There's an adventure engine that's really easy to use called the Adventure Game Studio (AGS). Check out the link below.
http://www.agsforums.com/ac.shtml
I was toying with it for a week and made a MacGuyver game as a joke for my sister. The characters and enviroments looked like crap but I am unskilled in that kinda stuff. I basically just had Mac go from room to room collecting little things like rubberbands, paper clips, and plastic straws and have him use them on things we'd never think of using them with in order to save the Griffin family pet dog, Brian (if you watch MacGuyver and/or Family Guy you'd find that amusing
).
Anyone actually trying to make a serious game should be able to find some team members to get different stuff done like programming, art, story, etc.
I feel it'd be better than Flash and it's a great alternative to SCUMM (which I was under the impression not released to the public and if it was, difficult to work with).
Good luck with your game! It might hold us over until LEC's next one comes out
