Adventure Game Studio

The more i am designing my adv game the more i am gettin gto questions... no surprise there.

Well recent developement on my previous stories I couldnt decide which one to start with. So I dug up my
age old box containing my live.. collector cards comics etc.. you get the picture and dusted off my writing
and game ideas that i have hidden away for about a year now.

I started re writing the script and reviewing my puzzle ideas, let me get to the point.
The point is this. Some people have prefrences, they differ form person to person.

What do you think are the fundamental laws of adventure games ?
Things ive been thinking about : Death of hero character, Text interfaces, cutscenes and gui styles.
There are more that you might want to add so lets put our heads together and figure out the fundamental laws!
:)

ps the puzzles some are difficult, some are logical some are just plain stupid... what do you prefer?

definition of 'game': noun :  An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime _{from dictionary.com}

Adventure games, as ANY other games, have only ONE fundamental rule:

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After that, I think anything that stays consistent with your storyline, graphics style, and genre, are cool.  I've seen lots of articles that try to disseminate what makes a good game.  Well, it's just not possible to do.  Just like any art form, game appreciation is subjective.  Some folks will like wordy, brain-bending, puzzles, others just want to shoot the crap out of something, and others just want to laugh themselves silly.  Who's game is better?

The better question would be:  What game are you better at making?

All of that being said, and with any luck at all, I will try to make some usefull suggestions that have nothing to do with style.

• GUI's MUST be intuitive.  Don't make the player guess.
  
• No matter how many times you test it, have others play your beta.  Nothing is more frustrating than a game that doesn't work right.
  
• Check your spelling/grammar, or have someone else do it, especially if you're not a native speaker of the language that you are translating to.  You can often say things you don't want to.
  
• If the chance exists that the player character will perish, warn the player early, preferably before play starts.
  

As far as puzzles go:  Make them suit the game.  A comic farce deserves stupid, pun-filled, tongue-in-cheek, puzzles, as much as an epic quest should have some quite tough riddles.  There are some great articles over on Adventure Developers (here) (http://adventuredevelopers.com/features.php) on puzzle theory, and implementation.  I think they sum it up better than I can.

Seeing as I'm in the same stage of pre-production, that it sounds like you are in, I hope this makes a good start.

-Happy Creating

IMO....

1) autosaves before any situations where your character can die.  It's no fun repeating a whole lot of work and makes me quit some games if I have to do that.

2) Clues for every ambiguous puzzle.  The player should never be forced to resort to a walkthrough in order to determine what they need to do or look for.  If there are clues hidden somewhere then a dilligent player who doesn't get the puzzle right away will eventually figure it out. 

3) if it is possible to make a flaw that will prevent continuation of the game, then that should result in immediate death or notice that the game can no longer be completed

There a some rules, that I find essential for any adventure game:

1. Puzzles and storyline should be woven together. There's nothing more silly than doing something no one can comprehend.

2. Puzzles should be growing in their degree of difficulty or be of the same degree throughout the entire game.

3. Dialogues should contain valuable information for solving the puzzles. Important dialogues shouldn't completely disappear after hearing them.

4. It should be clear what to do. There were some games, in which I stood there right in the beginning asking what I'm currently up to. It should be comprehensible, why characters are doing, what they are doing. That's kind of authentic.

There are some more, but I currently have a loss of wakefulness, and will therefore go to bed now.

sleepy cheers
nihilyst

Shouldn't this be in the Adventure talk & chat forum?

1. No pixel hunts

2. No mazes

3. If you include an arcade sequence, allow the player to skip it if he wants

4. Decent walking speed for your main character (or configurable speed)

5. An option for 'clickable' text speed, for those players who read very fast and find it annoying to have to wait for each sentence to finish

6. (personal pet peeve) Keyboard controls for the GUI options

7. Solution to puzzles should make (some kind of) sense; if afterwards the player has no clue why that solution would have worked, it is not a good puzzle

8. No dead ends (mentioned above)

9. If you want riddles, incorporate a reason for them that makes sense (sticking them on a random door is rather odd)

10. Easter eggs

To add to Radiant's post:

1) No timed puzzles please.

2) A property where you can see if the cursor is over a hotspot. It's pretty annoying, when u keep clicking everywhere. (I mean the @overhotspot@ property. ) Lack of this is even worse than pixel hunts.

