Adventure Rant

[edmundito]

I was going to post this on Grumpy Gamer's latest post, http://www.grumpygamer.com/1878449, but then i thought it was too long so I decided to place it here and start "some shit":

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I don't give a damn that anyone makes adventure games for comercial purposes. It's been more than 15 years since Maniac Mansion, and all that has been advanced in adventure games is the GUI and the graphics (Except for like Grim Fandango, sort of, because the gameplay was partially based on the 1993 Alone in the Dark engine). All adventure games have the exact same exact basic solve puzzle gameplay, and even some adventure games have gotten worse in perfecting the puzzle process (Runaway, apparently), making it illogical and stupid. Even first person shooters, which are pretty mindless games, had added new things with each iteration, like multiple floors, the ability to jump, the change in movement, actual storylines (which came from adventure games), and now days realistic physics. I guess you could say "uh.. you still shoot around", but there is more things you can do! The number of outcomes has increased. Some things as not as predictable as they used to be (maybe Doom 3 breaks the rule?).

LucasArts for years revolutionized games with things like the graphic adventure Point & Click GUI, voice speech, full motion video and so forth before many caught on, and they put so much effort into quality, but then they eventually got too carried away with adventure games, and they realized they had spent millions of dollars on (adventure) games that were not going to sell zillions of copies by the time of their release and saw that their star wars games were making good money. So instead of coming up with revolutionary new methods of game design (in the field of adventure, for example) like they did years ago, they just threw everything away and just relied on making star wars games. I don't know who is to blame... maybe it's because all the good people with actual ideas left, and all they got is a bunch of star war fans making games. Or maybe it's preasure from the LucasFilm Empire. Who knows.

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That's it. It's mostly about gameplay, true. After all, Adventure Games are supposed to be Games, if you thought they were some sort of interactive movie, and they have perfected the story telling quite well. Shouldn't we just try to get over with how witty and great the story is and develop better gameplay? It's something that LucasArts and Sierra sort of took for granted when the money was coming until the later 90's.

[Grundislav]

Well, you said yourself:

All adventure games have the exact same exact basic solve puzzle gameplay

True, there haven't been many innovations of late, but really, there isn't an enormous amount of room to innovate a genre that is purely story driven.

I can think of an example of an adventure game that went against the norm, that being Blade Runner. There was no inventory in that game, just stuff you picked up as "clues." This meant there were no "use item on x" puzzles. The game relied purely on the story, and detective procedures, like analyzing photos and stuff like that.  Also, it was advertised as "the first realtime 3d adventure" and while certain elements of it seemed to be so, it really wasn't.  This point, however, has been discussed to death so I won't go further.

Anyhow, as far as I can see, if you want to make a "pure" adventure game, I can't really think of any new places to go that haven't been done already. 

If you add action elements, then people start calling it an "action-adventure."  Remember all the hoopla before Broken Sword 3 came out? How everyone was convinced it was going to be an action game? And all it was was sequences where you had to run or press a button quickly. 

Maybe crossing other genres is the answer to "new" innovations.  Would you play an adventure game with a puzzle that had you micro-managing a city?  Or picking up a gun and blasting through a corridor full of monsters?  Or flying a plane or racing a car?

Remember how mostly everyone hates the arcade sequences in the old Sierra games?

So, in summary, I guess I can say, I have no idea what could be done to "innovate" the genre without changing a game from "pure" adventure. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Privateer Puddin']

Meh, i don't think i really want too much to change, give me the SCUMM gui and gameplay, different characters and stories each time and i'm set!

[edmundito]

I really don't mind puzzles as long as they don't get out of proportion, but if you got other ideas, feel free to add them! I mean, don't limit the games to just having the puzzles that are needed just to make the game a) longer and b) challenging. Where did the all c) fun go? Then again, people are not here to entertain me, anyway. I'm sure that most of us just make adventure games for our own enjoyment and satisfaction.

