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The minimum price you can name is zero, so it makes sense.
Also, the number of games have almost doubled, including our very own Ali's Nelly Cootalot!
(Also Celeste, and probably some more quality games that I haven't been able to sort through yet)

Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
Seemed the best place for this, since these games are not free, but at just $5 it is an incredibly good deal in my opinion, even for just the following games:

A Mortician's Tale
Bleed
Bleed 2
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!
Dominique Pamplemousse and Dominique Pamplemousse in "Combinatorial Explosion!"
Dominique Pamplemousse in "It's All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings!"
Dreaming Sarah
Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, And The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist
Fortune-499
Minit
Night in the Woods
Oxenfree
Quadrilateral Cowboy
Super Hexagon
Tonight We Riot

Includes some AGS games too! A lot of shovelware (with over 700 games that would have been unavoidable), but well worth the minimum price. Plus it supports a good cause (although I don't know itch.io's ability to handle funds and donate without skimming, so no comment on that), so feel free to pay more.

Also a lot of dev resources (asset packs, texture packs, sprites).

It seems to be something specific to certain people. I can access my Sent Items with no problem.

Just do it. Why overthink things?

Kind of weird that a company is too lazy to generate temporary image links (and thus unusable outside of their site if that is what they wish), so instead they hound you by email to stop it.
What happens if you just ignore them?

Not sure a "best of" list would be fair as examples of average contemporary point & clickers, but even so, it's a bit telling that most of the best of Adventuregamers are rated average to mixed (metacritic critical and steam user scores), and they're mostly just as backward looking (unless you meant something else than "traditional point & click adventure game" by that).

I'm not sure I'm explaining my point very clearly. I guess I could say that it feels odd to me that there's this very particular strain of adventure games that have remained mechanically and structurally unchanged since the early 90s, and that strain makes up a significant portion of "adventure games" as a whole.

OK, so it's not an AGS game, but is it really an adventure game at all, or actually a hidden object game?

Can it not be both? 

Haha those harmonies at 2:09 aren't bad. Any other tracks by them you'd recommend?

The song I shared is by Ata Kak, you can get the "remastered" album here: https://atakak.bandcamp.com/
As for Awesome Tapes from Africa, there's a lot of stuff, but it isn't restricted to Ghana or Highlife music. Depending on what you're in the mood for, you'll probably find something to your liking.

The 90s WERE rad!

I think I was introduced to "Awesome Tapes from Africa" through Inkoddi here on the forums years ago, but found this song later. Almost everyone I share it with has a negative first reaction to it, but I think it's bangin'! 

It was my understanding that throw pillows go on beds, while cushions go on sofas.

(What is Aspect Ratio Correction? Back in the 80s and 90s, 320x200 games were originally played on CRT monitors with display areas that had a 4:3 aspect ratio. This means that because 320x200 isn't a 4:3 resolution, a pixel displayed in 320x200 mode was rectangular in appearance instead of being square. Modern monitors, however, don't have non-square pixels. As such, we provide our "ARC" download sizes that make use of aspect ratio correction, so that you can see these screenshots the way they were originally seen - the Sierra logo should be a circle, not an oval!)

(exactly the image they spoke of)

It appears they've taken the pixel versions of the 320x200 games, but messed up converting them to the correct aspect ratio, so...they're a bit out of whack.

Snarky, the 2nd video in the series talks about those newer games, I didn't link that one or focus on that, because that wasn't what I was talking about here (the adherence to a particular evolutionary step in adventure games among certain audiences and creators, even here). Not sure inventory puzzles were mentioned, the part I quoted was tired mechanics and unintuitive puzzles. But thanks for your response! I guess my view is that even today, so many people (especially here on AGS) are just pumping out the same Agatha Cristie knock-offs.

