Is AGS dying the same way adventure games did?

[BatWitch]

.. I've been playing a lot of Sims 3 these past few days, and the way the Sims explore dungeons and what not in the expansion "global explorers" is pretty much a 3D adventure game.

Point, click, do something, proceed to next room.

I feel like 3D games are going to continue to incline...
Thankfully smartphones and other handheld devices handle 2D games better for now... but if they catch up to be able to display 3D better in the future, who knows what will happen to 2D games.

I, for one, love the nostalgic, familiar feel of two dimensional games, especially when they're almost picturebook-esque, but I imagine that my type of gamers (casual female gamer?) are not going to increase significantly enough to manipulate the trend of the gaming world.

[Ali]

Rumours of the death of adventure games have been greatly exaggerated. And I find the quality of playable AGS games released recently is higher than it was when I joined in 2003.

There are peaks and troughs of course, but if we're going to fret about that we should be more worried about the world's economy.

[m0ds]

Kinky Island seems to be still going ahead though.

Walter Koch!   And the all new animations are utterly neglected, it's sad... But the adventure game scene is thriving, and AGS has been one of the major forefronts of that - which makes me, and a lot of people I know, proud of that. Few game design systems get four page tutorials in magazines.

AGS, and what it can do, is an art form. Thankfully enough people realise there is something unique in hand drawn art and storytelling, it's almost as basic and a necessity in the computerised world as books are in our facebook age. You wouldn't see books burnt or dismissed. People will never see the point and click art form dismissed. If anything AGS is currently what LucasArts and Sierra once were, with Wadjet Eye Games, TellTale and Ben There Dan That Inc coming up the (your) rear.

But you're right, til the day AGS forums accept the UK spelling of realize there is simply no hope.

I remember sitting at the ECTS thing with Marek when Charles Cecil said point and clicks were dead. I always thought that was incorrect. There is a place for the 3D adventuring market certainly, but AGS is helping p&c's thrive.

As for ever died? I'd say no, strictly no. Every year for the past 20 you've been able to buy a point and click. It's just no-one expected them to be 3D. Consoles pissed on the mouse and PC games became centrally keyboard operated. I think the "dead" part of the adventure scene comes from a lack of understanding of the change that came about in the early nineties from mouses to consoles and certain graphic advancements. Like when you were a kid and books were awesome and then you used a Gameboy. You forgot about books but it's not like they ever became un-powerful because of that.

[Igor Hardy]

I remember sitting at the ECTS thing with Marek when Charles Cecil said point and clicks were dead.

To be honest when I played his Broken Sword 3 and then read its reviews I truly believed Cecil that he managed to kill the point and clicks - crashed them with one big, heavy crate after having been pushing it for 2 hours first.

That's why I like to see the current state of adventure games as a resurrection after death in the early 2000s.

[m0ds]

Hahaha! Yes, oh, the damnation he got for crate pushing! But they were still perfectly alive during BS3 days. They were just trying something new. Even Cryo were alive during BS3, just? What crate pushing was in 2003 is what barrels in the middle of nowhere in space town are in 2009. And that's nothing more than a minor glitch.

Someone started the "dead" rumour, nothing more to it than that. In the early 00's every sucked internet fad d**k, and "point and clicks are dead" somehow got involved. Reputedly, AGS has been the forefront of point and click development since the turn of the millennium, some lack seeing/accepting that. Maybe that's me sucking some ****

[Igor Hardy]

Someone started the "dead" rumour, nothing more to it than that. In the early 00's every sucked internet fad d**k, and "point and clicks are dead" somehow got involved. Reputedly, AGS has been the forefront of point and click development since the turn of the millennium, some lack seeing/accepting that. Maybe that's me sucking some ****

Oh, there was a bit more than that to the "dead" rumour - mainly Sierra (then LucasArts) changing management, getting into serious financial trouble and saying they won't release any more adventure games because it's not profitable. That was already quite a killing blow - all publishers turned away from the genre. Only from 2005 or so there was again a larger number of new releases that you could choose from and the digital distribution getting popular proved to be the best remedy.

[Ryan Timothy B]

is what barrels in the middle of nowhere in space town are in 2009.

Haha. I need to play his new demo and see if I can spot any easter egg barrels.


Nah, I kid.  

[Dualnames]

Prince said the internet is overrated. Well, f*** him. John Romero said Daikatana would blow our minds off. Well, f*** him. Dave Gilbert once said (don't make me link, cause I have it bookmarked) he's going off AGS. Well f*** him.

AGS isn't going to go down and take some with it. AGS won't go down b****!

Yeah, gansta!

