Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra

Playing Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra means wading into a web of 1920s high-society murder inside a locked museum, armed with little more than a notebook and a knack for asking bad questions.

What Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra actually asks of you

You play as Laura Bow, a fresh college graduate working as a junior reporter in 1920s New York. Sent to cover the theft of an Egyptian dagger from the Leyendecker Museum, you are quickly trapped inside during an evening gala while suspects start dying off one by one. There are no action fights or twitch reflexes here; your survival depends entirely on gathering clues, managing inventory, and questioning eccentric suspects across six distinct acts.

The core loop relies on Laura's notebook, which automatically records names, locations, and discovered topics as you explore. When you talk to someone, you select subjects from this list to pry for information. The entire story culminates in Act 6, "The Coroner's Inquest," where a police detective grills you directly. To get the best of four distinct narrative endings, you have to answer specific whodunit questions using only the evidence you uncovered during your night in the museum.

The Sierra death trap meets the notebook menu

If you played Sierra On-Line games in the early nineties, you already know the terror of missing a single item three chapters back. This game embraces that design philosophy wholeheartedly. If you fail to pick up a specific item early on or miss a brief script event before moving to the next act, you can easily render the entire run unwinnable hours later without realizing it until the final interrogation.

The daily reality of playing is also bogged down by the interface. Having to click into Laura's notebook, select a topic, present it to a suspect, and repeat that sequence for dozens of subjects gets tedious fast. Combine that menu churn with sudden, unannounced deaths for walking into the wrong room at the wrong second, and it becomes clear why magazine writers like the team at Computer Gaming World noted that early chapters felt slow and repetitive despite praising the game's overall tone and artistic style.

A visual and audio treat built for the SCI engine

Where this 1992 release completely delivers is in its atmosphere. Designed primarily by Bruce Balfour with writing contributions from Josh Mandel, it stepped away from series creator Roberta Williams's direct control while keeping her on as a creative consultant. Built using the SCI1.1 engine, the game pushed 256-color VGA art with heavy visual influences from period illustrator J.C. Leyendecker, whose name was even lent to the fictional museum.

The sound design is equally sharp if you set up the right audio drivers. Composed by Chris Braymen and Mark Seibert, the score was built to take full advantage of multi-timbral synthesis cards. Hearing the 1920s jazz and suspense tracks through a Roland MT-32 or a Sound Blaster card added a layer of historical polish that standard PC speakers simply could not match. Sierra later released a talkie CD-ROM edition in 1993, adding full voice acting to every line of dialogue.

Who should play Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra today

This one hit store shelves alongside Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, carving out space for players who preferred murder mysteries over globe-trotting action. Contemporary reviews were split: Electronic Entertainment handed down an 8 out of 10, while UK publication PC Zone gave it 69%. It can be a brutal entry among Sierra adventure games, but the background art is detailed, the period setting works, and protagonist Laura Bow is a sharp lead whose name pays direct homage to 1920s silent film star Clara Bow.

The unfair dead ends and high difficulty will absolutely test your patience if you try to raw-dog the logic without multiple save files. Yet the sheer satisfaction of sitting down at the coroner's inquest and correctly naming the killer makes the ordeal worth it for any puzzle fan.

You can play Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra online free in your browser right now, with nothing to install and no setup required. If you want to experience classic MS-DOS adventure games without keeping a binder full of handwritten notes, launch the Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra MS-DOS game and keep a few extra save slots open before you step into the museum.