Is AGS dying the same way adventure games did?

[cosmicr]

I was on the AGI Studio (and earlier) scene back when I was 15. By the time I was 25, AGI was all but dead

I'm 30 now, and I hope AGS isn't dying, but sadly I think we've seen the best days gone by...

[Igor Hardy]

I'm 30 now, and I hope AGS isn't dying, but sadly I think we've seen the best days gone by...

So which were the best days and why?

[kaputtnik]

Well, speaking with Chris Crawford, adventure games are basically puzzles rather than actual games. I might add my own definition of "non-time critical, yet time-based storytelling".

So they can not possibly have died, because every single game genre involves solving puzzles in one way or another. If it really matters if they are presented in a classical point&click fashion and look like a lost Lucas Arts classic, then you can probably say that "adventure game aesthetics as established by Sierra Online (TM) and Lucasfilm Games (TM) have died somewhere around the year 199x", but the concept of solving puzzles for entertainment in video games has spread so wide that most people don't even recognize it anymore.

About AGS dying a slow death: Just look at the amount of media coverage AGS games are getting by indie gaming blogs and review sites. AGS is an established and serious game engine with a community that is known as "helpful and enthusiastic", the number of releases is pretty high and their quality as well. And just look at the innovation potential compared to other game engines; the YoYo game maker community for example has an incredibly high output, but 95% of it is waste, and of the 5% of the games that are actually enjoyable, maybe 5% are in some way interesting or innovative.

About Gödel's liar paradox: It can not be fully understood without having a look at Tarski's undefinability theorem.

[Igor Hardy]

I would argue that there are various types of puzzles and only some qualify as adventure game puzzles. There are also all those adventure games where puzzle solutions are pretty much given right away or limited to talking to every character - I think those are the real death of the genre.

About Gödel's liar paradox: It can not be fully understood without having a look at Tarski's undefinability theorem.

That got me really curious. What does Gödel have to do with AGS and adventure games?

[Babar]

I would argue that the adventuregameness of adventure games have nothing to do with puzzles at all. In fact, puzzles were probably the most frustrating part of adventure games of yore.

[Wonkyth]

They can be, certainly.
But no, I see no reason to think that the adventure game genre, and with it AGS, are dying.
Basically, people will never abandon adventure games for two reasons: There is no other form of entertainment like them, and the kind of entertainment they provide is something people crave.

[kaputtnik]

That got me really curious. What does Gödel have to do with AGS and adventure games?

Uhm, not much. If you try real hard, you could probably build a nice dialogue puzzle from his liar theories. I just thought a well-rounded speech should always make three important points.

Responding to the rest of your post, I would argue that there is no such thing as an "adventure game puzzle" and a "non-adventure game puzzle". There are genre stereotypes, but I can't see anything preventing me from adding any puzzle seen in an adventure game to a role playing game, a straightforward puzzle game, a story-driven car-stealing, racing and shooting game, a jump&run game or a good old first person shooter. If I implement it convincingly, of course.

Talking to somebody to get a certain piece of information which you then present somebody else is a puzzle. This is the most basic form of puzzle adventure games have to offer, and those are real puzzles. They present an obstacle and have to be overcome to advance the story, and in my opinion they are structurally equal to "activate switch" or "use red herring on chunky salsa". I fully agree with Babar that "puzzly" puzzles and the way they are presented in lots of adventure games detract from the gaming experience. But nevertheless, they are still an intrinsic element of adventure games when it comes to a definition of the genre, aren't they?

If there were no challenge and no puzzles at all, wouldn't adventure games just be some sort of interactive story? I love exploring and looking at all sorts of things and talking to NPCs in adventure games, but if I wouldn't meet a challenge anywhere in the game, I think I'd stop playing it pretty soon. Or is "open door" already a puzzle? If so, then adventure games consist of series of puzzles only, because they rarely contain areas where controlling skill, reaction or strategy are necessary. I thus conclude that adventures are a sort of playable comic books with added audiovisual atmosphere. (And not only aesthetically, but also structurally, if "turn page" in itself can be regarded as a challenge or a puzzle. It might be to the not-so-skilled reader!)



To make my point:

Please don't ever resort to the "use newspaper with door" and "use coathanger on keyhole" puzzle, ever, ever again.

To make another point:

The adventuregameness of adventure games depends on their adventurous value, as defined by Bruce D. Temkin in his landmark essay "The adventure gamer's experience value chain".

To conclude:

I should probably get back to work and let others decide if AGS is slowly dying or not, I think I just lost all credibilty on that subject.

[Igor Hardy]

Responding to the rest of your post, I would argue that there is no such thing as an "adventure game puzzle" and a "non-adventure game puzzle". There are genre stereotypes, but I can't see anything preventing me from adding any puzzle seen in an adventure game to a role playing game, a straightforward puzzle game, a story-driven car-stealing, racing and shooting game, a jump&run game or a good old first person shooter. If I implement it convincingly, of course.