Why does everyone hate mazes so much? I don't mind them as long as they're not ridiculously large. If the sole reason for putting a maze into your game is some arbitrary reason such as "My game is way too short, but a maze will make it take longer to play - Longer game play equals greater quality!" or something just as short-sighted, then I could do without it. But a well-designed maze can add a nice dimension to a game.

Or am I just a freak?

- Ponch

I have yet to see a game with a maze that was actually fun. As for ones that weren't, see Still Life, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Countdown, LSL3, etc. etc.

People don't like mazes because they've seen a maze before, and most mazes are pretty much the same idea. You have to do the mapping and spend a lot of time walking through it even if you do know the way. It's tedious, repetetive and not challenging - so to the player it doesn't feel like a rewarding task.

Examples, Hugo II Whodunit; Larry 3; CQOTL; Indy 3; Future Wars (with time limit); Space Quest 2 and 3 and 4; King's Quest 5; Spellcasting 301

In every case the maze feels tacked-on and has no significant impact on gameplay.

Borderline cases include The Seventh Guest (because I don't consider it an adventure game), KQVI (maze has a story-based reason for existence, but is still needlessly tedious); QfG2 (ditto) and Indy Fate of Atlantis (since you get an overview map); Spellcasting 101 (rather obscure puzzle)

Examples of games with effective mazes include Loom (only it isn't really a maze); TSOMI (because they're actually puzzles rather than mazes) and a great many text adventures that put their original twist on it (Enchanter comes to mind)

Can't remember any maze in Space Quest 3. If you mean the pestulon bureaus in the end, I don't think they were ... er ... "mazy" enough to be called a maze.

Fundemental Adventure Law No. 1:
Do whatever works for YOU while making your game. If something is a good idea, it is silly to drop it because the "rules" tell you to.

Well....that is the law for MAKING adventure games. Laws for HAVING adventures are slightly different.

Quote from: nihilyst on Fri 08/04/2005 00:51:22
3. Dialogues should contain valuable information for solving the puzzles. Important dialogues shouldn't completely disappear after hearing them.

I absolutely agree with your list except for this point.
I think that in most amateur adventure games dialogues ONLY contain information for solving puzzles. Nothing interesting about the character, his/her story, another viewpoint on the game's plot etc.
Play the Callahans' Crosstime Saloon and look how the dialogues there were pure joy to read. I WANTED to talk with other characters, because I knew their words are going to be funny or deep or whatever, not because I wanted to solve a puzzle.

Wow thanks for the massive response guys and girls.

Intresting things you guys are saying...

Quote from: TerranRich on Fri 08/04/2005 03:49:26
Shouldn't this be in the Adventure talk & chat forum?

Thats exactly where it is.. I know sleep is a biggy :) Thank you Andail

Furthermore thanks for the cool link Seleceus, it really has alot of info.
Also as you said Seleceus "Some folks will like wordy, brain-bending, puzzles, others just want to shoot the crap out of something, and others just want to laugh themselves silly.Ã,  Who's game is better? "
I have developed a really good system for this prepared to amazed when I have released the game... Hopefully
by the end of the year as I am working on it alone, well except for forum help. THANKS!

Not everybody will ever agree on any one thing so ultimately I guess the decisions are left up to in this case ME.
I will just have to see how you respond to it. As a famous pirate once said... (No not guybrush) The rules are really
more like guide lines.

Thanks guys, keep the input rolling in!

Computer games are games in that they are challenging the player, and rewarding him or her according to how well they do, by the continuation of the storyline, extra background information, new options, new fun stuff to do and the like. In that sense, when the player fails to reach an objective, he should be also punished, or set back in a sense. That's how a game works. I am saying this because stuh said 'autosave before every death', and I strictly do not agree with this. There's a fine line between userfriendliness, and the game being your nanny, and I think that's one of the cases where you've gone head-on towards the latter. If you mess up, you restore your saved game, which you were prudent enough to make. Frustration isn't a good thing when you're playing a game, but if you didn't save often, it's not the game's fault. Designers should be wary of frustration created by the game design itself (read: mazes) and not by the user taking the game design lightly ( same reason I am not against walking deads if the player does something extremely stupid like throwing away a priceless artifact or whatever).

Helm states some good points that i do agree with. Your playing the game to expierence something special.
Your putting your mind into the hero's head. In my personal opinion it does get frustrating when i die in
half life because officer BOB or Phil or whateva got me killed.. ( this goes for any other game bug event and crashes) and i didnt save for the past hour! When I do something stupid like go and jump aroung over ledges and fall to my death its my own fault.

