Whoa... Do I even LIKE adventures?

[MrColossal]

mr gothic, did you read this?

http://www.adventuregamers.com/display.php?id=178

it's weird that i've felt like this for a while. when i put grim fandango back in to show jess i was like "how the hell would i know to do this?" as far as i could find there was nothing in the game to tell me to tamper with the message tubes in the way i had to. A good example from the game was changing the auto answer message in your bosses room, it's like you're exploring and stumble across this but then again there's no other reason to try and get into his office than "cause you can". I wanted to explore the story of the game and show her how beautiful it was and not run around punching holes in playing cards cause i can. [jess fell asleep by the way]

i've been making fun of warren spector for years over a comment he made about adventure games but now i realize that the examples i thought of to counter his comment were good and the examples that he was probably referencing were bad and from games that we've all played. Bad as in a puzzle is in place to stop the player from learning more about the story, cause as was said, an adventure game would just be a movie you clicked through without puzzles. So add a locked door and the person can't find out what's behind it and see who the big evil boss is yet.

my big fear over making adventure games is if the puzzles will make sense. after playing curse of monkey island again [not much of it cause i just couldn't care anymore] i realized that a lot of what goes on in that game is guybrush enters a room, there are people standing around, he talks to them and finds out what he needs to do to get further in the game, and then explores the area for these items. The Barbery Coast room is a room with 4 characters just standing there animating back and forth and you can talk to them to learn about them, this bothers me. The majority of AGS games are filled with rooms with characters standing in them staring at the player just waiting to be clicked on. When I present a problem to my player I need to make sure that it's an important one and not just a time filler and that it's logical to the game world.

For an example let's take my game, the player needs a battery so he goes to the store and tries to buy one. Obviously the store doesn't have any but mostly because it's a RON game and it's the Yahtzee Brand store, but at least the option was open to the player, unlike [sorry dave] in bestowers of eternity how i can't go to the store and buy some lemons and a flower.

act 2 in my game is pretty much an interactive cutscene with very few puzzles. this worried me for a while but now it doesn't so much.

as someone somewhere mentioned, the majority of the puzzles in police quest 1 weren't puzzles at all, they were just "follow proper police procedure, apprehend the criminal" until the end really and to me they were fun! i loved it. starting the ship in Pilot Light is awesome! I love that crap! It's not so much a brain breaker of a puzzle as it is just a nice little puzzle that pulls me into the game and makes me smile.

Granted you can't fill a game with these types of puzzles but when you're designing a game and you think a puzzle is too easy, who cares leave it. If you have to get into a building and there's someone guarding the door and a window right above you, just let the character open the window and climb in or have them pry it open with a stick or something. Don't invent an elaborate puzzle where they have to construct a glass cutting device out of a diamond ring that falls into a sewer and then tape it to a screwdriver and then find better tape cause the first tape breaks and then find a suction cup to remove the cut glass and then..... etc etc.

the player will thank you and if the game is shorter than the game is shorter and it's better for it.

i'm gonna stop now cause posts like mine are usually ignored

eric

[remixor]

Eric:  Very well said.  Those are all things developers really need to keep in mind.  I just finished Runaway and dear God do I wish the makers had read something similar to your post.


I do have an interesting story about Grim Fandango (I'm not attempting to counter your points or anything, just presenting what may be an anomoly).  In an interest to get a good friend of mine into adventures, I lent him my copy of the game while visiting him a few weekends ago.  He has never touched an adventure game before, yet he was practically blazing through it in front of my eyes.  No walkthroughs, no hints from me.  It's not as if he did everything right on the first try, but he was rarely stuck for very long.  I have to admit, I'm quite impressed, and for his part he thinks the game is incredible.

[MrColossal]

remixor: what are you saying i'm stupid and can't play games?!?!!1..245 RC

hehe, but that is also something i think about, people play 6 day assassing [ahem garage gothic, hehe] and get stuck in it, my friend Al played it and beat it in less than 10 minutes and she's never played an adventure.

they don't come to the game with preconceived notions about adventure games and are able to look at it with an open mind.

which is probably why were liked these games and were better at them as kids.

[GarageGothic]

I'm so happy that I'm not alone with these feelings. I wasn't sure what to expect when posting it.

mr gothic, did you read this?http://www.adventuregamers.com/display.php?id=178

Interesting reading, but I don't think that's the case here. I've never been the kind of person who considered King's Quest 1 a good game out of pure nostalgia. In fact, most of my adventure favorites, no matter their age, hold up pretty well today.
Rather I feel that the newer games suffer because they try to be innovative and just end up being contrived. In contrast to other genres, adventure concepts - at least on the micro-level of puzzles - can't be repeated, and there are only so many things you can do within the realm of logic. That was, in my opinion, what lead to the so-called death of adventure games.

starting the ship in Pilot Light is awesome! I love that crap! It's not so much a brain breaker of a puzzle as it is just a nice little puzzle that pulls me into the game and makes me smile.

