Items14The creator’s order
  1. 1The Manhole (1988)The Manhole (1988) 7.0/10 on IGDBReleased Oct 1, 1988A small object can open up a whole new place, and a picture can hold more than one thing to try. Cyan built the original with HyperCard and brought it to CD-ROM early in the format’s life. It’s a place to explore at your own pace, with the pleasure in finding out what responds.0
  2. 2Alice: An Interactive Museum (1991)Alice: An Interactive Museum (1991)Released Dec 30, 1991Look closely at a painting or a piece of furniture and you may find a hidden playing card. The cards give clues to other discoveries, turning a tour of Kuniyoshi Kaneko’s surreal rooms into a scavenger hunt. The rooms are worth lingering in even when you’ve already found what you came for.0
  3. 3Myst (2020)Myst (2020) 8.0/10 on IGDBReleased Dec 10, 2020Books lead to other worlds, and the devices you find there are clues you can touch. A switch or dial may make sense only after you’ve looked at something elsewhere on the island. The original 1993 game makes going back to check an object part of the puzzle.0
  4. 4Gadget: Invention, Travel & Adventure (1993)Gadget: Invention, Travel & Adventure (1993)Released Nov 1, 1993An old photograph of seven scientists sends you down a railway through a fictional state. The itinerary is fixed, but the faces, train compartments, and peculiar machines are the things you have to study to piece together what’s happening. This is the original Gadget adventure, later reworked as…0
  5. 5Cosmology of Kyoto (1993)Cosmology of Kyoto (1993)Released Mar 1, 1993Explore Heian-era Kyoto, where a meeting can send you into a folktale, a Buddhist hell, or another life. Switch to Reference Mode when you want the historical context for what you’ve just seen. The disc makes room for both the story and the source material that shaped it.0
  6. 6The Residents: Freak Show (1994)The Residents: Freak Show (1994)Released Dec 31, 1994Leave the Big Top and look around the performers’ trailers. Harry the Head’s jar and the other things you find are invitations to click through to private stories, animations, and songs. That change from public spectacle to backstage discovery is what makes the disc feel different from the album it…0
  7. 7Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time (1994)Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time (1994)Released Dec 31, 1994Choose a lobe of the brain-shaped menu and you might land in a portrait gallery, an exploding TV room, or a game. Bits of Flying Circus turn up among new animations and odd desktop utilities. Half the joke is that clicking something ordinary can send you straight into a different kind of nonsense.0
  8. 8Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou (1994)Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou (1994)Released Apr 1, 1994Explore the inside of a gigantic head, where dying can move you into another life and give you a different way through the world. Osamu Sato built reincarnation into how the game progresses. If an encounter ends badly, the next viewpoint can be part of what you came to find.0
  9. 9Laurie Anderson's Puppet Motel (1998)Laurie Anderson's Puppet Motel (1998)Released Dec 31, 1998An electrical outlet can ask for your attention, and a room can let you play an altered electronic violin or piece together a film from Laurie Anderson’s images. Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang made the motel as a collection of rooms, sounds, and stories. A detour is as much a part of the visit as…0
  10. 10Bad Day on the MidwayBad Day on the MidwayAn eyeball cursor lets you step into another person’s point of view. The face in the crystal ball changes, and the text beneath the scene gives you the new character’s thoughts. The same carnival booth can tell a different story depending on who’s looking and when you get there.0