There was this insteresting AGS game last year called "Grr! Bearly Sane" (by Duzz, the duck?) that had this whole anger meter. You needed to make your character angry enough for him to do some sick things, like kicking a dog. Otherwise, he would react like the wussy that he really was. Though sometimes it was a pain in the ass to make you angry, it was really cool when you did, and it really made the game have an extra challenge for you to do other than sitting and thinking about solving a particular puzzle.

I could talk about the whole punch verb thing, but that was discussed enough at Mittens Boogaloo. If you weren't there, you should have raised/borrowed/stolen some money! If you were too scared to go... I was too, but I went anyway.

The following link talks about what I think should be avoided. I found it after I posted my little rant. I don't know if it's true about the puzzles, because they seem very absurd, and I've only played the GK3 demo:

http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html

[m0ds]

Point & clicks are defintiley coming back, mark my words.

[Pet Terry]

That puzzle in GK3 is kind of a legend, I remember when it was mentioned in Finnish PC Gamer at the time the game was released! Even Jane Jensen commented to that puzzle something like "Well, it looked like a good idea at the time..."

Anyways, puzzles overall shouldn't be there to make game longer or harder, as netmonkey said, unless you can manage to create a puzzle that is fun to play. Though I must admit I've some puzzles in Goldlagoon that are not necessary, but are there to make the game just a tad longer. Although I'm trying to make the puzzles so that it could happen in real life aswell. For example, player is about to use a car to get to some place, but apparently it's out of gas. Things like this can happen in real life, but when playing an adventure game, it feels like it's there only to make the game longer. But in many cases if you remove this kind of puzzles, your game might get much shorter. But if you plan and design your puzzles well, even puzzles like these will feel fun. Also, if you think your puzzle doesn't feel logical, make multiple solutions, or then just make the whole puzzle simpler.

Another thing I'd like to mention about GK3... the locations. GK3 was set in a small village and surroundings. Now, you could get to all the places right from the beginning of the game. And the number of locations were MANY so you can only imagine when you're stuck and you just have to start searching all the locations one by one. Eventually I got really frustrated and finished the rest of the game with walkthrough because I wanted to see the ending because everyone seemed to love it.

So when designing adventure game, keep in mind that even if you have the best storyline in the world, best atmosphere with mind blowing graphics, the game won't be fun to play if gameplay is shit and player can't enjoy playing the game.

[Ali]

Blade Runner ... was advertised as "the first realtime 3d adventure" and while certain elements of it seemed to be so, it really wasn't.Ã, 

I think they were using clever wordspinning. The graphics were pre-rendered 3D and the gameplay occured in realtime - characters moving around locations independently and so on.

I'm not sure it was intended to mislead. My Space Quest IV box says "Amazing 3d graphics!" - it's true Roger does walk left and right AND up and down.

[Grundislav]

Sorry, I should clarify: I was referring more to the "realtime" aspect of it, not so much the 3d.Ã,  The game used voxels if I remember correctly, and had the cinematic panning.Ã,  It wasn't 3d accelerated or anything.

Yes, the characters moved around independently, but the manual described it as "some people may not talk to you if you insult their friends and they get to them first" which they didn't carry out on.Ã,  Ã, 

That would be cool, wouldn't it? You talk to Johnny, who is friends with Joey, and you insult him.Ã,  Johnny walks away.Ã,  Now, you go to the next location where Joey is. If you get there within a certain amount of time, you get there before Johnny does and are able to talk to Joey normally.Ã,  However, if you get there after Johnny does, Joey won't talk to you, or at least not be as cooperative, because Johnny told him you were a jerk.

This point has been mentioned before, because that's what I consider to be "real time." While games like Blade Runner and Lure of the Temptress had characters roaming around seemingly with agendas, they didn't really.

[Kinoko]

While games like Blade Runner and Lure of the Temptress had characters roaming around seemingly with agendas, they didn't really.

For me, in terms of LotT, the illusion was there. I got a real kick out of seeing people walk about doing their own 'thang', even if I knew it was on a cycle.