Yes, exactly. Stuff like that is what I'm talking about. It's not a puzzle, but it's putting the obvious action into the hands of the player, making the game world feel more interactive and alive.

that's just a film where you have to watch boring bits. Like a roadtrip film where you have to watch the hours of travelling between whacky antics.

I agree completely. It's like that old saying (not sure who came up with it) that "film is life with the boring bits cut out". Often I feel like games are film with the boring parts put back in.

Having to sit through mythology lessons in TLJ isn't like a film, it's like a shadow play

Hey, don't knock shadow plays!

So when you play my game (the GENERIC one...) expect to die

Uh, I have heard that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but maybe you should re-think your advertising campaign

[remixor]

remixor: what are you saying i'm stupid and can't play games?!?!!1..245 RC

yuo ares teh sdumb!

hehe, but that is also something i think about, people play 6 day assassing [ahem garage gothic, hehe] and get stuck in it, my friend Al played it and beat it in less than 10 minutes and she's never played an adventure.

they don't come to the game with preconceived notions about adventure games and are able to look at it with an open mind.

which is probably why were liked these games and were better at them as kids.

Yeah, exactly.  I felt retarded watching him play because I remembered having a lot more trouble with it.  When I was younger, though, I played through Fate of Atlantis, DOTT, Monkey Island, Sam and Max, King's Quest, etc. and without the internet I didn't have walkthroughs.  Now, I honestly have more difficulty with these games and don't have the same pure sense of enjoyment.

[cornjob]

I was thinking the same thing that many have said. The traditional adventure game's puzzles are a seriously outmoded form of gameplay. Is "outmoded" a real word? Anyway, I mean obsolete. Maybe it's just my tastes. Certainly there are still people who enjoy a conventional adventure game. Sadly, I can't get through most adventure games anymore, though I loved them as a kid.

But what I DO enjoy about the adventure genre is that it lets me explore interesting environments, ideas and characters in great depth. Much greater depth than is available in most other types of games. It might be interesting to apply those characteristics to a game with a different kind of gameplay.

[tamper]

On a related theme to kids of today, games of yesterday, nostalgia, etc., some of you might get a kick out of this article.

http://www.egmmag.com/article2/0,4364,1338730,00.asp

While not adventure-related, it's the reactions of some modern-day youngsters to games like Pong, Mario Bros, etc.

t

[Igor]

Hm, i think the problem here is more, that if you play only one type of games, you'll eventually get sick of the genre- no matter how much you like it.

[remixor]

http://www.egmmag.com/article2/0,4364,1338730,00.asp

While not adventure-related, it's the reactions of some modern-day youngsters to games like Pong, Mario Bros, etc.

Fuckin little asswipe candy-asses.

[tamper]

Fuckin little asswipe candy-asses.

Well quite! Do you do children's parties?

[BruisedWeasel]

I remember the first adventure game I ever played was Shadowgate on the NES. I loved it, found it easy to beat. I didn't know what type of game it was at the time, and just regarded it as a 'choose your own adventure', like those cool books I read. I begged for Deja Vu, and loved that game too. I still play them, and compare all games in the adventure genre to them.

Yet I dislike most adventure games. I find them boring as hell. Sure, I enjoy the games produced by the community. There's something about a bunch of nerds taking the time to do what normally requires a large team of experts to produce. I just find so many of the puzzles ridiculous, and often they don't advance the story, but lead to another ridiculous puzzle. I hated Monkey Island as a game. It was good for a laugh, for 5 minutes, but I just don't know why this community holds it as the golden standard of adventure gaming. I played and enjoyed QFG4, but as an RPG. I didn't even know it was an adventure game until I came here.

Loom, on the other hand, had that 'choose your own adventure' feel that I enjoyed as a child, as did Croshaw's 5 Days a Stranger. I like the linear gameplay, it fits the format. I /hate/ having to click every goddamned thing on the screen, taking everything that isn't nailed down. I'd much rather look at the scene, think of the story as it's been told up to that point, and make a logical deduction as to the best course of action. It makes me feel like I'm standing in for the main character, taking part in a story. I'm the protagonist. If I'm not able to put myself in the scene completely, I feel the game has failed completely. What's the point, after all, of an interactive story when paying attention to the narration has little to do with what you're doing? And that is all an adventure game is, really.

I guess I'm not a fan of adventure games. I'm a fan of good storytellers, yarn-spinners.

Moofle.

[Nellie]

Well, this thread has been a bit of a shock for me.  Personally, I love puzzles.  I can never see them as an obstacle to the story, because I don't play adventures just for the story, I play them to enjoy a story and to have my intelligence and imagination challenged.

