Ron Gilbert has something to say about adventure games

[David Ostman]

http://www.gamesradar.com/thimbleweed-park-brings-back-classic-point-n-click-adventure/

Article about Thimbleweed Park. This part jumped out to me in particular:

“Classic adventure games were really about the puzzles,” says writer and designer Ron Gilbert. “We want to get back to that. Puzzles drive everything and it seems that modern adventure games tend to get too lost in story, and puzzles are just something tacked onto that. Also verbs. I loved the verb interface and I do think something was lost when adventure games got rid of them.”

I do, on occasion, enjoy me some clever puzzles in adventure games, but story is definitely what does it for me. Story, interesting characters with solid development, and great dialogue.

Also, he wants verbs. Ron Gilbert is certainly not kidding when he says he wants to make a classic point and click adventure game, which (oddly enough) might be something fresh in today's climate of simplified UI

[Retro Wolf]

I'm sure I read on his blog once that verbs is a bad interface.

[ManicMatt]

Am I the only one who thinks Thumbleweed park didn't need a kickstarter to be created? Verbs? My issue with those was having games go "NO! YOU CAN'T "USE" THE DRAW, YOU MUST OPEN IT FIRST!"

[TheBitPriest]

This just popped up on my Google feed, and I logged in to see if anyone else had a thought.  You zeroed in on the part that caught my attention!  So... More verbs?  Less story?  From the master himself?  It will be worth waiting to see what he produces.  If anyone has the clout to make the claim and take the risk, it's The Ron Gilbert himself!

[Ghost]

That's an old discussion. Do more verbs allow for more interaction/puzzles/immersion, or is it better to streamline gameplay? Personally I keep an open mind. Interactive Fiction, I think, was the true master of "really very many verbs that actually do something". Graphic adventures often did a good job of being enjoyable with a smaller set of commands. Having (non-puzzle/plot critical) objects and characters in a game that I can interact with is more important to me than just having a lot of commands, none of which are useful or entertaining.
I am surprised by his "less story" line though, but that's highly subjective I guess. I never played an adventure game only for the puzzles' sake.

[Mandle]

After reading the whole article I think maybe his quote of "less story" is a bit out of context. I think he is talking more about "choose your own adventure" style stuff like "The Walking Dead" where the story dominates the gameplay, rather than saying their game will have less story. By the sounds of the many characters and the "Twin Peaks/X-Files" comments it seems to me that they cannot get away with "less story" if it's to be a proper homage to these works, and I'm pretty sure they know that.

[blueskirt]

That was an interesting article, thanks for sharing!

Regarding the bit on story and puzzles, I don't think it's meant to be interpreted as "less story, more puzzles" but rather that puzzles will be given just as much importance as the story, that puzzles and story will be designed conjointly, that they won't be an after shot and they'll enhance the plot and atmosphere rather than detract from it. Those guys, from back in the days, those guys told stories in video games back in an era where all that mattered in video games were gameplay, back when it was all about jumping on monsters, shooting down UFO, flying planes or driving cars, back when people thought it was impossible to tell stories in games (I recall reading on Ron's site that he had an argument about that with Steve Jobs back in the days). I don't think that's going to change. And if you take a look at Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or Grim Fandango, those games were games where, IMO, the whimsy aspect of puzzle solving improved the plot, atmosphere and comedic aspect of the game.

Regarding the bit on interface, the verb interface may be unstreamlined, but that was Ron's baby, that was his way of having his cake and eating it too when it came to having some of the depth of the text parser interface of ye olde days without the frustrations that came with it. Ron and Tim's games... one could argue about the un-streamline-ness of that requiring the player to choose inconsequential dialogue options in dialogue tree that led to the same outcome no matter which choice you did, but those guys did it anyway, simply because it would allow them to tell four different jokes with the same setup. It's with this in mind that one should regard the verb interface in games by Ron, I recall the first two Monkey Island games had moments in them where the interface was used for humor, where Guybrush went off screen and the sentence bar would input weird commands on your behalf or where verbs would change to suit whatever location/situation you were in. I don't know if he'll do it, but if one really wanted to, one could push the verb interface to its limit (by giving different playable characters different verbs, or constantly messing around with the available verbs, because a change in the player character environment requires it, or because you're shooting for a contextualized interface, or because you're trying to convey a loss of control for the player, or just because you've found funny interactions with the environment that you just cannot miss...) and create a game where the verb interface itself is so important to the gameplay that any attempt to streamline it or simplify it would be detrimental to the experience and atmosphere.

-blueskirt "no, I'm not dead"