There's no end in sight of the Last Half of Darkness, which is good news for fans of the longrunning horror series that extends today with the release of Tomb of Zojir.

The latest first-person, point-and-click adventure from WRF Studios sends players to the Isle of the Dead, where legends tell of "strange ghosts that live there and the creatures of the dead hiding in the shadows; feeding on sailors foolish enough to beach upon the dark shores." Only your knowledge of dark arts and science will enable you to survive the dangers in pursuit of "the true origin of the last half of darkness".

Last Half of Darkness: Tomb of Zojir is now available on DVD directly from the developer's website, with a retail version of the game to follow shortly in North America and published by Tri Synergy.

First there were the Nanobots, and now Erin Robinson is moving on to bigger and better things in her first commercial adventure, Puzzle Bots.

Well, maybe not entirely bigger, as the playful stars of Puzzle Bots are tiny robots who find themselves literally in over their heads in an unexpected adventure. Each creation at Dr. Hugo’s Factory for Making Robots has a unique personality and special ability of its own, and players will need to utilize them all in this "epic journey full of curious animals, mischievous children and sleep-deprived scientists."

According to Robinson, better known as "The Ivy" during her acclaimed freeware development years that also produced Spooks, Puzzle Bots is a point-and-click adventure that will challenge players to solve puzzles that use "familiar objects at an unfamiliar scale", with even common objects becoming giant obstacles for the diminutive bots. The likes of Hero, Ibi, and Bombchelle, among others, will need to work together if they're to avoid the many dangers confronting them and answer the perplexing questions they encounter, including what's so weird about the factory layout.

Due for release some time this fall, Puzzle Bots also represents the debut third-party publishing endeavour by Wadjet Eye Games, now branching out from its own popular Blackwell series to support fellow independents. For more information about the game and its many colourful characters, be sure to pop over to the official website as well as Robinson's Lively Ivy site.

After two decades of Nancy Drew PC games, Her Interactive has released the 20th adventure in the series, Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships. Even though Nancy is almost 80 years old (in literary terms), these games are proving she is still as popular as ever.

In her latest adventure, Nancy is invited to spend some time at a summer resort in the Bahamas with her friends George and Bess. Nancy doesn’t get a relaxing summer vacation, though, as when she arrives she finds Bess and the resort owners missing. To save them from their kidnappers, Nancy and George (a playable character for the first time in the series) must decrypt a riddle book and recover sunken treasures beneath the waves to find an elusive artefact.

Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships is now shipping worldwide from Her Interactive’s webstore, and will soon be available at retailers throughout North America. For more information about the game, check out the official site, where you’ll find a minigame and playable demo.

CSI adventure fans may have been surprised (and disappointed) by the series' casual foray into New York recently, but Ubisoft has just revealed that the next installment will be returning to Vegas in CSI: Deadly Intent.

The series is also moving back into the hands of Telltale Games, who previously developed 3 Dimensions of Murder and Hard Evidence. As before, the game's cases will be created in partnership with writers from the popular television show to ensure an authentic CSI experience. Once again challenging players to collect evidence at crime scenes, interrogate witnesses, and analyze clues with the latest forensic equipment, Deadly Intent will reflect changes to the TV cast this season, including Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne) and Riley Adams (Lauren Lee Smith).

Deadly Intent will be released on the PC and Nintendo Wii, with a target release date set for this October. The game will also be available as a handheld on the DS, with Other Ocean Interactive handling the development duties for that version. For more information about the game, a few additional details are available on Ubisoft's product page.

Edit: Since the time of writing, the official product page has been removed from the Ubisoft website.

Usually new game releases are trumpeted loudly by their publishers, but the latest adventures seem to be running in stealth mode, as three new games have been launched in recent weeks with little to no fanfare, in the form of Return to Mysterious Island 2, Diabolik: The Original Sin, and Another Code: R - A Journey Into Lost Memories.

In Return to Mysterious Island 2 (now subtitled Mina's Fate), Kheops Studio returns players to the famed island once inhabited by Captain Nemo. Playing once again as young Mina, who washed ashore in the original game only to seemingly get herself rescued by the end, circumstances go from bad to worse in the sequel. Not only is the rescue attempt tragically aborted, but now the island is being afflicted by a dangerous gas, and it's up to Mina and her simian pal Jep to figure out what's happening. At present, the game is only available at Big Fish Games.

Stealth is actually central to Diabolik: The Original Sin, as players control the titular master thief. When Diabolik's girlfriend Eva is captured by his old nemesis, he's tasked with stealing a valuable painting to secure her return, and the thief will stop at nothing to ensure her safety. Released on a variety of playforms, including PC, Wii, PlayStation 2, and the DS and PSP handhelds, Diabolik has been quietly shipped to retail stores in both North America and the UK.

The very first adventure game on the DS was Another Code, and now the series is branching onto the Wii with the release of Another Code: R - A Journey Into Lost Memories. The heroine of both games is young Ashely, now 16 years old. This time Ashley receives a invitation from her father to a camping resort, but she soon finds that something unusual is going on at Lake Juliet that may just tie in with her father's memory control experiments. Another Code: R is currently available only in the UK, and North American gamers should note that Wii region restrictions prevent PAL games from running on NTSC-enabled systems.

Note: Big Fish Games is an Adventure Gamers affiliate.

Though Memento Mori was originally scheduled to come out this week, its North American release has been pushed back slightly to later this month. Fortunately, a new trailer released by Got Game should keep conspiracy investigators happy in the meantime.

