Adventure Game Studio

Point and click adventure games were once a popular genre. Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, Simon the Sorcerer. How much fun were these 'insane puzzle quests', as Rincewind put it in Discworld? But the genre died. Who killed it? Some people point the finger at Myst but I will point out the real killer. So sit back as I don my deerstalker hat. The game is afoot!

Genre

Firstly, let's discuss the concept of game genres. Something interesting happened when I played Age of Empires 3 the other day:

I accumulated a mass of resources, but before I built a proper army, the enemy made a sneak attack. My small force was slaughtered, my town completely destroyed, and my Explorer tied up like a neat present. It should have been game over - except for on the far corner of the map there was a single unit which had escaped everyone's attention. Could I get this single lone rider to cross the whole map, dodging god knows how many enemy units lurking within the fog of war, to effect a rescue? But more to the point, Age of Empire 3 had suddenly changed from a strategy game to an action game!

Typically we group games that are similar and give this 'genre' a name. But sometimes games change genre. Or games seem to fit in multiple genres. Is Castlevania a platformer or an RPG? Is Thief an action or a strategy game? Should we call Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis a "adventure-fight-game + flight simulator"? It is easier to describe the continuum which games form before discussing the adventure genre. Think of this game continuum like a floor, and Adventure games lie within a chalk outline on it.

From where I'm sitting, I'm acting on this keyboard, which forms letters, words, sentences. And you're reacting to these sentences. Something is either acting, or reacting. Action is change that originates from someone's will. For example, creating a bullet by pressing fire because the player chose to shoot. Reaction is change brought about because of change, in addition to will. For example, dodging a bullet because you want to survive. What is action and reaction can sometimes be difficult to determine, like what came first, the chicken or the egg. Nonetheless, that's the North South direction of the game floor described. North is action, south is reaction. The East West direction is the environment versus the avatar (what the player controls, such as a hero character, or a city). Let's divide this floor into four sections to get a feel for how it works.

In the NW section is PLAYER action on the ENVIRONMENT. So action games, such as shooters, fit well here.

In the NE section is PLAYER action on the AVATAR. This is where strategy games fit.

In the SW section is the ENVIRONMENT reacting, or DESIGNER action on the ENVIRONMENT through the PLAYER. So a simulation like 'the game of life' would fit here.

In the SE section is the AVATAR reacting, or DESIGNER action on the AVATAR through the ENVIRONMENT. Here's where games like RPG's would fit, since you level up your character to prepare for the boss battles.

So the north half would be games where the PLAYER's will dominates. In the south half would be games where the DESIGNER's will dominates. The possibility space is the set of all possible playthroughs of the game. In the north half, the possibility space for success is not pruned. In the SW, it tends to be designed by the DESIGNER. Sometimes there is complete control. In the SW, the possibility space for the AVATAR is designed.

While there are some games which seem to fit nearer to the corners than others, most have elements of each of the four genres. A game like Princess Maker, where you choose what classes to take, is like a strategy game. Unless you want to make a princess who is a warrior and explore the map sections. In that case you are reacting to the difficulty of those maps when choosing classes, and so it is more like a RPG. I think this is a good way to classify games. For example, something that would fit in the SE section would be baking a cake. Taking away the combat and story, aren't RPGs a lot like baking cakes? Something that would fit in the SW section would be building Lego according to the instructions. Aren't point and click adventure games a bit like this if you use a Walkthrough?

Puzzle games

If point and click adventure games are 'insane puzzle quests' then let's look at puzzle games. A simple puzzle game (though not a computer puzzle game!) is "Where's Waldo". A child will look at the page for some time and then cry "Found him!". Where does this fit on our game genre floor? There is no avatar, so it is on the western side. But the physical page never changes! In fact environment doesn't refer to the physical parts of the game. It refers to the environment we create inside our head! As the child looks at the page the mental map he builds changes from blank to detailed, like how chemical photographs are developed. It keeps changing, a outline becomes a man, becomes a man laughing, becomes a man laughing because he saw someone get hit with a pie, becomes a man laughing who is soon to be ironically hit by a pie. This map changes until the child has spotted Waldo - in which case the map changes from being unsolved to solved. It is the DESIGNER who has acted on the environment as he created both the solved and unsolved map when he drew a picture with Waldo hidden. If child had cheated, and just drawn Waldo in, the player would have acted on the environment (but that's not a puzzle game!). Puzzle games fit into the SW section of the game floor.

It's worth noting that when a DESIGNER designs a game there is the expression of two wills: the will for the PLAYER to fail, and the will for the PLAYER to succeed. The interesting jokes in where's Waldo, as well the way the lines are directed to lead the eye, are obstacles which the PLAYER must overcome. Unless of course the author didn't put Waldo in! Then it wouldn't be a puzzle game, just something a very mean person created. Sometimes a game designer can put in clues, which are expressions of his will for the PLAYER to succeed. Other expressions of this will can be rewarding cutscenes, for example.

