Great thread that reminds me how much I love this genre.
This was the first gaming genre I ever played, and many P&Cs are some of my favourite games (Sam & Max, Broken Sword, etc.), but I haven't played a new one on PC in years, instead gravitating towards VNs and narrative puzzle games.
I'm browsing through my Steam library - which of these should I start with (and what other masterpieces have I missed?)?
Dropsy
Kathy Rain
The Inner World
Haven't had time to play The Inner World, but I'd go with Kathy Rain first, as it's short and the puzzles aren't too tough, so it's a good'un to ease you back into the genre.
Dropsy I'd wait on, as there's an update to the game coming this month.
As for what you've missed, that's hard to say without knowing what you've played, but these are my favourite P&C games that released after the genre "died":
Ben There, Dan That & Time Gentleman Please
Primordia
Blackwell series (5 game series, first 4 are available in a bundle)
The Book of Unwritten Tales
Technobabylon
Touch Detective
Touch Detective 2 ½
Shadowgate (2014)
Ben there Dan That & Time Gentleman Please are two absolutely hilarious british p&c's, the funniest in the genre since the golden age of lucasarts, in my opinion the funniest since Day of the Tentacle.
Primordia, Technobabylon & the Blackwell games are more seriously tonally (Primordia is set in a dystopian future, Technobabylon is cyberpunk while the Blackwell series are paranormal mysteries), and are all superbly scripted.
The Book of Unwritten Tales is a fantasy p&c with multiple characters. Probably the highest budgeted game here. Falls apart a bit at the end ( I suspect they ran out of money), but it's a phenomenal ride while it lasts.
The Touch Detective games are charming and somewhat surreal DS P&C games. Puzzles can sometimes be a bit obtuse, but the writing's so good I kind of give them a pass.
Shadowgate - quite different to the other games on my list so may not be your thing - remake of a classic first person point & click where death lurks behind every ill advised "use x with x" experiment
Great list in here. Looking forward to a lot of these.
Question: What's that Dropsy update? I have the game in my Steam library but I haven't actually started it yet. Does the update improve the main game or is it a separate story or something? Wondering whether I should wait until the update hits or if I can play it now and have some more story in a couple of months.
All we know is it adds a new area. I'll be interested to see if he deals with my only criticism of the game (4 different "times" being a bit exhausting to search through in every area to see if things change) or leaves it as-is.