Thank you to bler144 and MarkoH01 for the keys. And to zeogold for organizing this thread

Enjoy! :)
I played both Hero of the Kingdom games, and found them to be fun and realxing :)

i can attest to that loved both games awaiting hero of the kingdom 3

You're both welcome. I hope you enjoy the game - whatever it was :D

Thanks and to Impaler26 for the game!

Thanks very much to zeo and Prah for Insurgency

Which is another game I'm interested in that seems to divide opinion. What are it's strengths and weaknesses?

I have only played it German dubbed and that is one of its biggest strength since they used some pretty well known German voice actors. It's also quite funny but often you don't know how to continue and you start running from one location to another until you find out that there was this one item you just did not know were able to pick up. In addition to that there is a lot of dialogue. Like I said because of the great voice acting - at least in German - that is also a plus, but you often have to listen to countless dialogue options to even know what you propably are supposed to do next. One big plus for me is that Ankh 1-3 is an ongoing Story so that the characters evolve (at least a bit) and the story goes on and has its comclusion in the final part. Since humour is one of the most subjective things that exist it might of course be that others don't find the game funny at all and of course it's also important that you like the characters which I did.

If you want to play the demo in English (never played it in Engish) you can try it here:
https://www.gamewatcher.com/downloads/ankh-download/ankh-english-demo

If you want to try it in German for whatever reason or if your German is fluent you can also try this here:
http://www.4players.de/4players.php/download_info/Downloads/Download/45003/Ankh/Demo_deu.html

At least in Germany the Ankh series got some pretty good ratings. But then again Germany os one of the countrys who still love point and click adventures - even though it still is a niche genre.

I suppose it's how that comic timing translates into English. I think I read something alouding to the fact that the German voice actors were pretty big hitting. It sounds like it's one of those to play with a walkthrough unless you have a very high patience threshold. I'm guessing there's nothing to highlight all clickable items?

It's been a long time since I played them but afair no, highlighting hotspots is a thing that is a "pretty recent" (yes, I know these are now also quite old but for me ... well, you get the point) development meant for casual gamers (although you may test it yourself using one of those links above). Originally point and click adventures were meant for gamers to get stuck and muddle through from time to time - maybe even do some breaks and come back later. Yes, you'll need a lot of patience for those. I do remember playing some of those old school adventures so long until I finally was convinced that the game must be broken and it's impossible to continue. I then went to a store (because there was no internet back in the days) and looked it up in a walkthrough just to see how obviously the solution in hindsight was :)

I have a love hate relationship with the genre. I started with a few Lucas Arts games I couldn't get into because I got stuck. Then came my true love in Broken Sword, which I played with my mum and actually completed it alongside it's 2 sequels. Generally I gravitate to story rich games with logical puzzles where cursor browsing doesn't spoil the game. I got back into the Lucas Arts games and I didn't really enjoy them as the story and characters were comparitively uninteresting. I loved Gabirel Knight 1 and 2 for Jane Jensons writing, although I can't believe some of the puzzles in the first game were solved without walkthroughs, at least 1 seemed impossible. But I enjoyed her writing in other games like Cognition Erica Reed and Moebius too.

So I suppose I'm maybe not a true fan of the genre and a bit or a casual gamer, although I hate hidden object games at the same time.

I loved Cognition as well even though Jane Jensen was only a story consultant for this. It definitely felt like some true Jane Jensen stuff. GK1 was great, GK2 (at least for me as a German) was amazing. GK3 was ... well ... the story still was great but the game itself was terrible and I only played it to experience the story. Still haven't played Moebius or GK Anniversary Edition - but only beccause of missing time and too many games. Yes, I guess point and click adventures will always stay my favorite but I can also understand if people have a problem with them.

I bet those itch.io keys don't receive much love, and I'm intrigued by that illumine game, so I'll take it if it's still available and nobody else wants it. :)

I'd like to try out Doors.

https://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/259-3763176-2891148?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=the+doors