I agree with this whole 'movies with puzzles' argument, though.  I think it's a shame that developers haven't worked more to make games give different experiences to different players based on their decisions.  However, a lack of this doesn't spoil a game for me.

All I ask for in a game is that the player's input is crucial to the experience - whether that be through having to apply their intelligence to overcome the obstacles in the protagonists way, or influencing the story through their decisions, or both.

[MillsJROSS]

I, too, love the puzzles. The feeling of frustration as you go to every screen you can think of, click everything, and talk to everyone looking for some sort of clue. And then all of the sudden you're in class, at work, or just away from your computer, and it hits you. So then you can't wait to get home to finish the damn puzzle that's been keeping you stuck for so long.

I don't think it's so much that we don't love adventure games anymore. I think it's lack of time. When we were a kid we had all the time we needed. But when you grow up and  you have to go to work, why should we sit around the computer for hours on end just to advance the story a smidgeon?

I haven't beat the last adventure games I've bought, mainly because I play them, advance to about midgame (or at least I can only assume that about where I am), and then realise I don't have time, so I put them away and wait till I do have time. So far, I haven't been able to get time. Last year I seemed to have plenty of it. Now, though, I'm in the uni from 8 in the morning to 6 or 7:35 at night (depending on which day). I do get breaks between that time, but not enough for me to feel like I need to accomplish anything. Then I have work, and am in the Marching band, so a free weekend, let alone a free day, is a rarety.

I don't like adventure game, I LOVE them. I loved The Longest Journey, even though it was often times long winded, I felt it was a step in the right direction of bringing an adventure game some more depth. I loved Grim Fandango, even though I got stuck for a solid year. I loved Space Quest, even after going through a good part of the game and realising you forgot an inventory object from room1. But with a limited time in my schedule for them, it just seems less appealing for me to spend my time on puzzles that are there to make the game just that much longer.

I don't think it has anything to do with the genre being dead. I think it's still alive and kicking. I still do love this genre. I think it's one that requires some measure of intelligence, and in some ways is above other games in that sense. And it's a unique way of telling a story. I get satisfaction from playing these game, I just have to wait until I have time.

-MillsJROSS

[bspeers-loopo]

Me too.



Blah.  I tend to get very tired very quickly of bad writers trying to be good writers (few adventure game makers have sufficient training or experience) and I tend to get annoyed by absolutely pointless puzzles, but I think the puzzles are just about my favourite part of adventure games.  I liked throwing the fish at the bear in KQ5, I liked feeding the fish in RL & BAT, I like the puzzles in my stalled games.  I like puzzles that are exceptionally ridiculous, and those that are ridiculously exceptional.  I'm not a fan of realism in games because I haven't found a single game (or novel, for that matter) that's sufficiently realistic.  Good writing isn't realistic.  People talk and act in ways that just sound clunky or too clever or too repetitive for good media.

I like the Final Fantasy series because of the story, but also because I like finding treasures and fighting monsters.  I wouldn't want to just watch Terra and Locke pontificate over the nature of love.  The writing isn't *that* good.  I like the Quest for Glory series because of the underlying plot, but I couldn't bare to watch the whole dreadful thing as a movie.  It's much more fun to find things, do things and solve problems myself.  Just making it an interactive movie would be a disappointment.

I encorage anyone who wants to break from the traditional adventure game to do it, but I just wanted to speak up for puzzles.  I like to use my brain, and not just as a strategic implement.  Even if I don't solve a puzzle on my own, I like the exercise.  In fact, the only kind of puzzles I hate are the kind that don't apply my critical thinking skills (pixel hunts, mazes, riddles that require obscure knowledge, puzzles that require detailed game-world knowledge).  

Ultimately I see a movie as fiction.  I liked Adaptation becasuse it didn't pretend to be realistic, just 'real'.  I didn't like (INSERT NAME OF HISTORICAL FICTION HERE) because it was just bad fiction mascurading as reality.  I see a book as fiction (well a fiction book anyway).  I liked Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children because it tried to make a point and create a magical realist world.  I like Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" but end up ploughing tiredly through the elements of faux realism.  I see a video game as fiction.  I like Japanese RPGs because they don't pretend to create an "authentic" world.  The game is very much set inside a video game universe, with video-game logic.  I don't like most American RPGs because they create this faux depth of choice that doesn't really exist or reflect reality anyway.  I have real depth in my own life.  I play games because they're like games, not like life.  Fiction is a tool, not a hand-mirror.  My personal code for making a game is: "Be honest with yourself.  You're making a video game.  It is not, nor should it pretend to be, real.  Make it fun, flighty, ridiculous, inventive and trying."