[DGMacphee]

I think game genres are starting to merge together to form hybrid genres.

For example, Deus Ex combines elements from FPS and adventure games. Perhaps it's not that adventure games are dead, but more so the techniques used have merged into other genres (or can be merged into other genres).

However, I do feel point 'n' clicks are commercially dead. And I'm happy about that, because it means the scene is free for indie gamemakers to take over.

[MrColossal]

I'm sorry netmonkey but you have me completely stumped. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

"(Except for like Grim Fandango, sort of, because the gameplay was partially based on the 1993 Alone in the Dark engine)"

Excuse me? I don't follow this thinking. Because There was a 3rd person survival horror game before Grim Fandango... Grim Fandango all of the sudden made no advances in adventure games? Disregarding plot and setting and mood and freaking originality all together?

"Even first person shooters, which are pretty mindless games, had added new things with each iteration, like multiple floors, the ability to jump, the change in movement, actual storylines (which came from adventure games)"

What? This makes no sense to me at all.

"So instead of coming up with revolutionary new methods of game design (in the field of adventure, for example) like they did years ago, they just threw everything away and just relied on making star wars games."

Can I see the internal papers from LucasArts that say this? How do you know what is going on inside LucasArts?

If you're trying to talk about gameplay then that's fine but I'm not getting any of that from what you've written. Either someone needs to explain it to me or you should try again.

You give a lot of credit to FPS games

"I guess you could say "uh.. you still shoot around", but there is more things you can do! The number of outcomes has increased. Some things as not as predictable as they used to be (maybe Doom 3 breaks the rule?)."

But there are tons and tons of games that are just cookie cutter. For every Half Life there are 35 Gore games just being pumped out one after the other, not innovating and not even trying it seems. Maniac Mansion started off with a lot of things [multiple endings, multiple characters, multiple solutions to puzzles] and through the years LucasArts scaled back on these, so it seems by your first paragraph's arguement that no game really got as innovative as Maniac Mansion.

So I'm confused.

DG: Point and Click adventure games aren't dead. Check out the Nancy Drew adventure games, they're selling like hotcakes. Also a lot of children's games are point and click adventure games, just cause they aren't for us older peeps doesn't mean they aren't adventure games!

[DGMacphee]

DG: Point and Click adventure games aren't dead. Check out the Nancy Drew adventure games, they're selling like hotcakes. Also a lot of children's games are point and click adventure games, just cause they aren't for us older peeps doesn't mean they aren't adventure games!

Yeah, cause I see Nancy Drew games all the time in the top ten lists for best-selling games. Sarcasm aside,  ten years ago I remember games like Day of the Tentacle and Sam n Max featured in the charts all the time. You don't see good quality (or any quality) point n click adventure games selling like they used to. Which is why I say they're commercially dead.

[Esseb]

http://forums.adventuregamers.com/showthread.php?t=4242.

Probably just a one-off occurence so it's not a counter-argument, your comment just reminded me of that thread.

Adventure games are dead as far as the stereotypical gamer is concerned, but I'm positive that using such radical techniques as actually advertising games in magazines besides gaming magazines and targeting people who don't upgrade their PC every other year and isn't in the 14-28 demographic, adventure games and other non-FPS games can turn out to be very profitable. Easier said than done though.

[DGMacphee]

Aye, I think it is a one-off. I remember a time when adventure games  featured constantly in top ten list. It just doesn't happen as much anymore. Sure you get the odd game like this one, but they're very rare.

As for marketing adventures for today's audience, I'm not too sure.  It might work or it might bomb. Sometimes the gaming market is very hard to predict. 

For example, I remember a time when two guys cobbled together an adventure game that sold oodles and started a trend in interactive movies. Yet, no one saw it coming.

The game?

Myst.

[LucasFan]

You don't see good quality (or any quality) point n click adventure games selling like they used to. Which is why I say they're commercially dead.

I think Runaway and Westerner were quite successful.
They won't make sequels of them if they weren't.

