Perhaps taking place in a single town/house/room. Games like Crimson Room and Viridian Room aren't what I'm trying to find, either. I want something with characters and narrative, but razor sharp focus.

I've played that before. It's amusing, but... yeah. Anything else? Haha

Well, there are a lot of horror adventure games that take place within a single house/haunted donut shop/whatever. Yahtzee's Five Days a Stranger comes to mind, and it has the added bonus of costing you no moneys to play.

But if I was going to recommend some adventure games that have the kind of "focused" feeling you're asking for, I would have to go with Jonathan Boakes' adventure games, particularly Barrow Hill and the original Dark Fall. Though they're not quite confined to one location (Barrow Hill takes place in and around a deserted gas station in the Cornish contryside, and Dark Fall is set entirely within an abandoned train station), the attention to detail and local history really brings the locations to life, making them feel like characters in their own right. Try them - you may be pleasantly surprised.

The first half of Dark Fall: Lights Out is also very good (set in an abandoned lighthouse), but unfortunately the game loses its focus in the second half. IMO it's worth playing just for the first half, but if you're put off by games with silly endings, you might want to avoid it.

The White Chamber is pretty small, and also free.

Barrow Hill was done by Matt Clark (Shadow Tor Studios) Dark Fall: The Journal and Dark Fall: Lost Souls - both take place in a train station hotel. The same train station hotel actually.

Scratches takes place on a house (you do walk a bit on the property's grounds like the garage and such but for the most part you'll be inside the house)

Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches - takes place entirely on a farmstead.

Amnesia
DoTT
999

Submerged - an AGS game.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/Games.aspx/Detail/1404

Oops, my bad. The two games feel so similar that somehow I just attributed them to the same person in my mind. Sorry Matt!

Sword & Sorcery EP has a fairly small area. Plus it comes with the soundtrack, which is really good.

They do have a similar style and they sometimes cooperate with each other ( Boakes did VA work for the ingame Radio Adverts in Barrow Hill and there's a few plugs for Barrow Hill in Boakes' games, The Last Crown is one of them i think) so it's totally understandable ;)

The first 3 Blackwell games have few locations, most of them aren't bigger than a single room, and they are all located in New York.

The Last Express! Takes place entirely on a train. Surprised it wasn't mentioned sooner.

Because the train travels to a lot of places !!

The first Gothic

Just a small prison colony, but still fun.