I've been knee-deep in ScummVM over the last fortnight or so, and I've got to say, putting aside the rose-tints, most of these games are a pain in A to play through. Even the classics, and especially the Sierra catalogue. As for LucasArts, I would probably be willing to argue that only those games post The Dig are enjoyable in a non-nostalgic state of mind. In other words, those games that started to move away from that earlier style of design. There's a very good reason why a lot of people (including myself) consider Grim Fandango the pinnacle of LucasArts' adventure output; it retains the spirit, humour and, most importantly, the emphasis on narrative, while refining (and improving) the mechanics to an almost unrecognizable degree.

Oh, I agree with you absolutely (except where you say the verbcoin games were less of a pain to play ), that was my point. If I had to play those games for the first time now, I'd hate and be absolutely frustrated by them. I finally bought The Last Express a couple years ago because of all the praise that it got for its time-based mechanics (and Vel loved it  ), and unfortunately for me, it is really unplayable. I may have to eventually go through it simply as an academic, but I doubt I'd enjoy it.

I think Lucas Arts adventure games aren't the best examples of pixel art as an aesthetic. Especially not Monkey Island 2, because they were scanned drawings/paintings. So they could easily have looked the same but better in high resolution.

But I also don't think the comparison is very helpful. Mosaics, cross stitching and weaving have been making images out of discrete regions of colour for a long, long time. Pixel art is a medium in its own right. It's retro, but not dated in the same way that the SCUMM interface is dated.

Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about pixel art, then I shifted my focus to adventure games (not pixel art in adventure games) to carry over the comparison. I agree, while MI2 art is beautiful, it isn't really a meaningful example of pixel art.

Snarky, I don't think the genre has provided notably new things between Broken Age and now, so I used that as an example, but alright, it seems that mentioning it has created a bit of a digression. Do you feel that the games you mentioned rise above the criticisms that video (and I) made of traditional point & clickers using the example of Broken Age? Of the ones I played/know of, I don't (and Amanita games are a peculiar breed of point & click adventures, maybe more similar to the original Gobliiins games, I'm not sure I'd group them with the others, but the criticisms broadly apply to Chuchel as well).

Oh, I think Broken Age is "just fine" as well, my point was that it adhered to an outdated paradigm of the "traditional point & click adventure", which probably is what contributed to it being "just fine", and why I said that if it had come out 25 years ago rather than today (when the "traditional point & click adventure" paradigm was more contemporary), it would have won all the awards. And I chose it specifically because it's the game from the last couple years that had the same sort of exposure a similar game from 25 years ago would have had. I can't say the same for any of the games you listed among "best traditional adventure game" (I know of "Whispers of a Machine" and "Sumatra: Fate of Yandi" only for being AGS games) except Life is Strange 2, which is a strange case: I haven't played it, but I did play 1, and I wouldn't have considered it a "traditional adventure game" (and neither did the Aggies, as evidenced by it winning the Reader's Choice award for non-traditional adventure game way back in 2015). Is Life is Strange 2 more traditionally adventure game than 1 was, or did they just relax their criteria?

Also, I'm not sure the comparison to pixel art is fair. You can still make good quality "pixel art" today, and it would still be good by the standards of art today. Taking design sensibilities from 25 years ago and try supplanting them into today and they will definitely feel very dated. Those games were incredible back then because that is what we had back then. I'd be curious as to the success of Monkey Island 2 if it were released today, and had never existed before. Would it receive praise for anything other than writing?

I gave up on new adventure games in the 2000s, spent that time catching up with the classics I missed. I don't regret that decision in the least .

Half-life 2 (or Abe's Oddysee, not played that one) doesn't really scratch the same itch that the traditional adventure games did, I don't think it can be said that they replaced them. I guess that would be an interesting avenue to explore. For me, personally, my favourite traditional P&C adventure games were the Monkey Island games, King's Quest games, Space Quest games, etc.- games that aside from being adventure games, actual gave the sense of being part of an adventure, on an epic journey. For others it might be different. The most recent game that scratched that itch for me was the lovely, lovely (but terribly bug-ridden, for me) Wandersong.

And my point about Broken Age was that people got exactly what was advertised- an adventure game akin to those from the "golden age", with warts and all. If Broken Age had come out 25 years ago, it would have won literally all the awards. But the genre has evolved now.