Oh, there is nothing to prevent mixing different genres and/or puzzle types, but that's besides the point as there still exist games with dominating gameplay elements that define what they are - including adventure games and puzzle games.

Of course most players will do just fine without trying to establish some more specific definition for the adventure game genre. However, personally I like having a more restrictive definition, and feel adventure games posses enough identity to e.g. make it possible they could die off one day.

[kaputtnik]

And if they do, good riddance! Because then they can come back from the dead - again, and we can finally start making some serious money with them, with all the excitement that will surely ensue.

No, but seriously, they can't die. They are cheap to produce, easily made cross-platform, have a potentially much broader audience than "core" games...It's just that the full potential of platforms like the Nintendo DS hasn't been used for classical adventure games, but rather more "inventive" twists on the genre.

Mark my words, you'll be playing adventure games on your favourite social media (TM) platform with your favourite portable gaming and communication device (TM) pretty soon.

P.S.: When  wrote "mark my words", I wanted the sentence to sound as if Charlton Heston had pronounced it. Please use your imagination.

[Mati256]

Mark my words, you'll be playing adventure games on your favourite social media (TM) platform with your favourite portable gaming and communication device (TM) pretty soon.

You can do it now:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=42343.0

[blueskirt]

I would argue that the adventuregameness of adventure games have nothing to do with puzzles at all. In fact, puzzles were probably the most frustrating part of adventure games of yore.

One could also argue that battles and platforming were the most frustrating part of Prince Of Persia Sands Of Time and that its narrative was what made that game truly memorable, does that mean combat, action and platforming should be entirely removed from the definition of what an action-adventure game is? Are action-adventure games just about exploration and narrative? Would it be feasible to create an action-adventure title that does not feature action or stealth or platforming or challenges or rules or decisions whatsoever? Would it be ok to label such thing an "action-adventure game" or even a "game"?

No, it would not. The narrative in action-adventure games or adventure games or any other games for that matter is a reward for overcoming the challenges present in the game, just like encountering a new type of enemy, or finding a new weapon, or a new ability, or an interesting character, or a joke, or entering a new world with different graphics. Yes it's often the part that we like the most, yes it's often the part that we remember the most, but genres are not defined by their rewards but by their challenges, rules, goals and decisions they asks us to take (which I'm now going to refer as gameplay).

If said gameplay is frustrating, it doesn't means it needs to be removed, it means it needs to be better designed, better implemented. Because the moment you changes the gameplay of a game, it switches genres, remove the running, gunning and theft out of GTA and it becomes a racing game, removes battle out of Prince Of Persia and it becomes a platformer, removes the platforming and it becomes an hack and slash. Remove all gameplay from a game and it stop being a game, it becomes an interactive movie where I must keep a finger on the "Play" button for the story to unfold.

And puzzles are part of the definition of adventure games. Changing them for mechanics and challenges that do not require reflection and creativity will result with a completely different genre, remove them entirely and you get interactive movies. If a puzzle is frustrating, it's the puzzle designer that is to blame not the puzzle itself. I believe creating interesting puzzles that are fun to solve and fit inside the narrative and the game world itself is a lost art, one very few could master, Tim Schafer being one of the rare person who could. And we certainly need this art to be found again, practiced, developed, because the more fun puzzles are going to be, the more compelling adventure games will be. And I take a MM, DOTT, MI1, Loom, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango or Time Gentlemen Please with puzzles over one without any day.

The escapist posted that article on the subject:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_284/8425-Give-Me-An-Axe-Ive-Had-Enough-Of-This-Puzzle

[ThreeOhFour]

No, but seriously, they can't die. They are cheap to produce, easily made cross-platform, have a potentially much broader audience than "core" games...It's just that the full potential of platforms like the Nintendo DS hasn't been used for classical adventure games, but rather more "inventive" twists on the genre.

Mark my words, you'll be playing adventure games on your favourite social media (TM) platform with your favourite portable gaming and communication device (TM) pretty soon.

I have laid awake some nights, conjuring wondrous images of making my own DS adventure games and rejoicing at the true wonder of the notion. Then becoming a bit sad because it's a difficult goal to realize.

[quote author = blueskirt]
The escapist posted that article on the subject:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_284/8425-Give-Me-An-Axe-Ive-Had-Enough-Of-This-Puzzle
[/quote]

Good read, that! (Except the Professor Layton games have made me love puzzle puzzles)

[Babar]

I think we've had this discussion before, blueskirt, and just as before, I think you've misunderstood one of my points. I'm not advocating the removal of gameplay from adventure games to make them into interactive movies or something.

Thing is, I don't consider puzzles to be an integral part of adventure games at all. There are several puzzle games that weren't really adventure games, and several adventure games that didn't use puzzles as their major gameplay mechanic. In this sense, I suppose my definition of "adventure game" is a bit broader than some.

