"How to save adventure games" by Richard Cobbett

[Igor Hardy]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/09/04/dont-quit-how-to-save-adventures-225/

Something to read and discuss.

[Anian]

Indeed, game around the story and problems, not story around games and puzzles.

The problem I see with the playerchoice/options variety, beside it being a lot more work, is that, personally, I hate playing the "wrong" choice, even if the game doesn't mind and continues to move on, I always feel I need to try everything out...it makes my rpg playing very stressfull and a large number of games never finished cause I try every option and the game just gets boring.
Also, again, I've seen from other people's comments, time in adventure games...if you have so much choice, would you want to be on a limited time? Even though I sucked at it, Last express was pretty narrow and you could rewind if you did something wrong, but still I'd like it without the stress of time constriction.

It's hard to find a good balance between some elements and the more stuff you put in, the longer it takes to make games and there's more of a chance more people won't like it...tough position.

[Babar]

Interesting read, although it didn't really provide me with any new and interesting ideas. However, this, I absolutely agree with:

Very little usually goes into making them special. Illogical puzzles, such as the Runaway series making you weld a key back together with sunlight or load a Gatling gun with lipstick, aren’t merely tolerated, but treated as all part of the fun, instead of â€" let’s be honest â€" the stupid rubbish they most definitely are.
...
Modern adventures simply need to start thinking a bit differently… and two areas in particular are long overdue a good shake-up. First and foremost, puzzles need to be largely retired in favour of problems.

And lots of people completely disagree about with me.

* Babar waits for blueskirt to respond.

I look back at the games I've played over the years, and while occasionally I talk about a puzzle that stands out (I think I mentioned Day of the Tentacle's time-centred puzzles in the "Favourite Puzzle" thread), I never really considered the "greatness" of an adventure game with respect to the puzzles.
If you ask me, "puzzle games" would be a separate genre from "adventure games", and wouldn't necessarily have to be the same...I'd consider something like Myst to be more naturally grouped with games like Hodj & Podj (or even Bejewelled or something)... puzzle-centric games, where if there is a story, it is secondary to the puzzle element. I realise there are people who enjoy these sort of games, enjoy sitting down and figuring out how a stanza of poetry relates to which levers need to be pushed to open the door, they probably dislike action-segments, and usually even timed-segments...but that is not me.

I enjoy exploration, I enjoy the actual "sense of adventure" (probably why I was never really all that fond of mystery adventure games, and sort of indicative of why I got a sudden "adventure" feeling while watching Up! the other day..which would make a great adventure game), I enjoy looking at stuff, I enjoy talking to interesting characters, etc. Of course, I enjoy a challenge, and wouldn't want the game to basically be an interactive movie, but I'd rather the challenge go along with the flow of the game, rather than be an obstacle to it.

It's kinda sad that what drew me to adventure games originally is more available now in all these other genres that basically stole from the adventures.

[Ponch]

I read the entire article (thanks for linking it, by the way). And at no point does the author mention Oceanspirit Dennis. And he claims to be an expert of the world of adventure gaming! Bah! 

[Igor Hardy]

To me one of the key paragraphs is this one:

Since those days, our expectations have changed. We expect more of a flow these days, and for our stories to have pace. Your character standing gormlessly on the screen, while you scan a mouse cursor over every pixel in the attempt to find a single nail that can be used to pick a lock, is the equivalent of a roleplaying game expecting you to map a dungeon with a pen and paper. There’s a certain old-school charm in that, perhaps, but we all know our time could be better spent having actual fun.

It's not really about pixel-hunting - it's about getting stuck in adventure games in general. It means that today's mainstream audience is too impatient to play traditional (real?) adventure games, something you could argue with to a point, but it's probably true. Other genres have a more consistent rewarding systems.

It's kinda sad that what drew me to adventure games originally is more available now in all these other genres that basically stole from the adventures.

So what makes you stand by adventure games, Babar?

[Babar]

Hahahhahahaha....it's more like I'm standing by AGS. Mostly because for me, it's much easier to make a non-generic story-centric game that is an adventure game rather than an FPS or RPG or platformer (or include small portions of those things which I like into my mostly-adventuregame).

I still love the classics for their great story, their sense of adventure, their wonderful dialog and all that...but as I said, I don't see that a lot in recent (especially commercial) adventure games. Which is why I haven't bought a "new" adventure game for myself since...Syberia? (not saying Syberia was anything special, it was okay enough, just that that was the last time I decided to spend money to play a "new" game that catered to the traditional point & click adventure-game audience)

I mean, I played the free Tales of Monkey Island episode, and the free Sam 'n Max episode, and while they were nice enough, with a couple of small flashes of the greatness these games once had...I was not convinced to spend money on buying any more episodes. I bought Machinarium as part of the Humble Indie Bundle, but I got bored with it after a while, realising while it had a very nice ambience and atmosphere, it was little more than a series of consecutive, self-contained puzzle screens.

