The day I realized I’d played too many PC adventure games was when, staying in a hotel with my parents, I grabbed a matchbook that entitled me to a free drink. I didn’t do this out of either thrift or thirst; I couldn’t have been older than nine at the time. I grabbed that matchbook because, in a world view warped by endless hours of puzzles and inventory screens, I actually thought it would inevitably come in handy.

Sierra and LucasArts shaped my childhood as profoundly as Hasbro and Roald Dahl, unfiltered media mainlined directly into my still-forming brain. It’s hard to explain how nostalgic I get when imagining solving a puzzle by combining two seemingly unrelated inventory items, or how soothing a repetitive MIDI track can still be, but that matchbook story nearly does the trick.

I was happy to oblige, then, when my brother insisted I download the demo The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, an update of designer Ron Gilbert’s inimitably goofy adventure classic. How could a graphically updated version of a game about a bumbling pirate be anything but a pleasant wash of nostalgia?

I was bored to tears. Yes, the dialogue was still snappy and funny, but it scrolled too slowly and I had nothing to do in between conversations but run my cursor around the screen looking for an object to affect. With the influx of robust RPGs like Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect, or platformer puzzle games like Portal and Braid, I’d gotten used to more action in my dialogue. Less clicking and more kicking.

Former adventure designers are moving on, often producing titles with the same sensibility but more dynamic play. Gilbert ’s next project is the still-nascent DeathSpank, described as “Monkey Island meets Diablo,” and Tim Schafer (of Full Throttle fame) looks to have crafted a real comic beauty with Brütal Legend. But somewhere in the dust is a matchbook whose only use has long since left me. All I have left is the memory.

Did I mention that I’m balding? It seems significant, somehow.