So this has been bugging me more than usual and I thought I'd throw it out here as you guys are usually pretty good at this.

Here's what I remember;
It was a set of eight or ten games that I bought in the late 90s (maybe early 2000s) and the one I'm thinking of was a point and click / adventure game (though I think there were two in the set that I spent a little time with)
The menu bar was down the left side and the screen was static (no player character in the scene if I remember right)
The setting was fantasy but might have had magical technology.
I seem to think there was dragon in the name (though this may have been the second game I'm thinking of from the set)
And the big one that sticks in my mind is that you could cast spells. You collected runes and recipes and could combine the runes on a board (or something) to cast spells for various effects (I can't actually remember what, I don't think there was any combat and can't remember what the puzzles were like).
The hero may have been a He-man / Conan type character (bare chested and muscular) but I'm not sure I'm remembering that correctly.

Any ideas?

Is this Quest for Glory V or something?
There's not a lot of series that had so many games in it.

Oh no, it wasn't a series. It was buy ten cheap games in one box. Same publisher or developer presumably (though I didn't care at the time) but totally different games. I can't remember what the rest of them were or whether I'd even played them particularly.

And it wasn't Quest For Glory, as I recall it was 2D scenes, no 3D. And the menu stuff was definitely down the left side (though there may have been some thing across the bottom too)

Oh, one of those things.
This is probably too modern, but perhaps Mage's Initiation?
This sounds like something I've played or at least heard of before, so it'll take me a bit to wrack my brains. Forgive me if I flood the joint with a lot of posts since I'll be throwing stuff in as I remember them.

I'd say Quest for Infamy, but I don't think that came in a physical version, did it?

Wait a second...menu on the left side? Static screen? GAH! I know this company! What's the name of the doggone thing...
Legend Entertainment, I think? Didn't they have games like that?

Edit: Ninja'd by Densetsu.

It was less cartoony and more serious than either of those. Heh. Damn you guys are good. Pretty sure that's it. I knew there was a dragon in there somewhere, glad I remembered that right :)

Thanks.

That's the game I had in mind (well, the publisher/developer anyways), but dang...you're on a whole next level, even getting it down to the bundle! o_O

Yep, even the right bundle. I remember playing the druid one and the Panzer General tank ones. And probably the soccer one too, don't really remember playing the others.

I'll mark you as the solution, that was spot on :)

Ha ha well, it's just a memory thing Zeo. :) Glad to have helped. :)

It's bugged me on and off for years. Shame most of them don't seem to be available anywhere, Death Gate at least I seem to remember being quite good. One of the only adventure games I spent any time with.

Yeah, they aren't. Atari holds the rights for Legend Entertainment games and since Death Gate is based on The Death Gate Cycle book series (does this look familiar), your best bet by far if you wish to stick to the legal means is to enable notifications on eBay for refined search and buy affordable copy once it becomes available.

OEMs from bundles commonly come at affordable prices, unless the game is hard to find by now.

Yeah, I saw that. Being based on a book probably makes it far less likely to be re-released.

I would have been able to get you to the packs, but no further... although I played Death Gate back in the day.

Still those packs were really nice. I probably still have a few in a box somewhere.

To be honest I'm sure I still have them somewhere.. in a box in my mother's house most likely (which is in another country so not trivial to access).

But thank you for the offer :)

I'm not too bothered about playing it again, it just annoys me when I can't remember things like that. If it was available I'd probably pick it up, but mainly for nostalgia.

The game are actually better than I remembered, I think I bought it for Steel Panthers and Allied Generals / Panzer General 2 as they were the ones that interested me but looking at the list there were a few decent games in there.
At the time I just remember thinking that £10 - £20 was a great deal for so many games when it was usually that much for one...
If only I knew then what digital distribution would do to game prices.. it's easy to get 10 brilliant games for that price now XD