So this video brought back to my mind an old debate that's been going on for years, but had not happened here for a while now: "Why did adventure games die?" (the last response here being akin to 'they didn't'). I guess we can discuss that, and there may be some interesting points from that discussion, but what struck me was his reasoning: the genre (traditional graphical point and click adventures) fell out due to tired and old mechanics and unintuitive puzzles, and it seems a compelling argument: mechanically, an adventure game made 25 years ago could easily have been made today (and vice versa), while during that time, other genres developed, and keep on developing and improving and evolving.

On the surface of it, that argument makes sense, but then I started wondering- how did other genres evolve that adventure games didn't?
I can think of lots of quality of life improvements in other genres (mouse-look in FPSes, dumping tank controls in 3rd person games), but do those really count as "evolutions"?

And the next video in the series discusses some of the evolution in adventure games. So a roughly chronological list would be something like:

Interactive Fiction

Graphical Interactive Fiction

Graphical Point & Click Adventure Games

FMV Visual Novels Walking Simulators Branching Narrative QTE games Adventure Elements in non-adventures

(that last row probably has a lot more intermixing and hierarchy, but I was just keeping it simple)

So obviously adventure games are not dead. They just keep evolving. But then I come back to something- the traditional "Graphical Point & Click Adventure Games" do seem dead. Sure, we had a record breaking kickstarter a couple years ago (one that I participated in), but the results, while fun, were nothing groundbreaking or signifying any great return.
The same video series says "Much of the design problems that plagued the last wave of American adventure games, were still there in broken age: Nonsense, obtuse, trial-and-error puzzles, repetitive VO, dull, very slow gameplay". We have even a number of commercial releases of AGS games, and they're quality stuff for what they are, but does that count as a return, or just serving a very niche market?

What do you think?

I am rather convinced that it is simply a legislative gap. The manufacturers of those wretched things must have found it, and decided to make the most of it, while it lasts. It is terribly stupid, and I would delight in kicking them over if I found any. I dare say hardly anyone can see micro-waves, so why, I ask you, lawyer from Racket-o-Matic Ltd., why cannot I use them to discourage burglars?

My own gear-grinding annecdote, meanwhile, is similar if opposite.

Now, a while ago, I was at a burial. It was quite alright, truly, gently reassuring as they are meant to be. However, I noticed that as it was time to toll the bells, they sounded rather tinny and muffled. It emerged that it was not the bells at all, but a recording, fed through the PA speakers. It was very vexing.
It emerged, however, that the church had been the recipient of quite a few noise complaints, on account of the bells. The bells! And they were thus rather limited as to when they could ring them. I am not particularly difficult about noise, ordinarily. Life is inescapably noisy, and it is reasonable to long for some peace and quiet. But this made me quite wild to hear.
Who are these utter dimplecups, I wonder, that move into a nice (and up-market, lest we forget) house right next to a church when they cannot abide the sound of bells? It is not as if it was a difficult building to spot, crouched between a hedge and a gas holder. They cannot possibly have missed it, if they have ever been in the area before they bought the house. It is not some little secret the estate agent can keep under wraps until it is too late. It stands radiant on the landscape, and what is more, I very much doubt it is tolling day and night. I simply cannot see the disruption, or the nerve to shut up a service you have decided to live next doors to.

I wonder sometimes if the neighbours are, in fact, trolls and giants that have come down the hills and moved into town. After buying the houses, there was evidently gold left for a good lawyer...

And I shall bet that these same dimplecups would merrily install those blasted high-pitch screamers if they had half a chance, too.

I wonder what they do on Sunday mass...

There were only 78 games submitted to the AGS database last year (about half of them MAGS games, if I correctly remember what was said during the ceremony), and I believe only some thirty people actually voting. Dividing things up any further will mean a bunch of categories where there are more nominee slots than eligible games, and where a game might win with only five or six votes in total.

Wait, I remember it being said there were 78 games nominated last year. Are you saying there were actually only 78 games submitted to the AGS DB?! 

Is that Italy? What happened to social distancing? Why are all those people hugging?