Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure similar games & best alternatives

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure - Trailer
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure - tesla-effect-a-tex-murphy-adventure_1.avif
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure - tesla-effect-a-tex-murphy-adventure_2.avif
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure - tesla-effect-a-tex-murphy-adventure_3.avif
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure - tesla-effect-a-tex-murphy-adventure_4.avif
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure - tesla-effect-a-tex-murphy-adventure_5.avif
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure - tesla-effect-a-tex-murphy-adventure_6.avif

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure

PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac • 2014

Should you play it?

Tex Murphy is the last of the hard-boiled gumshoe detectives living in dystopian post-World War III San Francisco in the 2050s. Tex is an honest and good-natured private investigator with a penchant for bourbon, cigarettes and getting himself into trouble.

What works

  • Strong nostalgic appeal
  • Engaging story and characters
  • Well-balanced puzzles
  • High-quality fmv and acting
  • Multiple endings and replayability

Things to keep in mind

  • Dated 3d graphics
  • Some pixel hunting frustration
  • Occasional obtuse puzzles
  • Empty game environments
  • Minor ui and control issues

What to play next

Top picks

Games that feels the closest overall

  • Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition

  • Grim Fandango Remastered

  • Slender Threads

  • Dark Fall: The Journal

  • Darkness Within 1: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder

  • Technobabylon

More survival-focused

Games that feels like Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure but with a stronger survival pressure

  • Homebody

  • Among Ashes

  • Paper Dolls: Original / 纸人

  • The Story of Henry Bishop

  • MOLE

  • Never Again

More violent

Games that feels like Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure but with more combat and destruction

  • Alone in the Dark

  • In Sound Mind

  • Observer: System Redux

  • Black Mirror II

  • Slender Threads: Prologue

  • Dead Take

Less survival-focused

Games that feels like Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure but with less survival pressure

  • The Room Three

  • Paper Bride

  • The Room 4: Old Sins

  • Title_Pending

  • Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure

  • Meridian 157: Prologue

Choose your own criteria ->

Similarity map

How to use the graph

Similarity map

Each dot is a game placed from its motivation profile relative to this page’s game. Direction shows which motivation differs most; distance along that axis shows how large the gap is.

  • Purple star: this page’s game at the centre — everything is relative to it.
  • Direction: each axis is a main motivational difference vs this game (e.g. more / less competitive).
  • Distance on an axis: how large that difference is (ring scales show +/− points).
  • Coloured chips: click to highlight games that mainly differ on that motivation; click again to reset.
  • Dotted line: link between this page’s game and the one selected for comparison.
  • Hover a dot to preview that game in the panel on the right; click to keep that comparison.
  • Scroll or double-click the chart to zoom.

How to read the map This is a polar difference map: direction = which motivation differs, and distance = how much (same units as the sidebar deltas).

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure: A very typical example of its motivational profile. Motivations that often define this kind of title include Survival, Violence, Competition, Thrill. Here, the score leans higher than usual among comparable games on Strategy. It leans lower than usual among comparable games on Intimacy, Expression.

Last update: 04/08/2026