The 2025 Adventure Game Hotshot Awards

• Features by Adventure Game Hotspot staff
• Published:
• Page 3/6

Best Comedy – Dispatch 

AdHoc Studio's Dispatch is a laugh-out-loud adventure game about a team of unlikely (ex-)supervillains forced to come together to work together for good as a team, but it takes more than just funny writing for a game to elicit this kind of consistent giffaws. Dispatch is also a technical marvel that uses all of its impressive achievements for the purpose of player amusement. Sure, the script is relentlessly witty, but the voice actors are also perfectly cast to lean into their characters’ insanity, and the game's beautiful, load-free animation propels the experience with the same crackling energy of the best modern absurdist cartoons. Elite comedic experiences hit you so hard and fast with humor, you don't even have time to think about it before the next joke or sight gag is inbound, and this game truly fits the bill. What makes the accomplishment all the more remarkable is that Dispatch is as much an interpersonal drama as it is a comedy, and yet it brings expert writing, acting, directing and visual elements together to create the funniest gaming experience of the year.  

Runners-up:

SpaceVenture
The Biggleboss Incident
Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping
Wildwood Down 

Best Fantasy – Near-Mage 

Near-Mage is a very pretty point-and-click adventure that follows 18-year-old Ilinca “Illy” Vraja through a witchy coming-of-age story rooted in Romanian folklore. As Illy, players explore both the real Romanian city of Sighișoara (in developer Stuck In Attic’s native Transylvania), and the enchanted town of Rakus when a hidden portal is opened. There Illy attends the Institute of Magick and hones her spellcraft, forging friendships with classmates and shopkeepers along the way. The game’s whimsical world is brimming with personality and unique locations to explore, spells to learn and wield, and a cast of otherworldly friends and foes, from talking cats to vampyres to mitzkins (the developer’s own flying magical creatures) to meet. Its colorful, hand-painted storybook art and bouncy score lend themselves well to the fantastical immersion as well. At its core this is a classic journey of belonging and self-discovery, culminating in a battle of good and evil in Illy’s hunt to track down a mysterious magical book that could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Near-Mage certainly cast a spell on us with its magical narrative-driven gameplay, making it our choice for the adventure that best captured the elements of fantasy in game form in 2025.

Runners-up:

Foolish Mortals
The End of the Sun
Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island
Simon the Sorcerer Origins 

Best Horror – The Midnight Walk

Horror comes in many forms: blood and guts, psychological terror of the unknown, or sculpted from clay in the case of MoonHood’s The Midnight Walk. Equally unsettling and grimly beautiful, it’s a fully realized stop-motion journey into a creepy world overrun by unrelenting darkness. As The Burnt One, the sole keeper of light, along with your fiery companion Potboy, you must wordlessly outwit unspeakable monstrosities while moving ever onward towards the towering Moon Mountain in the distance. Gangly shrieking beasts with eyes sewn shut, a massive-mawed howling creature with piercing blue eyes, and lightning-fast ticking abominations all wish to extinguish or take your fire for themselves, resulting in gut-churning sound effects of your demise. Even non-hostile scenarios are thoroughly unnerving, filled with still-living disembodied heads rolling around or shambling homunculi lurking in a frozen-over coal mining ghost town. Backed by a poignant soundtrack punctuated by moments of terror, the story constantly messes with expectations and injects surprising heart into its horror. Haunting yet hopeful with a bold aesthetic, The Midnight Walk is a dark, macabre stroll absolutely worth taking – so long as you remember to look over your shoulder.

Runners-up:

No, I’m Not Human
Little Nightmares III
Dead Letter Dept.
KARMA: The Dark World 

Best Mystery – Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer 

In 2016, Clifftop Games introduced us to Kathy Rain as she returned to her hometown to uncover the mystery behind her grandfather’s death. Set several years later, the sequel ups the mystery ante considerably, as Kathy has graduated college, moved to the big city of Kassidy, and begun a career as a private investigator. Fortunately she brings the same wit, grit, and “rocker chick” cool to the Soothsayer case – a string of murders that has put the city on edge. While it has supernatural elements, this game does a fantastic job of keeping the practical side of the mystery front and center. You truly feel like a detective using every method at your disposal to solve the case, whether exploring a library’s newspaper archives or infiltrating an exclusive nightclub. Kathy has her trusty notebook, where she jots down clues to follow up on, and she'll riffle through documents and notes, giving puzzles a satisfying tangibility. As players get to know the people connected to the killer’s victims, the plot threads weave together expertly while the narrative deconstructs Kathy’s stubborn drive to do anything to obtain a clue. As in any great mystery, Kathy’s discoveries often lead to more questions than answers, but it’s all wrapped up nicely in the end, making Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer an investigative gift for any armchair sleuth.

Runners-up:

The Séance of Blake Manor
The Roottrees Are Dead
Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit
Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile

Best Sci-Fi – Old Skies 

Time travel is a well-worn science fiction trope by now, but in Old Skies, Dave Gilbert manages to put new and intriguing twists on it in a world where history-hopping is both possible and almost routine, at least for the ultra-rich. Indeed, ChronoZen agent Fia Quinn initially appears to be little more than a glorified babysitter as her latest customer takes a trip down memory lane to his favorite student diner. Naturally he has other plans, and that's when it becomes clear that Fia's job is as much to protect the past as her client. She may be chrono-locked to one personal reality, but the timeline is constantly shifting around her, at times threatening to collapse into paradox. Critical events and people must be preserved, but who decides what's important, and how do you cope when loved ones can blink into non-existence at any moment? What can you hold onto amid constant change, and what does death even mean when you can be rewound back to life? Such thought-provoking questions are folded into a timey wimey story packed with tricksy time loops and Groundhog Day scenarios, leading to a dramatic and heart-rending finale. Like the best of sci-fi, Old Skies wraps detailed world-building and believable technology around a very human heart, and in 2025, none did it better.

Runners-up:

The Drifter
Dispatch
Neon Hearts City
SpaceVenture
Elroy and the Aliens 

Next up: The Hotspot Highlights...

• 3 / 6
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• …