Now half life is not an adventure granted. I do believe however that you get my point, cause and effect. You know what your doing so take resposibility for your actions. I want to code my game so that the game is saved only when you exit. Painfull I know  ;D This will enhance the gaming expierence simply because I see people play and save like every two minutes.

My friend uses all his save game slots on mi1 in within the half an hour and then his not really that far, no accomplishment really.  So really all this is doing its giving you time to adapt and learn to take responsibility for your actions. And that quiting to save is a long process annoying and really not worth your while. I promise you however that you wont DIE or end up in a dead end game. I have planned all these routes and changes already.
Its a bigger sense of freedom and gives you an opportunity to play the game the way you play it. And not how it "SHOULD" be played.

Your going to hate me more when I tell you what I have done with the inventory ;D but surprises are good. Its al good.
Lets just say I am going to do something that no one really ever tried before... Well just have to see how that turns out.

I play game purely for the entertainment. I  like seeing what developers are doing and whats new and different..
I love easter eggs and all other forms of reward when I accomplish something. I feel that it inspires and motivates the player to go on with the game and try even harder.

Adventure are almost never replayable.. I am working on that aswell. So you guys will be hearing alot more from me with regards to problems I will encounter and ideas and thoughts you might have around it.

I believe adventures are replayable. Some of them simply because they are fun to play (I occasionally replay TSOMI and MI2, and go through Loom again at least once a year). Some of them because they allow multiple approaches (Quest for Glory series). And some of them because you only scored 120 out of 183 points and want the friggin' rest of them :)

One of my pet peeves in games is when there is too much dialogue.  If I want to read a story, then I'll pick up a book.  I don't like long intros, because I want to get into the game.  There's been times where the dialigue in a game kept going on and on, and I ended up not even bothering to read it, but just clicked all the way through.  I did that recently with Five Magic Amulets, which was a fantastic game, but there were a couple of parts, where I just got really annoyed at so much text.

I don't think too much text is really a problem because you can always skip through it.  You don't have to read it.  So that seems to me to be a good way to balance between people who just want to go next puzzle next puzzle to the people who want to get into the character and game plot.  Personally, I think the more immersive your game is the better and dialogues are one way to achieve this.

Helm, I see your reasons for saying that walking dead etc are acceptable...but I think those reasons only hold up in a purely theoretical world.  Practically, different people have very different opinions about what is obvious...and to one person, it might be obvious that performing a certain action is idiotic...but to another person, not so. 

For example, what if there was a certain item in area A and once you travelled from area A to area B, you could not go back.  This is now a walking dead situation and the player's intelligence isn't necessarily to blame...often times it is not obvious what items are get-able, and often times items can only be gotten after specific procedures of other things have been done first. 

The main difference about an adventure game compared to other games is that an adventure game is like playing out a story.  It's really not fun to play the same adventure game twice in a row...unless you're really a super big fan of that game.  So if you suddenly realize that the only possible way to complete the game is to start over and re-do all the puzzles and dialogues etc that you spent 20 hours doing before...that's pretty ridiculous IMO. 

Now you might respond that game designers should simply be more careful...but that's such an arbitrary line, and chances are if you consider walking dead situations to be acceptable, you will get even careful players sometimes trapped in them.

Also, scripted death sequences seem to be notoriously unavoidable the first time around.  It's not because characters are stupid, it's because we have been trained that we must explore all options to get through most adventure games.  So if there's something interactable that's bad, it's not unreasonable for a player to assume that it's simply something they're supposed to do.  In a real world situation, you would never do something incredibly stupid...but in an adventure game, you are often "forced" into doing things you wouldn't otherwise do.  For example, the game may be programmed in such a way that clicking on a broken rope bridge causes the player to attempt to walk across and fall to their death.  Perhaps the character clicked on the rope bridge for a different reason, not realizing that such a scripted sequence involving attempting to actually walk across was in store!  There are also many instances which come up suddenly and may not be intended by the player so they don't save first.  Should these people be forced to re-play the whole game?  No way...

If there's a random type death encounter that's not obviously predictable, why NOT make an autosave before it?  If this situation is largely unavoidable without prior knowledge, it means many or most players will die here and need to start the game all over.  There's no reason to lose your players this way.

