I'm fairly new to casual games. I played a couple of HOG's but found them a bit boring apart from the puzzles. I liked the story, the jigsaws and the locks in Ravenhearst. Return to Ravenhearst was even better but Dire Grove was the one that was closest to an adventure game and I loved it.
With Christmas coming up I can only afford to buy 2 new ones and wonder which you would suggest?

I'm sure you will be getting lots of good suggestions about "adventure-y" casual games. Here are a few of the ones that I really liked:

Redemption Cemetery: Curse of the Raven
Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat
Awakening: The Dreamless Castle
Princess Isabella: A Witch's Curse
Mystery Case Files: The 13th Skull
Deadtime Stories
Mystery Legends: The Phantom of the Opera
Haunted Halls: Green Hills Sanitarium
Vampire Saga: Pandora's Box
Drawn: The Painted Tower
Drawn: Dark Flight

Thanis Marion. Just to narrow the search it needs to be on a disc and to have no timed games. Sorry to be fussy

I will think about it some more, then, as I will need to research which of these games are available on a CD (I played all of the above as downloads from Big Fish). I don't care for things that are timed, either, so I don't consider that being fussy!

Hello: I wanted to add that Redemption Cemetary has a back up, also Hound of the Baskerville. Both are good. Merry Christmas to all. judy

Old lady -- you can find out which are available in disk form by searching for them on Amazon. I was at Best Buy recently, and I'm pretty sure I saw Princess Isabella, Deadtime Stories and Vampire Saga there on disk, so you might want to start searching Amazon for those three.

As for timed sequences -- I remember one timed challenge on Princess Isabella (doesn't mean there are more of them), but I'm pretty sure you could skip it -- that puzzle at the end with marbles that actually was quite fun once I figured it out. I don't remember a timed challenge in Deadtime Stories, though it's possible I've just forgotten.

I only got partway through Vampire Saga, and again, I don't remember a timed sequence, but that may just be a faulty memory.

Thanks for your help folks. Sadly most of the games are not avalible on amazon UK and it takes 1 1/2 hours to get to the nearest game shop
I have ordered Briar Rose and Deadtime stories so that should keep me going for a while

old lady, I have sent you a pm