That was a very interesting article, and I fully agree with the first part of it, but am somewhat ambivalent towards the 2nd part. Yeah, I MOST DEFINITELY, COMPLETELY ABHOR those sort of puzzles where (for example) you're faced with a set of levers, and a (very obvious, but still irritating) clue etched into a wall nearby like "1 is 3, but 5 is 2. I am 9, so what are you?".

[Next bit contains a few spoilers for those weird people who've never played the major adventure games]

Thing is, for me, most puzzles (or even "obstacles" as that article calls them) are completely idiotic and unfitting.
Take the Fate of Atlantis, for example. A great game. I enjoyed it a lot. It still was full of very puzzles, some of which were by necessity (of being puzzles) very idiotic, not in the least because they were so patently absurd. Like finding the name of the Lost Dialogue from the parrot to be able to pass the "dialogue obstacle" imposed by the Tikal guy, to be able get into the temple. Or that silly exchange between the grocer and Omar in Algiers.

The puzzles that I DID enjoy were usually "gimmicks". Stuff that was solvable even after you had solved them. Like the insult swordfighting in Monkey Island- you knew exactly what you had to do, but I still had immense fun everytime a new insult was thrown at me, or a response was thrown at me. Then a new kind of fun when I had to figure out the responses to the sword master.
Or the time travelling stuff in DotT. The basic concept was fairly simple, but the combinations of things you could think of involving "okay, send this to the past, past will 'plant' it somehow, and then the older version of it will be available in the future".
Problem is, there are only so many gimmicks before people start just copying the base idea and flipping around the names.

Another kind that I liked (and I don't see a lot of these days) is ACTUAL detective work games. One example I've played of this is that FMV Sherlock Holmes game- it didn't have a set of waypoints for the plotline to follow, you had to use your brain, find connections, make notes, and then finally accuse the bad guy in court. Then again, I'd not be 100% whether to call that an adventure game.


Thus if a puzzle is so obvious that one does it automatically (using a key on a door to open it), it isn't really a puzzle.

And if a puzzle is so idiotic that it makes no sense, even if it may make sense (pouring wax on the butt-print of a guard who was sitting on a chair -which you had placed there after switching out the hard-backed chair that was there originally- so as to get an imprint of a key, which you then get made, and thus open the door), especially in a game where such absurdness is completely out of place...well then, that puzzle really shouldn't be there, at least according to me.

So yeah, I fully advocate mixing it up a bit- perhaps some action, perhaps some other gameplay element, and tossing out the puzzles. Because honestly, very, very, very few games I've played had good ones.

[Igor Hardy]

It still was full of very puzzles, some of which were by necessity (of being puzzles) very idiotic, not in the least because they were so patently absurd.

What do you mean exactly? Why do you consider puzzles to be idiotic by nature? Is this some kind of puzzle?

[ThreeOhFour]

I personally think are a lot of undiscovered "gimmicks" left out there, as long as one is willing to look for them. But I don't really consider this sort of thing to be a gimmick, just creative puzzle design. Insult Sword Fighting was basically a creative twist on a standard dialogue puzzle, and the wondrous time stuff in DotT was a very clever twist on item combining (combine inventory x with time = inventory y). Provided we, as designers, are willing to search for new creative twists like these, I don't doubt that new, more creative forms of puzzle design will occur. I still design around inventory items, but every now and then I try not to and see where it leads me.

Meta-game puzzles are quite interesting to me - take for example the cursor puzzle at the beginning of Frantic Franko.

[Iliya]

To play and finish an adventure game with easy (or without) puzzles is like to tell your friends that you are sleeping with your wife

[Ali]

Are you telling me your wife doesn't make you complete three quests before sex? Am I wasting my time looking for the crystals of power?

[Iliya]

Are you telling me your wife doesn't make you complete three quests before sex? Am I wasting my time looking for the crystals of power?

Ali, I really don't understand what you are trying to tell. Or maybe you like to answer to a post that have "sex" and "wife" in it. What I mean is that is pointless to play an adventure game with easy (or without) puzzles.

Why people like to play easy adventure games? A book or a movie is a good alternative.

[Calin Leafshade]

I am killing AGS... just like I killed adventure games.

WITH A POINTY STICK!

...


*poke*

[Ali]

Are you telling me your wife doesn't make you complete three quests before sex? Am I wasting my time looking for the crystals of power?

Ali, I really don't understand what you are trying to tell. Or maybe you like to answer to a post that have "sex" and "wife" in it. What I mean is that is pointless to play an adventure game with easy (or without) puzzles.

Why people like to play easy adventure games? A book or a movie is a good alternative.

It seems that I intentionally misunderstood your point. I just found it gratuitous for you to chose marital intercourse as an example of something so unchallenging as to be pointless.

And Calin, where were you when Camilla Parker Bowles was POKED WITH A STICK? Hmm?