Now, I'm not saying that every adventure game should be solvable by everyone, or just be a matter of "putting the time in" to finish.  I simply think that there are other, better ways, to kill off the player...for instance, if your game involves fighting, then it's fine for a character to die in a fight.  It's also perfectly fine to make a puzzle that's extremely difficult...but it's not ok to make a puzzle that's difficult because it has an obtuse or random solution.

Another thing you could do is warn the player that the situation they are coming into is important and that they should be esp careful there...that might encourage some people to do a save and take the situation in a different  perspective.

Anyone read 21 Adventure Tips by Bill Tiller and Larry Ahern? Link: http://www.adventuredevelopers.com/featuredetail.php?action=view&featureid=18&showpage=1

--Erwin

Quote from: Erwin_Br on Thu 14/04/2005 18:55:04
Anyone read 21 Adventure Tips by Bill Tiller and Larry Ahern? Link:

Actually, yes, I have, and found it very good too.  As a matter of fact; it was one of the unspecified articles I was referring to, in my earlier post (even dropped a link in for good measure). 

Quote from: Seleceus on Thu 14/04/2005 20:19:12

Quote from: Erwin_Br on Thu 14/04/2005 18:55:04
Anyone read 21 Adventure Tips by Bill Tiller and Larry Ahern? Link:

Actually, yes, I have, and found it very good too.Ã,  As a matter of fact; it was one of the unspecified articles I was referring to, in my earlier post (even dropped a link in for good measure).Ã, 

Yes thanks for that article Seleceus. That was a really great document can keep on refering back to the site for more
articles. Really good one thanks.

Yes, those were some great tips.  Thanks for the link, Erwin.

A Bill of Player's Rights. (12-16-2000)
http://www.lysator.liu.se/mud/questdesign.html

It's focused on Interactive Fiction, but can also be adapted for point n' click adventures.

To add something, I'd recommend to keep game in closed sections, each with reasonable size.
Read:

sections > total of: rooms player could visit at the game moment + hotspots+dialogs+inventory items to try

reasonable size > Usually, not all is solved by logical thinking. If you shoot player into a section with 10 rooms, give him 10 items and each room has at least 10 possible hotspots where any of them could be the key element to solve the section, whole thing is freaking huge and possibilty to just "wander" onto right solution is very unlikely. Also, the try-everything-on-everything action is insanely difficult to do.

Which - leads sooner or later to using a walkthrough
Which - ends the game for player, since walkthroughs are like Pandora's box: If you use it once for a particular game, you use it every time you get a bit more stuck. And this not cool at all. Also, the statisfaction after completing a game is minimal. Which makes whole game experience suck.

So, don't flood player with endless options, separate game into 2-5 room sections, with reasonable amount of options and you've made a big step towards making an enjoyable game.

And of course, this section-thing could be nicely masked with storyline, so player wouldn't even figure out why he can't get here or there until finishing this or that.

Good examples: Indiana Jones and FOA, Goblins 1-3, Larry Vales games
Bad examples: Razors in the night, Pleurghburg, Sierra's King's Quest series

Thats very interesting. Never thought of it like that. Know i have some thinking to do.
Indiana jones FOA is an amazing game. One question however anybody had any problems with the fighting. I did find it enjoyable but the novelty wears off after a couple of borring fights.

Never the less everything else in that hand was great.

However i would like 2 know more about full throttle! The one that got away! Could never get my hands on it. Not even now. If someone can help of out with some screen shots and novel ideas that where used in the game. Only screen shots i get on net are the opening scene. And the title screen. :(

Fate of Atlantis had the sucker punch which you could use to end nearly all fights immediately, with the cost of Indy Quotient points.

About deaths in Adventure Games... I really prefer not to die, I personally kinda like to inmerse myself on the game, and diying and ressurecting allt he time throws you away from th sense of reality.

Anyway, if you REALLY have to make deathscenes, make sure that at least they are avoidable if the player has done its homework. EXAMPLE:

You've broken into the museum, in the middle of the night, it's dark but the moonlight allows you to see the dagger of Amon-Ra, you grab it and leave... but a giant cockroach demon suddenly appears and corners you against a wall... the creature slowly approaches you... THINK!

If you have made your homework and went for a chat with the old anticuarian, you will know that demons are afraid of the light. Before grabbing the dagger you took a look around the museum and saw a fusible box. You even tried to use it, but your character said that he/she didn't wanted to draw attention to people outside...

