II definitely, just like HandsFree said. And I would suggest Sentinel, though I just started it, but it looks just like that type of game.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Safecracker 2006 is my pick of the games mentioned so far. I've replayed it numerous times, it's a, er, cracker!

A game of puzzles? No or very little inventory? Not necessarily mechanical puzzles, but the 'storyline' is all puzzles = the Wonderland games are FUN! and each of the 3 or 4 are download...and not terribly expensive. I am currently playing the Wonderland Adventure Mysteries of Fire Island and loving it. Some of the puzzles (early on) are hard so you may want to start them with one of the earlier games in this series. Check them out at their website at www.bmtmicro.com - I believe 2 or 3 of the Wonderland series you can order a backup CD of the full versions - worth checking it out. Have fun!
Love, Betty Lou