Omg, those helplines, that really takes me back! I never used those because my parents would have strung me up by my testicles after seeing the phone bill! That's a lot of it too - the amount of free time available is way less so I want to use it wisely and being stuck on a game for hours through stubbornness is not that!

With these games I'll definitely be less annoyed about using guides, and the story in GK was so great I'm glad I did that, rather than just get pissed off and leave the game altogether, which I might have done in the past.

I had to look up and STILL couldn't work out how people actually figured it out even after getting the answer 😂

Yeah I won't be going anywhere near GK3. So much of my enjoyment of graphic adventures is the pixel art, I just love it. That or hand drawn, like Broken Sword. I actively avoid any and all 3D adventure games, even classics like Grim Fandango. They do nothing for me!

1- pixel hunting : nothing really comes to mind. You want some things that hurt try “ Future war : time travelers”. There is like something like a gas capsule, some really tiny pixel shit, that lays around in a room in the middle age I think. And you can jump to the future /the plot can move forward without you getting it. And it will give you no clue. You will just end up in a miserable little cell Now that is REALLY stuck and specifically cruel because it doesn’t give you any goddamn clue about what to do /the fact you went wrong earlier in the game.

It's not so much the pixel hunting per se, I don't mind having to find something small on a game screen but as long as there's some kind of indication of what's there (Unless that's what pixel hunting is defined as, in which I case I do mind that :P). It's more that, in GK1 (and presumably the other Sierra games) on every single screen, pretty much everything can be clicked on and interacted with, so knowing what is useful and what's not became such a chore. By way of example, in GK1 there would be a room, and almost every part of that room and the objects in it can be clicked on and interacted with, and so it becomes hard to know what is and isn't useful. In other games of that type, you'll still have things you can look at which won't be of any use in the game, but the number is far less, so it's nowhere near as much of a chore IMO.

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2- moon logic Yeah in GK/Sierra game you can die. And I do vaguely remember the final showdown being tricky - like you die several time because you-know-who do her magic thing and you can’t find the right action sequence. But again : nothing unbearable. I never played GK3 but from what I heard there is the most infamous moon logic puzzle of the history of adventure games. Something batshit insane.

Haha I've never played it but I think I know what you mean - does it involve a moustache? 😂 the puzzles I really struggled with in GK1 were:
making the mime follow me to the police officer
figuring out what to write on the tomb
escaping the mummies in the tomb when they came alive because the vines just looked like foreground decoration
a lot of the action stuff at the end - and I got totally stuck because I didn't leave the snake rod in the lift, so Mosely never appeared

I've already played all the Wadjet Eye games, and other similar ones like Kathy Rain or Whispers of a Machine, and that's exactly why I love them. Old school retro look but with modern touches. 😊

Ah I've had that on my wishlist for a while now, would you recommend it?

Thanks, I'll have a look at GK2 :)

I agree, the supernatural and more adult element of the game was great, and a huge part of what I did like about it. There is no way I would have worked out the mime thing, and the same with:
figuring out what to write on the tomb wall

And I needed help in the final situations the first time I got there because I'd locked out something I needed and it meant I was literally completely stuck and had to reload.

Haha yeah the classic move! Trying your entire inventory on itself and everything on screen! But then, that just makes the issue I have even worse. With everything on screen being interactable, it opens up so many options of what could be the right thing, and becomes so tedious. Of course, not everything would make sense but it's still hard to discern sometimes. Yeah that part you mention is one of the things I needed a guide for. So obtuse and not something I ever would have thought of.

Yeah that was my experience at the end, and if I hadn't happened to save it at the start of each day I would have had to have gone back hours and hours. And it would be even worse, as you say, if you don't even know what it is you were meant to do or pick up earlier (but I knew what my mistake was).

Ah, for me the highlighting goes too far the other way! I do like a bit of exploration of the screen, but when literally anything no matter how big or small could be something important, I just find it such a trudge.

Totally agree about the UHS and how it doesn't give other things away, and also because it doesn't actually tell you how to do something to begin with, but just gives a nudge in the right direction.