This is NOT in disagreement with anything above, however.  There are limits to the adventure game medium (well, assuming you don't pack your game with asides and mini-games).  A lot of puzzles are random and poorly made.  90% of games could be more artful and actually try to create a meaningful effect (like good fiction or movies, either comic OR serious).  I'm just trying to stand up for making a "game" and less generally, for puzzles, since I think there's a place for both.

[InCreator]

Oh god, why hasn't nobody found out that the magic of Adventure games is excactly in the game part?
Just how many of you have been reading a book so good that you start to identify yourself with the main character and have sudden urge to enter the world/situation you're reading about? Adventure games excaclty do that. Our problem is just that stories in these games aren't usually that good so we miss the main point. Even superb ones, like Gabriel Knight for example. Sometimes I download games just after reading a similar book, like when I finished "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" or some other. In matter fact, adventure games even aren't best way to do that. Just when I finished "Treasure Island", a game of Pirates! 2 gave much more wanted experience than Monkey Island series or any other pirate adventure game (and there's dozens of them) could. Why? The freedom! Because I could make my decisions absolutely by my own and I didn't have to stick to a storyline! Doesn't same go for MANY other games? Just try to imagine GTA as adventure game!

I just don't think that we could do adventure games about everything - there's some invisible story limitations and crossing them would make adventure game "suck".

Maybe you should write a good book first, and when you're sure that this IS a good book - convert it into a game.

[bspeers-meltdown]

While I think the point has been made (to excess?) I just wanted to add that a friend of mine showed me "Hitman 2" which I played around in a bit.  I must say I have little interest in the shooting, but was very intigued by the adventure game aspects (for example, a level where you have to put a pager in a room, phone the pager from a distance and then, in classic adventure game style, place the dog in the laun--I mean, strangle the minister guy to death).

So again, some don't like puzzles, some like them.  


What an amazing discovery.

[MrColossal]

hehe bspeers

also, when watching the movies for S.t.a.l.k.e.r. and Half Life 2 i have no of an urge to walk around the environment exploring and discovering and not shooting headcrabs

maybe that's something i should add to my notes, the sense of exploration should be added to games. Even if it means more rooms and backgrounds

[Meowster]

I love Adventure Games. I think the main problem with them is puzzle design. The story is all important for adventure games, and nobody wants to be stuck trying to figure out to use the scissors on the portrait and the portrait on the window, at the expense of the story pace. If you're reading a book, you hardly put it down at the most exciting piece.

However, that said, I think the comparisons between games, movies and books are unfair.

It has always seemed to me that reading a book is a lot more personal than watching a movie. You imagine everything the way you want to imagine it and so you feel like you are there with those characters. In movies, you can feel emotions for those characters but it's harder to get as involved in a movie as you can with a book. In adventure games I feel as though I am helping the characters along. For me, it's sort of in the middle, somewhere between movies and books.

I love adventure games.

[WanderLady]

To answer the question:  ...sometimes.

I must assume that most of us started playing Adventures at a young age, say around age 10. At this age we are filled with wonder and amazement, not technicalities and depth. What was deep, was me moving King Graham through Daventry on a quest. I felt like I was doing it, not story, code or Roberta Williams.... This was the exploration. I was in this man's world. He needed me. I loved him for that.

Truly, what are you looking for in an Adventure game? Not talking about good puzzles, story, whatever... I mean,(as a player) do you want it to change your life, or your views, or give you knowledge that you had not before? Or, (as a maker) change the world, change another's views, influence someone? Is it even possible in this medium?

I've tried replaying games with the knowledge that some posters here share...with greater depth and recognition of what's going on. This made it very boring for me. I enjoy the depths of things; I enjoy seeking it out, but seeking it in the games made them lackluster.

Quest for the Crown(as the *first adventure*) is a game we could say is missing many things, but I'll say it isn't missing anything. BUT, not because it isn't missing anything, but because what it is missing, is replaced by our imagination. Imagining what it's like to be in Daventry, seeking the three treasures; the fear of a sudden appearance of a thieving gnome...BOOM!!! Imagination piqued.

So, is it necessarily the games fault??

[DGMacphee]

Ultimately I see a movie as fiction.  I liked Adaptation becasuse it didn't pretend to be realistic, just 'real'.  I didn't like (INSERT NAME OF HISTORICAL FICTION HERE) because it was just bad fiction mascurading as reality.

Aye, I saw Kill Bill last night and thought it rocked, mainly because it did away with any sense of logic or realism, but was 'real' enough in a fictional world.

And on the other hand, that US Civil War epic Gods and Generals was released in the last week as well -- It got panned in the US and it got panned here too.

I think you can do all kinds of crazy, unrealistic puzzles in adventure games, but my suspension of disbelief allows me to think 'that could happen', depsite the fact that the puzzles in, say, Day of the Tentacle could never happen in reality.

Use spaghetti for hair?? -- LucasArts are totally pulling my pud!!!

But it's believable enough.