[DGMacphee]

Okay, I decided to research all this to see if point n clicks are commercially dead or if I'm just talking crap. It was tough because various top ten lists from around the world aren't archived (if they are, please point me in the right direction). But, here's what I found from 2-3 hours of research:

Runaway was successful in Europe (It reached No. 2 when released according to GfK). But I checked out its status in the US. It was released on the 28/8/2003 and I checked the top ten games around that period:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/437/437834p1.html
http://pc.ign.com/articles/451/451669p1.html
http://pc.ign.com/articles/452/452396p1.html

Runaway didn't feature on any of those lists. These figures were from NDP Group, which monitors PC Games sales in the US. I also checked the Top Ten Games sales for 2003 in the US:

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_040126a.htm

I did not see Runaway (and any other adventure games) on the list.

As for Westerner, you'd be hard-pressed to find much information on it outside of Europe. From what I found out, it only got a decent release in Europe. And there, it only reached No. 15 in the charts.

The information on Runaway and Westerner comes directly from Focus Interactive's homepage which links to German research group GfK (which is similar to NDP).

I also checked out what was happening with the UK Charts this week. The only adventure game that made the top 40 list wasn't a point and click (It was Grim Fandango), and even then it only reached No. 17. Click Here for info.

I checked the point and clicks too. Most of the games there were budget games (But I question what Grim Fandango is doing in the list when it's not a point and click. I guess I'm being being picky over small details). Click Here for info

Now, sure, point n clicks might be popular in local and niche markets, but when it comes to worldwide appeal, point and clicks don't sell as well as they used to. The success rate has dropped significantly. Hardly anyone is making new ones. And hardly anyone is playing them compared to other games like The Sims and Doom 3.

Granted, Runaway and Westerner may have been profitable enough warrant sequels in Europe, but in terms of reaching a similar worldwide popularity as the games on the lists above, they failed. I remember that many games like SnM, DOTT, etc used to reach high sales worldwide. But it doesn't happen anymore.

As for the Nancy Drew games, granted, that one from Esseb's post made that top ten list. But I still call it a one-off. The other Nancy Drew games haven't reached any top ten success, as far as I could tell. And like I said, Runaway didn't even make the US's top ten and Westerner wasn't very popular. I couldn't find much on the latest Myst game (which I heard was crap anyway). The question is: will the latest Nancy Drew game make it into top ten lists in other countries?

Perhaps, only time will tell.

Now, get ready for another shock.

I found many articles that say PC Game Sales were in decline last year. Why? Because people are buying more consoles and console games. I don't see many point n click adventures released for consoles either (fewer than PC, I'm guessing. But that's just a guess). But it seems punters are spending their dosh more on console games rather than PC Games. This affects the commerciality of PC PnC Games.

Will things improve this year?

Once again, only time will tell.

But like I said, this all still gives credit to my "commercially dead" claim.

[rodekill]

I had a hard time finding Runaway when it was released.
Most people didn't know what I was talking about, and when I finally found it, they had two copies (not because of grand sales, I'm assuming).

[edmundito]

You dare to challenge my authority?!

Seriously, I'll try to answer all of your questions. As I said I sort of typed that at the spurt of the moment (bored at work, more like it) and then I pasted it here just to see if people had any similar or disagreeing comments.

"(Except for like Grim Fandango, sort of, because the gameplay was partially based on the 1993 Alone in the Dark engine)"

Excuse me? I don't follow this thinking. Because There was a 3rd person survival horror game before Grim Fandango... Grim Fandango all of the sudden made no advances in adventure games? Disregarding plot and setting and mood and freaking originality all together?

As I said, I was talking about the gameplay. The game of course, had a never-before-seen engine for a pure graphic adventure game. However, the engine itself was based on alone in the dark, where you had a 3D character walking in fixed backgrounds. I was just saying that it had been done before, so it wasn't completely revolutionary, per se.  Now that you mention it, it did add new things like many's head turning around looking at an instersting object or person (Later implemented in Zelda: The Wind Waker, where Link's eyes would look at interesting things to hint you. I wonder if they got the idea from Grim Fandango?)

