I appreciate your interest. I'd like to think I already am an amateur developer, but I haven't released a completed game yet. I'm slowly finishing off my first freeware adventure game called Frantic Franko and recently started collaborating on a bigger project called Shattenreyze.
II'm up to date on other people's stuff primarily because I run a blog about indie adventure games (link in my signature) and consequently get to talk to many indie designers. Also, reading sites like indiegames.com/blog and JayIsGames is an excellent way to having the freshest information about all new indie games, so I often learn about new adventure game titles there.