So, yeah, previous knowledge and attention pay off: you use the fusible box on the seconds you still have before the demon gets you, the lights are on, the demon runs away.

That would be a satisfactory death scene. If you are smart enough and pay attention to the game you are rewarded.

Now a bad death would be when it's completely random, when you have to resort to trial and error without previous information to speak of. That is pretty annoying.

En garde you are right inthis aspect the player will always have an effect over his death and a way to avoid it.
If he fails then he dies... simple. The option should still be available to a player that hasnt done homework?

Sierra games often featured unfair deaths. It's one of the main reasons I'm not a big Sierra fan. That, and dead ends. In some Sierra games it's fun to die, though :D

--Erwin

Deaths are kind of a strange area in adventure games. No one really likes to die, unless their out for funny deaths. But, at the same time, I feel better after I've died several times, and finally accomplish my goal. It seems like I've accomplished more than just random clicking. Personally, I love Sierra deaths, I think they add a charm to the game. I don't necessarily see that they made that many unfair deaths. They did make walking-deaths, which considering the size of early games, is debatably not such a bad idea. However, in the context of the lenght of games today, walking-deaths I don't think work so well. Also, many of their deaths DID make sense. If a monster/bad guy was chasing you and caught you, you died. Where as CMI, as Lechuck chased you in the end, there was no way for death. I think as of late, people are afraid to allow death, and I don't necessarily agree with it. Trial and error deaths, aren't necessarily bad, it depends on the tone of the game. In SQ there are several unpredictable deaths, but I found many of the deaths enjoyably funny. And if you don't like to die, save often. I usually have a save the game often, and if you get an unpredictable death, you die. And while yes we wouldn't do stupid things like that in the real world, but if we were concerned with the real world, we wouldn't be playing a fictional story.

As far as making things in reasonable sections, I completely agree with that. I believe Roberta Williams refered to it as a pearl neckless. Although, I think she stressed that this was a bad technique. To me this is ideal, because you don't overwhelm the player. A lot of times where there are tons of rooms, the player loses sight of what they are even trying to do, as there are many puzzles to solve. As stated, most people will reach for the walkthrough after a while. 

To me dialog makes or breaks the game. I'm the type of player who goes through all the dialog options made available. The characters are the story, I can't understand skipping dialog that can potentially help you out in a puzzle or flesh the plot out. That isn't to say that some adventure games aren't long-winded. Dialogs should be interesting and should only be used to either give the player a hint, flesh out story, or humor. The game Five Magic Amulets is a good example of bad dialog. There were many cases where the character needed to know everyone's life story, and it got boring and served no purpose. It fleshed out the characters, yes, but that can be done in subtler ways through dialog that IS import and germane to the game.

-MillsJROSS

QuoteThe game Five Magic Amulets is a good example of bad dialog. There were many cases where the character needed to know everyone's life story, and it got boring and served no purpose. It fleshed out the characters, yes, but that can be done in subtler ways through dialog that IS import and germane to the game.

-MillsJROSS

Frankly, eventhough "5 magic amulets" is a great game that I recommend to everyone (and, hey, you can't beat the price, it's free), it is a pity that includes some of my biggest pet peeves. I don't really mind pointless dialogs. I really enjoyed the so- often- criticized ones on "The longest Journey". Difference here is that April had a lot of personality, just like all the other characters, and it created a rich complex world. Unfortunately, on "5 magic amulets" the main character was really plain and boring: her adoptive mother had just disappeared, the world was on the verge of impending doom and she acted like she was having a nice stroll on the woods a summer morning.

Another problem I had with the game is that you just start with... what? fifteen screens  with 5 to 10 hotspots each and ten inventory items? The possibilities are too overwhelming. I'm betting a big numberof players quits the game or goes for a walkthrough  at this point (I know I did). If you have to use a large map, please:

Not at the beggining. Seriously. Start with a small map with one or two clear puzzles. Make the player get used to the game's universe and controls. And if you have bigger maps then, please, be sure that the puzzles are not too obscure that there is a clear path to follow if you use logic. In "5ma", for example, you have to do a lot of unrelated sidequests in order to create a reaction on the game (a new character appearing, for example) that has no relationship whatsoever with what you were doing. Not that you know why you were doing it in the first place.

Let me explain that all that above is not reallly a rant against "5ma", just an opinion on how it could have been even better.