I am disregarding plot and mood and originality in all of my arguments. I'm specifically talking about gameplay, because as I said adventure games have mastered plot mood and originality way before any other game category did. My argument is about how there needs to be another step in the evolution of the games, and that is on the gameplay aspects.

"Even first person shooters, which are pretty mindless games, had added new things with each iteration, like multiple floors, the ability to jump, the change in movement, actual storylines (which came from adventure games)"

What? This makes no sense to me at all.

What? This makes sense to me! I was talking about the fact that they keep adding new ways to interact with the environment in these mindless shooters, which adds new forms of creating problems, like jumping across a bottomless pit. Grim fandango did play with new ways with interacting with the environment, like in that puzzle where you have to move the big axe thing to break the ground (when you're stuck in the vault). But that was just a first step, those areas of gameplay, like where your character can drag objects around with direct player control, need to be explored further, specially since they go hand in hand with 3D.

"So instead of coming up with revolutionary new methods of game design (in the field of adventure, for example) like they did years ago, they just threw everything away and just relied on making star wars games."

Can I see the internal papers from LucasArts that say this? How do you know what is going on inside LucasArts?

Uhmm.... dunno.  But Don't top executives make decisions like these? It was just some crazy deduction I was making. Ron Gilbert mentioned that they fired about 50 people and cancelled all internal projects, and they only one they're working on right now is a Star Wars game. The contracts they have with other developers are mostly Star Wars games, too.

You give a lot of credit to FPS games.

"I guess you could say "uh.. you still shoot around", but there is more things you can do! The number of outcomes has increased. Some things as not as predictable as they used to be (maybe Doom 3 breaks the rule?)."

But there are tons and tons of games that are just cookie cutter. For every Half Life there are 35 Gore games just being pumped out one after the other, not innovating and not even trying it seems.

Right, but I was just expressing that every once in a while, the FPS genre standards are pushed forward with a game such as Half-Life. Doom even pushed the genre forward from Wolfenstein by having walls that are not perpendicular to each other. Those little details do add to the whole gameplay.

Maniac Mansion started off with a lot of things [multiple endings, multiple characters, multiple solutions to puzzles] and through the years LucasArts scaled back on these, so it seems by your first paragraph's arguement that no game really got as innovative as Maniac Mansion.

That's kind of what I'm talking about. I don't think any adventure game has advanced the gameplay as much as maniac mansion did. It seems that every new game that comes out just uses up what has been created. Most of them don't try to add new methods to change the gameplay experience. Loom did change the gameplay style, but where did that stuff go? I hasn't been used in years (Zelda: Ocarina of Time did introduce an ocarina you could play tunes to travel around. I wonder if they got the idea from Loom ) Grim Fandango created a completely new way of creating adventure games , but then that gameplay was not advanced in Escape from Monkey Island. In fact, their solution to the problem was to add like 6 hotspot lines to the bottom of the screen wheenever you were looking at multiple objects.

I hope you understand what I'm talking about, which is probably easier said than done. But there is always ways to add new things. You just have to think outside the box for a bit.

Since I talked too much about FPS, I'll make another example with WarCraft. WarCraft if of course, a real-time strategy game. Well, if anyone played WarCraft III, the folks at Blizzard knew (maybe?) that they couldn't make yet another WarCraft sequel, so they added a whole new things, which is that you have a Hero (or Villain) to guide your troops around. Not only that, but he can also have his own spells and level up! Yep, it's stolen from RPGs, but it definitely makes WCIII looked like a more evolved game than its prequels, instead of being the exact same game with new challenges and a different story.

[Scummbuddy]

How well did Tony Tough and the Night of the Roasted Moths do?

[Vel]

Petteri: there was a hint option which flashed the locations on the map where you still had stuff to do in the timeblock.