[Eggie]

Tales Of Monkey Island gets so much better after the first two episodes, I know complaining about Telltale's a favourite hobby for certain members of the 'reel advenchure gaymers' community but they really do get so much right. The games are accessible, have well paced stories (not so much the Back To The Future games I've noticed) and plenty of really well-designed, FUN puzzles with plenty of underlying humour and narrative purpose (The product placement puzzle is Sam and Max s2e3 is one of my favourite things I've done in a game).

I know they ain't perfect but God knows I'd rather play one of their games than just about any other commercial adventure game coming out; like these clunking German monstrosities dedicated solely to emulating Longest Journey's interface flaws or Nancy Drew Finds An Umbrella Or Some Shit Part 7. Has anyone played Red Johnson Chronicles? It's awful; you have to do a quicktime event to AVOID shooting a man in the face and you have to solve a sliding puzzle to turn on a CCTV camera. Plus it's badly animated, this frigging artform's going backwards.

I enjoyed the article, I too would ike to see more adventure games with branching plot elements and choice and consequence but it's difficult to reconcile it with puzzle design, surely the player will just 'choose' whichever path they solve first.

[pmartin]

I agree with most of the article. But I don't like the way it's written. Basically what he does is "Hey, there's something wrong here. There I noticed it, now it's up to you how to fix it".

Let me explain in a narcissistic way:

This week I've been really depressed because it seems life doesn't let me do anything I want. For several reasons. I've got really really frustrated out of doing nothing at all. Then I go and talk to my girlfriend and she tries to be helpful by saying "You got to do something. You can't lay in your bed all day". But christ, I just said I'm depressed because I want to do something and everything I try goes wrong by something that's not at all under my control. Then I get angry at her for not helping me by giving me a list of things that I could do but couldn't see  due to depression. But hell, this kind of thought is really selfish, so I never say it to her.

How does this relates?

Well, just like saying what's wrong with me won't help because I know exactly what's wrong. We know what's wrong with the adventure genre. Telling us again is not helping anyone fix it.  Most of the time people know what's wrong, but  fixing the problem is a lot more complicated. What would make that a great article? He should have given some ideas on how to fix it* and hope that some adventure maker (us) would read it.

But since I'm doing the same, pointing out everything that's wrong, I just started the list of Ideas that could "improve" the adventure genre.

Will post here in adventure related talk and chat, and hope that you'll read and contribute. :]

________
* Yes he gave some opinions or ideas, but they were so vague that they were like, paraphrasing Dr. Manhattan, a picture of oxygen to someone that is drowning.

[Baron]

To me one of the key paragraphs is this one:

Since those days, our expectations have changed. We expect more of a flow these days, and for our stories to have pace. Your character standing gormlessly on the screen, while you scan a mouse cursor over every pixel in the attempt to find a single nail that can be used to pick a lock, is the equivalent of a roleplaying game expecting you to map a dungeon with a pen and paper. There’s a certain old-school charm in that, perhaps, but we all know our time could be better spent having actual fun.

It's not really about pixel-hunting - it's about getting stuck in adventure games in general. It means that today's mainstream audience is too impatient to play traditional (real?) adventure games, something you could argue with to a point, but it's probably true. Other genres have a more consistent rewarding systems.

So I guess the obvious solution is to speed up the reward system in adventure games.  Eliminating dead-ends is unambitious: let's cut out getting stuck!  Who's going to be the first to set an optional variable at the beginning of their game (easy, medium, hard) that is really just a timer; each puzzle restarts the timer and when it times out, you get a clue, then a hint, and then finally a "this is how you do it, stupid" that advances the game?  Let's idiot-proof this genre, mainstream-style!  Who's with me?

[Eggie]

I don't like timing based hint systems.

Ones where you click a button to get hints though? Genius! Life saver! NO MORE CLOSING THE GAME TO LOOK UP INTERNET WALKTHROUGHS!

[pmartin]

To me one of the key paragraphs is this one:

Since those days, our expectations have changed. We expect more of a flow these days, and for our stories to have pace. Your character standing gormlessly on the screen, while you scan a mouse cursor over every pixel in the attempt to find a single nail that can be used to pick a lock, is the equivalent of a roleplaying game expecting you to map a dungeon with a pen and paper. There’s a certain old-school charm in that, perhaps, but we all know our time could be better spent having actual fun.

It's not really about pixel-hunting - it's about getting stuck in adventure games in general. It means that today's mainstream audience is too impatient to play traditional (real?) adventure games, something you could argue with to a point, but it's probably true. Other genres have a more consistent rewarding systems.