[m0ds]

Someone started the "dead" rumour, nothing more to it than that. In the early 00's every sucked internet fad d**k, and "point and clicks are dead" somehow got involved. Reputedly, AGS has been the forefront of point and click development since the turn of the millennium, some lack seeing/accepting that. Maybe that's me sucking some ****

Oh, there was a bit more than that to the "dead" rumour - mainly Sierra (then LucasArts) changing management, getting into serious financial trouble and saying they won't release any more adventure games because it's not profitable. That was already quite a killing blow - all publishers turned away from the genre. Only from 2005 or so there was again a larger number of new releases that you could choose from and the digital distribution getting popular proved to be the best remedy.

That to me is assuming it was all about those two companies, and to me it wasn't. They were the biggest non 3D publishers of the time but in all fairness adventure games have been better suited to independent publishing, publishing by the game studio. I caught the back end of LEC and Sierra, DOTT I played around the time it was famous, but a lot of their stuff not until the late 90's. And around the time of that and Grim Fandango, there was still quite a few other titles on the shelves. I could still almost buy Under a killing Moon in shops around the turn of the millennium. I dunno, I think it's psychological. I don't think it died, I think many - myself included - got too wound up in thinking LEC and Sierra were the only ones that could pull this stuff off. The 00's proved otherwise.

[xenogia]

Not sure if I'm correct or not.  But isn't AGS looked down upon indie developers usually?

[Wyz]

Back in 2001 I feared adventure games was a dying breed. I felt like I was the only one in the world that actually enjoyed them, but that was before I discovered the AGS community. When I did, it was mainly because of the large number of free and decent (before that I used to play flash adventures at newgrounds) adventures ready to download and play. Then I thought: this is how it will be in the future; individual developers making games, telling their own story.
Then there was Telltale. It is not the end off the genre, it is the end of the first generation, in 2008 we welcomed the second generation and it is juvenile and vibrant ready to kick butt. That's how I see it.  8)

[Baron]

    The nostalgia for old-school point & click adventures when they were no longer being made by big studios demonstrates an enduring market for story-based and puzzle-based adventures.  People -not all people, of course, but many - LIKE this genre.  So long as there are fans, the genre will never die, and I don't see the fans all dying off.  Sure, the demographics will change over time, but it's reasonable to conclude that adventure gamers will be around for a long, long time.
   Economics change, however.  When point & click was cutting edge c.1990 people might pay $90 for a "top of the line" adventure game.  A large part of that cut went to retail distributors (50% ?), and then there was the price of printing everything, publishing disks, and shipping and labour that all came off the top before profit.  But by 2000 the novelty had worn off -no sane consumer would pay that kind of money for an adventure game.  But without those big price tags, big studios just couldn't make their business model work and so were shut down.
    But another change is happening in the background around 2000.  Nostalgia was kicking in, creating demand for adventures, and with ever more powerful personal computers and internet penetration it suddenly became feasible for amateurs to design and distribute their own games.  This is a second golden age for the genre!
    Now to 2010 -these small studios and many talented developers that have cut their teeth on freeware games are hitting a wall.  The genre has plateaued, and they want to "take it to the next level".  Their time is limited, but their ambitions heightened by ever more powerful tools at their disposal.  The logical solution is to go commercial, try to get paid for your work and satisfy your artistic drive.  That's the dream anyway, and I for one applaud (and support by purchases) the folks around here that have been daring enough to make the jump.  The economics are different -distribution costs have plummeted compared to 1990, but so has the price-point the gaming public will accept.  I'd be surprised if even a posh professional looking title can ask more than $30 and make any kind of serious volume.  But the point is this is where the genre is heading, and it's creating changes in the AGS forums as a result.
     So finally to the forums.  This place was an exciting frontier in the second golden age of 2000-2005, and I regret getting into it as late as I did.  There are still occasional bursts of the same raw enthusiasm, but now it is more likely to be tempered by experience and the discipline required to make a "respectable" game.  The bar has been set higher, and I can see how this would be discouraging to newbies from the get-go.  The loss of the point & click script editor as of version... 2.7?  By 3.0 for sure -definitely made amateur game making less accessible than it had been previously.  All of this makes for fewer willful but modestly entertaining development trolls, but also fewer whimsical newbie projects, while the rest of us plug away at increasingly ambitious projects that take us away from squandering time on the forums.  Finally, as the core of the community ages it is natural for the zeal of youth to slowly fade into the staid composure of wisdom, which has its own benefits but doesn't always make for the most entertaining forum posts.  Thus there have been no spectacularly public departures of prominent community members lately, and the moderators are less inclined to let immaturity have free reign in threads.  As we get older and wiser we see the consequences of these things, and so try to nip them in the bud.  Expectations change and the community modifies its behaviour as a consequence.  All of this is natural and by no means indicative of a less vigorous community or genre; we're just slowly changing.

