The Dagger of Amon Ra
- Platform:
- Release: Jun 1992
- Developer: Sierra On-Line
- Publisher: Sierra On-Line
- Composer: Chris Braymen, Mark Seibert
- Genres: point-and-click
February 4, 2026
My name is Laura, not Dollface
Laura Bow in The Dagger of Amon Ra is the second installment in the adventures of Laura Bow.
The story takes place in 1926, and Laura, recently graduated, travels to New York to begin her professional debut at a prestigious New York newspaper.
A memorable opening, with a great story, humor, and atmosphere, hooked me from the very first moment.
The Dagger of Amon Ra is a game in which you will solve puzzles and interrogate many characters, very much in the style of an Agatha Christie novel. The game is quite a challenge, especially if you want to uncover all its mysteries, I recommend grabbing some paper and a pencil and not missing a single detail.
If you enjoy point and click adventure games and the detective genre, I invite you to give it a try, you won’t be disappointed.
To finish, as Laura herself advises us at the end of the instruction manual:
Good luck, and remember: save the game often, save early. Laura is now in the Big City, and danger lurks.
What I liked the most
-
The questioning/interrogation mechanic to obtain information based on what Laura has written in her notebook is fantastic. Interrogating characters and asking them about specific topics makes it feel like an Agatha Christie novel, searching for the murderer and uncovering the dirty secrets they hide from one another.
-
It is a very immersive game, with a special atmosphere. Most of the game takes place inside an archaeology museum that we cannot leave. Time passes alongside the events, and it truly conveys a sense of intrigue and being trapped inside.
-
I was surprised by some mechanics (which I won’t mention to avoid spoilers) for finding clues that go beyond the classic “click here” or “use this item.”
-
As is typical in Sierra adventures, our beloved Laura can die at certain moments in the game, something that makes us think twice before doing something reckless and rewards us when we manage to avoid a fatal outcome.
-
The physical edition of the game includes several documents, among them a museum guide, simulating what a real museum guide might be like. It takes us through the different areas and introduces the personalities who run it, an absolute delight…literally the opposite of today’s, unfortunately common, “code in a box.”
-
There is no help indicating what is or isn’t clickable. This makes the game harder, but also forces us to pay closer attention to every detail: anything could be clickable.
What didn’t win me over
-
Having to use the “pick up” icon to enter doors leading to other locations instead of the “move” icon, which would feel more natural in my opinion.
-
Having to show the press pass every time we travel by taxi.
-
When asking a question from the notebook and reopening it to ask another one, the previous position is not saved.
-
The actions and UI can be a bit confusing. I find it very odd that there are two ways to observe things: a normal one and another using the magnifying glass for a closer look, which sometimes causes us to miss important details.
-
I would have loved to have some keyboard shortcuts to quickly activate different actions.
-
We can get stuck at several points in the game, leaving us with no choice but to return to a previous saved game (this happened to me twice). Please, just remember not to forget the “cheese.”
Curiosities
-
The game has two versions:
- One on diskette, without voice acting and featuring copy protection. The game is divided into several acts, and the copy protection appears at the beginning of some of them.
- Another on CD-ROM, released the following year in 1993, with voice acting and without copy protection, as at the time they believed it would not be necessary in this format…
-
In the museum there is a room called “The Old Masters Gallery”:
- There we can see paintings that reference the developers of the game.
- Additionally, we find part of the real painting “The Triumph of Death” presented as if it were a complete painting, renamed “A Heartwarming story”, and incorrectly attributed to Bosch instead of its real author: Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
-
If we pay close attention, somewhere in the game we can find Roberta Williams’ phone number.