The trailer depicts hooded men, brutal murders, and other tantalising glimpses of the game in which you play as both a former art forger and detective as they investigate a series of art thefts. Their investigation leads them to Europe and an ancient cult obsessed with “Ars Moriendi” or “The Art of Dying”. The combination of art and the fanatical religious world soon leads to murder, which suits the game’s title that translates to “Remember you will die”.

For more information about Memento Mori, be sure to visit the official website.

If you weren't previously aware that Absurdus' Eye of the Kraken and Carte Blanche were related, you weren't alone. It seems even the developers didn't know at the time, but that's all changed with the announcement of The Eight Tentacles of the Apocalypse, which will wrap up the newly-devised "Kraken trilogy".

The offbeat Canadian studio plans to weave together the storylines and characters from its first two games in a concluding installment that ties up any loose questions. The new game picks up right at the end of Carte Blanche, when Abdullah shows up in Montreal, now 20 years older, and he and Edgar Delacroix team up to solve their problems with what Absurdus calls "an abusive use of flashbacks". Players will control both characters at times, in the present and in the past. There's even a romantic interest involved, though the developers aren't saying who the lucky adventurer is just yet.

This may sound like an unusual blend of themes to anyone who hasn't played the previous games, but the new trailer for The Eight Tentacles of the Apocalypse serves as an appropriate introduction to the strange and wacky worlds of Absurdus adventure games.

Though originally released as a commercial offering, Eye of the Kraken has since been officially declared freeware, and can be downloaded from the official website. Carte Blanche was only ever released in the UK, but can now be downloaded directly from Absurdus at a cost of $9.99.

The Eight Tentacles of the Apocalypse has no firm release date at this point, though the developers are aiming for a release some time next year.

After nearly a decade of unfulfilled hope (and a few extra hours of website overload), at long last the Monkey Island franchise has officially been resurrected with today's release of Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 1 - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.

The first of five episodes from Telltale Games, Screaming Narwhal ushers in the return of Guybrush Threepwood, his wife Elaine, and the evil pirate LeChuck. As Guybrush attempts to put an end to LeChuck once and for all with a cursed cutlass, something goes dreadfully wrong when he's forced to concoct a homemade formula of his own. With predictably disastrous results, Guybrush instead unleashes a nasty pox that infects his own hand and threatens to spread all throughout the Caribbean if he can't reverse the curse.

The PC version of Tales of Monkey Island is sold as a full-season puchase, and the first episode is available for download now directly from Telltale, along with a free playable demo. The episode will soon be coming to WiiWare as well, where it will be sold as a standalone episode.

For more information about Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, check out our review of the game.

Though early screenshots and vague details about a new game from Secret Files co-developer Animation Arts have been circulating since last year, today Deep Silver has finally unveiled the title of the new project, now named Lost Horizon.

The point-and-click adventure sends players back to the year 1936, a time when "Nazi henchmen are traveling the world over, searching for occult weapons to help with plans for further conquests – and for a key artifact to unlock the mythical Shambala." Conducting a search of his own is Fenton Paddock, a "former British soldier and hapless smuggler", who is sent to locate a lost expedition party in Tibet. This is only the beginning of his adventure, however, which soon leads him to Hong Kong and Morocco as well, ultimately in pursuit of a "secret that could turn the whole world upside down."

It will still be some time before Lost Horizon is ready to divulge that secret, as the game is currently scheduled for an unspecified date in 2010, with a German version expected first.

The more thing change... the more they start looking like the early '90s these days. Not only is Monkey Island poised to dominate the adventure world this week and next, today LucasArts announced that some of its other classics will soon be available through digital distribution for the first time on Steam.

On the eve Tales of Monkey Island's debut episode comes word that the re-imagined Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will be released on July 15th. For Xbox 360 owners, the game will be available through Xbox Live Arcade, while PC gamers can turn to Steam or unidentified "other online distribution channels". The new version features updated graphics, a new control scheme, re-mastered musical score, and full voiceovers, or the option to play the game as it was originally released.

That isn't the only LucasArts adventure in the news today, however. While not receiving enhanced treatments (at least at this point, though fans can always hope), the company also announced the "first batch" of older titles to be made available through Steam on July 8th. The list includes the likes of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, LOOM, and The Dig on the adventure front, among games from other genres.

While there are no indications what other games are planned for release in this way, the company is promising more to follow in this "new mission to revitalize its deep portfolio of beloved gaming franchises."

With the long-awaited return of the popular Monkey Island franchise only days away now, a new trailer has been released that offers an in-game peek at the events of Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 1 - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.

The video consists entirely of in-game footage, demonstrating some of the game mechanics and introducing the three stars who will be very familiar to series fans: namely, Guybrush, Elaine, and the dreaded ghost pirate LeChuck. In order to stop his old nemesis, Guybrush must curse a cutlass with a rare and special formula. Of course, Guybrush being Guybrush, even the simplest of plans can go horribly awry, and players will soon need to help him work out an alternate plan instead. As with any gameplay video, be forewarned that details are included that may be considered minor spoilers, though only the early moments of the game are featured.

The full Tales of Monkey Island series will consist of five episodes that sees Guybrush sail the seven seas "in search of La Esponja Grande, a legendary sea sponge with unparalleled voodoo exfoliating abilities. But little does Guybrush know, his quest is part of a larger, more sinister plot, and good and evil are not always as they seem…"

For more information about Tales of Monkey Island, steer on over to the series' official website and read through our recent preview.