(In no particular order)

1. They're beautiful

If you like 2D artwork, these are some of the best quality you will ever see in a game. Compared to even modern graphic adventures, these games consistently look better. Screenshots don't do them justice.

These fantastical environments are brought to life with swaying vegetation, rising mist. Droplets of water, fountains, birds, waterfalls, insects

2. They're like interactive storybooks

And remind me of the feeling of being a kid reading a fantasy book in bed before drifting off into a game inspired dream

3. They rip off famous games

Ever wondered what 2D Bioshock or Elder Scrolls would be like? You're in luck

4. The voice acting is hilarious

There's a vast range of performances from great to terrible, but most are fairly hokey and sound like they grabbed a random man or women and made them read from the script.

Far from being a negative though, some have brought me tears of laughter

5. The settings are fantasy gold

Yes the story and (certainly not) the voice acting are gold, but the settings always are.

Dive into an underwater city, soar into a world beyond the clouds. Head to an island populated by pirates cursed into turning into fish men. Explore the Persian back alleys with genies and magic carpets. Relive Grimm Fairy tales.

6. They're a bit like Escape rooms/Zelda dungeons

The whole gameplay loop is around finding objects, combining them and using them at specific points

Instead of a graphic adventure using an item at a specific point, there are dozens upon dozens of interactions that all chain together in a logical manner. It's almost like a 2D MacGuyver simulator at times.

You see a wooden door with a broken lock. You find an blunt Axe head, look around for a stick to make a handle, maybe by breaking a chair? Secure it place with bolts. Find a grindstone that doesn't work, find and attach a belt to it so it spins. Grind the Axe head to make it sharp. Then smash open that door. Your reward being access to the next set of rooms.

If it sounds cumbersome it's actually the complete opposite, because...

7. The controls, of the better ones (mostly Artifex Mundi games) are refined to a high point. And put the controls of most adventure games to shame. You can pull off all these dozens of intricate interactions at a fairly high speed and very smoothly. The world traversal is near instant, allowing you in travel back one screen with a mere button press. To move forward, you can easily point to a door or a path and click. The cursor isn't some tiny dot, it's a giant circle and much like Halo it interprets what you mean to do, with large invisible hit boxes. The two analogue sticks offer different speeds if you want, I always just use the higher speed on.

8. They're always on sale, for literally around 2 USA dollars. Every week on Monday, the most prominent and prolific publisher of them has at least 4 or so games on sale- and once the week is done a different selection of games go on rotation

9. They load within 3 seconds and one second after clicking continue, you're into the game. The game also auto saves seamlessly

10. They're easy to play. I wish every game had a hint and skip system like this. There are two difficultly modes, casual and advanced. Either way you get the hint and skip system. You have a fully charged orb, once you use a hint, yo have to wait for it to recharge until you can use it again. It takes longer to charge on the higher difficulty.

Rather than it being a complicated guide, the hint is just a magical orb that flows and hovers over your next potential interaction.

The skip button is when you can't be bothered doing a puzzle or it's too difficult and you get stumped. One simple button press, the puzzle is solved and you move on. So you can essentially choose your own difficultly level, play until you get stumped and get a light hint when you want to move on.

It's great when you log back into a game after a couple of days and can't remember what you were doing.

11. They'll give you unforgettle memories.

Whilst I won't ever claim these are the BEST games out there, i love playing them as they're relaxing, surprising, funny - sometimes unintentionally so.

But ultimately it's those crazy situations, like stealthing around an island of fishmen.

Being part of a secret order of demon hunters

Entering a twisted Carnival

Going to the world of genies

Exploring the haunted House of a Steam punk inventor

Reclaiming my rightful throne

Entering the twisted dreams and healing people from inside their psyche

Playing in the redwoods, only filled with illusions

Hunting serial killers, unwrapping murder mysteries

Jumping in a hot air balloon to chase my kidnapped father in Paris

Journeying to a billionaires island castle to solve a murder

Tracking an immortal priest who's trying to revive a dead god

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So that's it. If you want to try one and have a good first impression I'd probably try Enigmatis 2 (the first is decent, but older) two attempts to actually add a half decent story and lore to the world.

Or try Nightmares from the Deep 2, which is crazy and ridiculous and made me laugh on numerous occasions