Greg Costikyan, the founder of indie game aggregator, Manifesto, has been writing about the healthy variety of traditional point-and-click adventure titles available on the site. His post on Games*Design*Art*Culture mentions games like The Shivah, a rabbi mourning mystery (there aren't enough of these), and Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine which pays homage to the great LucasArts titles as well as Leisure Suit Larry. Several of these adventures were apparently written using Adventure Game Studio a purportedly user-friendly game creation package.
However it's done, it's fascinating to see how point-and-click legends like Maniac Mansion and Police Quest are still influencing and inspiring gamers. Deep down, what I really want to see is a Monkey Island package on DS - but then the likes of Lost in Blue, Phoenix Wright and the forthcoming Hotel Dusk: Room 215 are sort of keeping that spirit alive. None of them, as far as I know, contain grog or spitting competitions or secondhand boat salesmen, though.