So I guess the obvious solution is to speed up the reward system in adventure games.  Eliminating dead-ends is unambitious: let's cut out getting stuck!  Who's going to be the first to set an optional variable at the beginning of their game (easy, medium, hard) that is really just a timer; each puzzle restarts the timer and when it times out, you get a clue, then a hint, and then finally a "this is how you do it, stupid" that advances the game?  Let's idiot-proof this genre, mainstream-style!  Who's with me?

I don't think it's "THE MAINSTREAM AUDIENCE" - something that sounds a lot degrading for we adventure players- but times have changed. It's not that people now are too stupid to play adventures. It's just that, come on, to solve a puzzle the right way takes time. You don't get better at solving puzzles just as you get better at shooting people at the screen. And if you have the illusion of getting better, it's just your brain telling you "I've seen this before, It's just like that other puzzle in that other game...".  Remember the 90's and that time when adventure was the thing? Remember how different it was to play adventure games? I don't know about you, but I was a kid, and playing Broken Sword, Full Throttle or any adventure I played by the time was completely different.
The reasons are:

1. Games were the most amazing experience I could have most of the time. I lived in the country and had no other kids around, and had already explored everywhere I was allowed to go. So pretending to be a Biker doing things I couldn't understand (English isn't my native language) was just incredible. The 'action' that cool bike. Wow. And puzzles were the obstacles I had in the way. But I was a bored kid with nothing else to do most of the time. I HAD to keep trying. It was the only option. Actually no. At the time I had a few other games ( Broken Sword 1, Putt Putt, Freddy Fish, the only shooter I had was Dark Forces Demo, and Cyberia, with the C, Demo) and a day came where I was stuck in all of them. I couldn't figure  out one and I tried the other. Couldn't advance In none of them? I went out and played with action figures. Little by little I advanced.

2. At that time dowloading 7mb was almost an epic accomplishment IF you were lucky enough to have a internet conection. I wasn't.

3. Buying more games? Just for Christmas, if I behaved. They were expensive. Most of the toys I had ranged from 1 to 10 dollars.

So why adventure games the way they are aren't enough for the gamers?

1. Adventure games aren't as awe inducing as they were back then. Now COD and all of those games hold this title.

2.  (probably the most important) Now we have infinite options of things to do besides grinding on a puzzle. Not just because we grew up, but because we have infinite other games just one torrent away. When you got stuck in a Adventure at the time, it was okay, it was awesome, you had to continue. Now, it's not half as cool as it were. If a 'mainstream gamer' gets stuck he'll notice that there's nothing else happening at the game and there's nothing else to do. Your character will stay there, static, as if the world has stoped. All you can do is walk around. And admit it: Walking around in a point and click game isn't fun. At least walking around in a FPS is more entertaining. And the player has more hope to find the solution without quiting the game, because he doesn't expect hard puzzles. So if the mainstream player get's stuck in a puzzle in a adventure game, he'll probably close the game, adventure most of the time leave you hopeless. Most of the time you think you already tried everything. He'll get angry and he'll say "F*** THIS S*** this isn't worth my time I AM NOT HAVING FUN". He won't figure out that the developer wants him to use the Rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle. And if he figures it out, after hours of trying he'll feel cheated. And come on, we can't blame him.

3. So, let's say he downloaded a adventure game, played most of it with a walkthrough because he thinks that he doesn't have hours or even days to spend figuring out a puzzle. Then he sees a fairly attractive adventure game somewhere for 25 dollars. He won't buy because he knows that he's cheating by playing it with a walkthrough and he won't spend the time needed for the puzzle solving. He'll probably buy another 25 dollars game that he actually feels good playing.



In my opinion we have two options:

1. If we want people to buy and play, we change the way adventure games are. I can't see other way.

2. Or we settle for a community of older players who already like adventure games and want
to play more of them. Which is not that bad actually.

[Dave Gilbert]

I especially like the two characters flanking Alexander in the article's teaser image.

[Ali]

While I agree with most of the article, I don't think it's really a manifesto for the future of adventure games.

In fact it reminded me that I've started to doubt the principle of 'problems not puzzles'. It was absolutely loving Puzzle Agent what done it.

Having never played a Dr Layton game, it was a new experience to me: removing the illusion of integrated puzzles made the working of the game clear. If you want more story, you have to earn it by solving X, Y and Z. Since I found the Fargo/Twin Peaks atmosphere engaging, the puzzles enjoyable and the cutscenes creepy and funny, I was completely happy with that.

I'll go further and say there may be nothing wrong with sliding tile puzzles per se (or even mazes?). Perhaps it simply depends on the way they are presented to the player.

[hedgefield]

I thought you might Dave.

