I'm seeing a lot of games on the GOG store that list "point-and-click" as a game type, along with other game attributes like "adventure" or whatever. What is a "point-and-click" game? Not familiar with that game type.

Usually it means point and click adventure games as in King's Quest, where you don't need to use any other controls. This is in contrast to adventure games like Walking Dead or whatever where you manually walk around and aim and such.

Games like Monkey Island where you're playing a protagonist and solve puzzles by using or combining items (sometimes also through certain dialogue choices), usually along a pre-defined path where only a specific solution will allow you to advance the game.
The genre used to be popular in the 1990s, then declined massively. There has been a bit of a renaissance in recent years (though maybe that's already over).

its like u can play the whole game with just a mouse

You just point at your screen and make a clicking noise while playing.

Got to ask how old or how long have you been gaming? I am serious in asking this as any even late 90's kid and early 2000's kid would easily know what a '' "point-and-click" game is so long as they had a pc that could be in the late 90's be used in a office environment or even in school computer labs

Whatever the case they pretty much are a mix of ''hidden object '' and ''puzzle game'' types mixed together that the mouse is all thats needed to play.. though thanks to GOG's odd genre listing it can be incorrect listed for example ''stick it to the man'' it clearly could be a ''piont and click'' game but it has controller support like it was intended as such but it has a legit controller support to it .. Afew others come to mind like Darkest Dungeon that game while having controller support doesn't need anything other then the mouse to play despite being a whole different genre to the standard piont and click game types.. but those are just some examples off the top of my head I can think of names for though there are also FPS/shooter games that can technically fall under the''point and click'' genre if one wants to be technical ''phone games '' as in things like Simulacra and other games made similar to it can fall under the ''piont and click '' genre

whatever the case normally ''hidden object '' and ''puzzle game'' types mixed together is the standard sort of games that ''piont and click'' built games are.. yet the ones I named and the ones I can't think of names for are outliers

That's an unlucky example - isn't half the series played by typing commands (as they were made before p&c controls were implemented)? They seem to be doing all right, judging by my wishlist :D

Download this (actual) classic freebie. Find out. Enjoy - or not.

https://www.gog.com/game/beneath_a_steel_sky

I may well be mistaken, but I got the impression the genre might be developing more towards something like visual novels, with heavy focus on story and puzzles being merely an afterthought. The most recent adventures I played (Unavowed and Lamplight city) were rather too light on gameplay for my taste.

The term "point-and-click" refers to graphical adventures 2.0 (so to speak).
When the first adventure games got released they utilized something called a "parser", and you had to enter written commands to do anything in the game (commands were e.g.: go n(orth), go e(ast), climb (ladder), take (item), etc.)

Later on, the written commands were replaced by "mouse-only" steering. As in: you point (with your mouse cursor) at an object on the screen, and then click either with left or right mouse button to do anything.

Right mouse click often calls up an menu to choose an action from, that will then get executed by clicking the left mouse button.

Indeed, as it has been said above, it was a term to differentiate the new GUI of graphic adventures designed to be played with the mouse instead of the previous parser style of adventures.

When in the box "point-and-click" was advised, it used to mean "easy to use" "you don't need to type anything"

+1 BreOl72. Thanks for helping! Like 2 years ago I had the same question, no shame to admit it :)

Careful there, as the original King's Quest wasn't really a point'n'click adventure, as it had a text parser and (IIRC) you could move your character with keyboard etc. I think King's Quest 5 was the first point&click adventure game in the King's Quest series.

Here's e.g. King's Quest 4 gameplay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyTU--mdNtk

While it has sort of mouse support and you can access e.g. menus with the mouse, it isn't really optimized yet for mouse controls, like e.g. King's Quest 5 was.

If I took a well known example of true classic point'n'click adventure, maybe something like Monkey Island 1 or 2, which were very much optimized for mouse play. Point'n'click adventure games haven't really been a popular genre for two decades, or more.

I have e.g. some gaming relatives who are over 20 years old, and I am pretty sure if I asked them to explain the term, or list some point'n'click adventure games after I've explained the term to them, they probably would come up empty. Sure there are still some games in that genre, but they are a niche genre, and have been for a couple of decades.

this
I cant think about anything else what would they call pointandclick

That's pretty spot on, along with the explanation. IMO it's a historical term, not to be taken too literally. Pointing and clicking in a game does not make it a "point-and-click game", it has to be close to the adventure games of the 90's that were labeled this way. Personally, I wouldn't even rule out an adventure game in this vein from being a "point-and-click adventure" just because you don't actually use the mouse (anymore), but to an extent I can understand if others do. I think it would be more accurate to say that Hidden Object games are a casual mix of Point-and-Click-Adventures and Puzzle games. What's pretty typical for P+C Adventures, IMO, in contrast to Hidden Object and Puzzle games, is the focus on a (more or less) linear story.

Agreed on GOG's labeling often being a bit misleading. I wouldn't call games like Papers, Please or We. The Revolution "point-and-click" games, depite their storytelling elements. They are too far apart from something like Monkey Island or The Longest Journey for that label to be of help.