Semi-regularly I used to be hit by a bout of nostalgia and commit to replaying some of the point-and-click games of my tender years: Monkey Island, Space Quest, Day Of The Tentacle... the list goes on.

The only friend I had who also played lived on the other side of town and though I played regularly on my own at least once a week I'd drive over to see him and we'd spend the evening trying to make some progress on this game or that. Long evenings spent going back and forth between already extensively explored screens in the hopes of spotting something previously missed, or having a eureka moment and suddenly teasing out the next thread in Ron Gilbert's torturous logic. So many fine memories.

So I'd find a copy of Monkey Island or whatever on-line, download and install it. And then stare at the loading screens and wonder why the hell would I put myself through the experience again. Back then they were the only game in town -- pun intended -- and for every delightful bit of writing and Ah-Ha! revelation over a puzzle there were literally hours and hours of painful slogging back and forth across the map and fevered clicking or typing of cryptic commands.

I recall one game in particular. You typed commands like "Open door". You could also type "Open the door" but quickly learned that you could leave the direct object out and it made no difference. Except at one point the correct command was something like "Pick up the rock", ie. the inclusion of "the" was necessary for the command to work. This was towards the end of the game so the expectation to not have to enter "the" was well established. It took us weeks before we figured it out, probably by chance. I don't recall which game it was but decades later I vividly recall the sense of exasperation and annoyance. There's a reason why point-and-click adventures have not been a thing since their heyday.

Anyhow. I'll always have a fondness for those times and those games, but I'll never go back.