And I agree completely with pmartin, the article feels a lot like 'look at you munchkins, doing it all wrong' instead of 'you know, if you did this this and this, your games might actually not suck'. It would be good as an opening chapter for a thesis, but as a standalone article I'm not really sure what the takeaway is. 'Be more creative', yeah okay, I already knew that.

As a designer I love putting in multiple paths and time limits and hidden things, but like anian said, as a player I know I'd hate them. I've been playing the hell out of Deus Ex Human Revolution, and after cleaning out every desk and reading every email in the Picus newsroom I realized that, while I had harvested about 2000 credits, I just spent 20 minutes rifling through drawers like a petty criminal while lives were at stake. But at the same time I cannot force myself to just run past them, because I would constantly feel like I'd be missing out on something. Funny enough I never had that problem when I played Deus Ex 1 as a kid.

[EDIT] Ruh-roh, more fuel for the fire - "adventure games deserve to die", says whatgamesare.com: http://bit.ly/npbcKu

[Igor Hardy]

[EDIT] Ruh-roh, more fuel for the fire - "adventure games deserve to die", says whatgamesare.com: http://bit.ly/npbcKu

I think we are in great part responsible for this kind of treatment of the genre. There hasn't been a single well-known adventure games designer that voiced support for the adventure game mechanics since the 90s (except for possibly Dave Grossman and his team). Everyone just gave up, pretty much admitting that adventure games are too old-school for people from younger generations.

Meanwhile the majority of adventure games players keeps saying that adventure games are that one genre that's entirely about storylines. Gameplay quality and creativity seemingly doesn't matter - for most it's enough to have interactive stories with accidental gameplay.

No wonder no one respects this style of play, if pretty much zero people have anything good to say about puzzle solving. We all hate that part of playing adventure games too, don't we?

[Ali]

[EDIT] Ruh-roh, more fuel for the fire - "adventure games deserve to die", says whatgamesare.com: http://bit.ly/npbcKu

I take issue with this point:

Who really wanted to run around solving puzzles to open doors with herring bones when they could be exploring dungeons, shooting cacodemons, racing cars or any of the other more lively pleasures that 3D gaming embraced? When action games sprang to life the adventure game became the equivalent of the silent movie in a world of talkies and the limits of their poor design sealed their fate.

Firstly because the answer was ME. I was always complaining to my uncaring friends about how much I missed adventure games.

Secondly because the comparison with silent / talkie cinema is silly. When talkies appeared, silent movies were leagues ahead of them both artistically and technically. Recording sound placed enormous constraints on what could be achieved and the art of cinema took years to get back on its feet.

Now, I think that is a bit like what happened when 3D came in, but not in the way this guy describes.

[pmartin]

Not sure if this will add anything at all to the discussion, but:

I have a lot more fun playing Choose Your Own Story games than playing Interactive Fiction.
OF COURSE it is hard to write a good CYOS, but when it's done right, I think it's great.
for example:

Light Space


I would develop the point further if I had the time.

[Igor Hardy]

I have a lot more fun playing Choose Your Own Story games than playing Interactive Fiction.

Then you just have to play Lost Pig. It will tramp all your ideas of CYOS superior funness.

[Wesray]

So adventure games aren't best sellers. So what? They are slowly paced, focus on story-telling and usually are no technical breakthroughs. Of course they are no blockbusters. They might have been in the 90s, but back then the gamer community was much smaller, much more hardcore, and adventure games often enough were the technical pinnacle.

Now of course we could strip away or replace certain aspects that are typical for adventure games, and I'm all for experimenting. But that doesn't mean that classical point&click adventures are obsolete either. Maybe for the general public they are, but enough people seem to love them for what they are and offer.

I for my part enjoy the mellow pacing of classical adventure games, that you have to work and to explore to fully experience the story, unlike say a movie or to a lesser extent a book. If done right, this can do wonders for the immersion, at least for me it does. But then I was always a person who played games as much for their story and atmosphere as for their gameplay. Sometimes I'll crave some action or an intricate RPG, and then I'll play something like Crysis or Oblivion. But they are no replacement for classic adventure games, and the other way around.

All that said, this rant isn't supposed to be an excuse for poorly designed (adventure) games (dead ends, illogical trial and error puzzles, no hints, poor story...), especially commerical ones. Those are inexcusable.

Just my two cents.

[Dave Gilbert]

All that said, this rant isn't supposed to be an excuse for poorly designed (adventure) games (dead ends, illogical trial and error puzzles, no hints, poor story...), especially commerical ones. Those are inexcusable.

That was kind of Richard's point.  That's what mainstream commercial adventure games have become.  The comments in the article only prove the point.  There are lots of examples of quality high-budget adventure games, but none of them are under ten years old.