This one's a dedication to Chett Walters, born this very day. I'll never forget all the time we spent zoning out to video games in our childhood, discovering the wonders of Snatcher and Loom for the first time.

The adventure genre is huge. For the sake of simplicity, let's divide it between action-adventures and old-school adventures. For the latter, I'm talking about games that rely heavily on text. Yeah, if you don't like reading, then don't even bother trying to play any titles in this list. Adventure games include several sub-genres. You'll often hear "definitions" like: point-and-click adventure, text adventure, digital novel/comic book—even sound novel. Don't get too hung up on the differences between these sub-genres. Basically, adventure games focus on telling a story (like RPGs), but an important difference is that combat plays a very small role. Instead, the emphasis is on puzzle solving and exploration. Rather than fast reflexes, you're going to have to rely on your attention to detail and problem solving.