El libro de las Aventuras Gráficas
What’s in it, what’s missing and who it’s for: Game Press’s book on point-and-click adventures.
If you grew up looking at, picking up and combining items in an inventory, this book is talking to you. Game Press published it in December 2020 and re-released it in March 2025, with corrected dates, new information and references to remakes and remasters. It runs to 192 full-colour pages, hardback and sewn, written by Raúl Muñoz, Carlos Climent, Jordi Marsal, René Hernández and Daniel Tortajada, who spent more than three years researching it. It’s in Spanish.
What’s inside
- A history of the genre, from Mystery House to the rivalry between Sierra and LucasArts, with its text-based forerunners, Colossal Cave and Zork.
- An almanac of 123 adventures in date order, one or two pages each, with trivia in every entry. It runs from Mystery House to Blacksad.
- “Los no olvidados” (The not forgotten): 31 more adventures, each with an image and title.
- A section on the copy-protection systems of the time, such as Monkey Island’s code wheel.
- The companies that made the genre, such as Sierra, LucasArts, Revolution and Pendulo Studios, and those that brought it to Spain, such as Erbe and FX Interactive.
- Profiles of creators such as Roberta Williams, Ron Gilbert and Charles Cecil.
- Interviews with Al Lowe, David Fox, Ramón Hernáez (Pendulo Studios) and Juanan and Toni Pascual (Nexus Game Studios), among others.
The cover, packed with recognisable characters, is by Glen Fernández, and the foreword is by Natalia Martinsson, creator of Fran Bow.
The best
The research. Every entry is well crafted and almost always has a fact you didn’t know, and the chronological order lets you read it in one go or open it at any page. The edition, in full colour and hardback, deserves a place on the shelf. La Piedra de Sísifo summed it up like this:
“A wonderful contribution to the world of video game literature.”
What’s missing
Reviews agree on a few drawbacks: the images are small and pushed to one side, and the sections on companies and creators are brief. Some miss titles such as Les Manley, Cruise for a Corpse or Stasis, and on Goodreads, where it averages 4 out of 5, some readers point out typos and see it more as an introduction than a definitive compendium.
Who it’s for
For anyone who wants a complete map of the genre, expert or beginner. If you’re after an in-depth analysis of each company, it falls short. If you want a beautiful, well-made reference book full of games to go back to, it’s one of the best there is in Spanish.
Sources