[ddq]

It'll only die if you let it. Just keep making games 'til the cows come home.
No matter how hard we try, things won't stay the same. AGS and the Adventure genre will change. I love the way games used to be, but instead of trying to hold on to that glorious past, I'd like to make a new era of nostalgia. Make things change for the better so that in another ten years, gamers will remember our time and smile.

[Ponch]

Any community goes through ups and downs. Personally, I think AGS is in the middle of a very exciting time. Going (semi) open source may bring back the old editor, which may help bring more newbies into our world. Also, we have Oceanspirit Dennis now. And any community that has OSD is obviously an awesome online community!

As far a the lower output of games goes, I think that may just be a reflection of the times. I know that I used to have a lot more time to work on Barn Runner games a few years ago. But the economy isn't what it used to be. I'm putting in a lot more hours than I used to at work. That doesn't leave a lot of time for AGSing. I suspect this may be true of others as well.

All in all, I don't think the big blue cup community has anything to worry about. And with Tell Tale games holding the banner and other outfits like Zombie Cow on Steam, I don't think adventure gaming is in any danger either.

Just my two cents, anyway.

[Tramponline]

@Baron
Speaking as a fairly new member (...at least as registered member) of this community, I can only say Baron's observation concerning Newbies in reference to the forum and AGS itself is really spot-on. That is exactly the predicament for most newcomers! I mean not everyone has icy's happy-go-lucky, maybe partly insane attitude and plunges right in (which takes a lot of courage nevertheless (seriously !)). Personally I'm sure I'll grow into AGS in time by helping out here and there and working with you guys.

All I can contribute to this discussion is that by playing the games AGS members have produce over the last couple of years I can see a more open minded approach towards the definition of what adventure games are and a tendency to experiment with AGS, try out new stuff and so on. AGS is a powerful tool, a lot of your games have shown me just how powerful, and I couldn't care less if they're 2-D, 3-D, whatever-D, if they're adventures or hybrids, if narrative or experimental, as long as they rock! (And while hanging around here, I hope to learn how to make 'em that way!)
As Ponch and ddq mentioned before me, I reckon open mindedness is a key element in pretty much everything and will prevent AGS from stagnating and let's face it: there'll ALWAYS be one of you freaks who wants to create insane games with AGS - it might even be me some day...                      

[Cirius]

I do feel slightly that the accessibility side of AGS went a little down hill after the 2.72 days. The interactions menu opened the system up to me massively, and gently guided me down the path of scripting without holding my head under water. It would be nice to see a push back in that direction, which I think was hugely beneficial to newcomers.

Baron pointed out "The bar has been set higher, and I can see how this would be discouraging to newbies from the get-go.  The loss of the point & click script editor as of version... 2.7?  By 3.0 for sure -definitely made amateur game making less accessible than it had been previously.  All of this makes for fewer willful but modestly entertaining development trolls, but also fewer whimsical newbie projects, while the rest of us plug away at increasingly ambitious projects that take us away from squandering time on the forums."

But still, I think if an unofficial poll was carried out, asking how many people were working away on games quietly in the background, we'd find a massive number of games we didn't even know about. Adventure games aren't going anywhere any time soon. Personally, I still work with 2.72. I may be missing out on a load of features, but at least I can use the damn thing.

[Radiant]

Personally, I still work with 2.72.

Me too, albeit not for the interaction editor. I simply find the interface more accessible, plus it has better Linux support.

Anyway, in reaction to the OP, note that text adventures still have a thriving community, so I see no reason why graphical ones would die.

[Snake]

Resident Evil, Billy Mays, Adventure Games and Vinyl Records. Why do I love things that are dead?

Well, Duals, it looks like it's up to you and I to revive adventure games with your MI game. We could even throw in Troica and Leitor's Edge as bonus features. On the first of April. It'll work.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Is this a joke I've missed, is Duals actually working on a MI game?

[Dualnames]

Is this a joke I've missed, is Duals actually working on a MI game?

I'm not working on a MI game, this is just a joke referring to my great newbie-post-attack-of-the-forums era.

My first adventure was Escape from Mi
So i downloaded the other 2 and bought Curse
I loved all of them but one is a personal favourite
is MI2
Ok they were all perfect
It's my favourite game
but when i played 2 i  was stunned
Great music
One hell of an Ending
many laughs
(i like it when he jumps with the crossbar and he hear the Indy theme0
Plus very  strange
ex: when he opens the door and you see Mi 1

My best
post
ever.
It's just so
great
that even
iceygames
can't beat that kind
of style