Loom

Point-and-click adventure games are a tough genre to be creative in. Their “use thing on other thing” gameplay has been set in stone for so long that the only space for experimentation they offer is in the story and aesthetics. At least, that’s what conventional wisdom will tell you. Loom challenges all of that. In place of an inventory, it uses an ever-expanding repertoire of magic songs and their constituent notes. Each song performs a generic action that can be applicable in multiple scenarios, and new songs become more unusual and powerful as you discover them. In situations where a lesser adventure game would have me think, “How was I supposed to figure that out?” Loom makes me think, “Ooh, that’s clever.” Some songs are only used once, which is disappointing, because the defiance of lock-and-key-style puzzles accounts for much of the appeal, but on the whole, the system is inventive and rewarding.

The game also manages to tell a great story on top of its mold-shattering gameplay. Its intended scale is let down by technical limitations, and it’s clear that the ending was supposed to lead into a sequel that never materialized, but it’s also a sharply-written tale that expertly juggles both humour and darkness. This is just one respect in which Loom was ahead of its time. Features like highlighting interactive objects when mousing over them – criticized as handholding in 1990 – make the game astonishingly playable in 2025. Not that you’d ever mistake it for a modern game. I played the original EGA release, and it looks like any EGA game attempting realistic visuals, i.e. garish and indistinct. Additionally, the soundtrack consists entirely of excerpts from Swan Lake for some reason, and many events lose their impact as they happen in complete silence. Finally, while the level design and traversal speed are agreeable by 1990 standards, they feel a little unnecessarily prolonged in the current decade.