You might wonder, what about puzzles where there is an avatar?  Consider the following types of maze games:

1. You complete it by drawing a path through the maze in pen
2. You control an avatar which moves through the maze and the computer screen scrolls with the AVATAR
3. You control an avatar which moves through the maze but the screen does not scroll

In the first situation, the PLAYER appears to be acting on the ENVIRONMENT, but it is actually the DESIGNER action on the ENVIRONMENT through the PLAYER, and so it is a puzzle game. For example, consider a Rubix cube. If someone had a solved rubix cube, and then made 2 turns, and gave it to you, that is a puzzle game (SW). It is up to you to find the solution, which is to make the 2 turns in reverse. Yet your action on the cube is merely to discover what the designer intended for you to do. Contrast this with someone turning the rubix cube randomly until it is a jumbled mess and handing it to you. Even though there is an end success state, there are multiple paths, none of which the person who handed it to you has specified. It is now an action game (NW).  

In the second situation there is now an AVATAR. When a man rises in a balloon, there are two frames of reference, the first the balloon rises, the second the earth appears to lower. So it might appear that the maze has moved relative to the avatar (ENVIRONMENT changed) or that the avatar has moved through the maze (AVATAR changed). This presents a conundrum. On the one hand the AVATAR seems to have changed the genre, yet they all seem to be puzzle games.

Consider the following:  if you walked the avatar through the maze with the screen turned off, randomly pressing keys until a sound let you know you had finished, did you complete the puzzle? The answer is obviously no. Here's a second question: if you accidently solve the puzzle, have you really solved it? It's actually when you realize why what you did to solve the puzzle that you can say that. Another question: why can you say "I've just solved the puzzle" when you aren't playing it (doing something else like riding a bike) but you can't do the same for Mario brothers? In puzzle games, the map you create in your head should be complete so that you can predict the outcome of your interaction. In other words, it becomes like a self contained game inside your head. When you come up with a solution you have acted on the ENVIRONMENT in your head. You only go to play the game in order to get confirmation that the map you created in your head matches the map intended by the DESIGNER.

So situation two and three are still puzzle games because of the creation of the ENVIRONMENT in the players head required to solve them. That said, situation two and three are not identical. Three places an emphasis on the ENVIRONMENT, whereas two places an emphasis on the AVATAR. Playing Prince of Persia (static screens) for example feels different to playing Shadow of the Beast (scrolling screens). As the screen scrolls the ENVIRONMENT changes, and this pushes the game further north.

Also note this is another explanation why the mixed up Rubix cube can be like an action game rather than a puzzle game. Unless of course you know the algorithms, then the changes of the cube become predictable. While there is a DESIGNER for your ENVIRONMENT in your head, ie. you, there is no DESIGNER for the overall game. Also note the 'creative thinking' of designing the map and solution in your head is not restricted to puzzle games. It is also found in strategy games, for example. The important difference should be that puzzle games are self contained, whereas strategy games or RPGs require constant feedback from the game itself.

So we've seen that point and click adventure games are puzzle games even though you control an avatar. So point and click adventure games, which are puzzle games, fit in SW section of the game floor.

Fun

So why did these type of puzzle games cease being produced? Did these puzzle games cease being fun? The feeling of fun comes from an increasing feeling of domination. There's a will to fail, as expressed by an enemy ship, and you destroy the ship, you are overcoming that will. The will to fail that you overcome should increase.

This can come from increasing difficulty. If you solve a 100 piece puzzle you might find it fun. And then going on to a 500 piece puzzle you might still find it fun. But doing another 100 piece puzzle might not seem fun.  There's not a one to one relationship though. For example, towards the end of completing a jigsaw puzzle the difficulty in fact decreases, yet it is more fun. That's because the pieces you are now identifying were previously the most challenging, and so you have overcome a greater will to fail.

Fun can come from new challenges. For example, setting a time limit for you to solve the puzzle.

It can come from self mastery. For example, some people replay games to beat their own highscores. Or they keep solving 500 piece puzzles because they're basically masochists. They are overcoming their will to do something more interesting with their time.

From the point of view of purely mechanics the puzzles in adventure games boiled down to "give something to somebody" "use something with something" etc. While the puzzles might have increased in difficulty within the first point and click adventure game you played, the difficulty for the next game will start over. Also, as you play more of these games you get a better appreciate of the mechanics, learn the general form of puzzle solutions, which makes them easier to solve. So there isn't an increasing feeling of domination.  So the person who killed point and click adventure games was really you, by playing them.

One problem with this argument that the puzzles were generic and became repetitive is that while the mechanics of interaction was limited, the fictional world of the adventure games was not. In other words the puzzles were not based on rules defined by the game, but representations of the rules of a physical world, and completing puzzles gave the illusion of dominating these physical rules. If games became less fun then it would be because the representation puzzles became familiar (such as different games asking the same puzzle of building a compass), or, they stopped being representational puzzles. For example, games where the solution was nonsensical or unrealistic, such as using black fur from the cat with syrup to make a black mustache, In which case, the murderer would be bad designers, which we'll come back to.

Games such as Lure of the Temptress added NPC who would walk around and interact with other NPC in the hopes this would make the game more interesting and real. This was self defeating because firstly the linear structure of the possibility space was still imposed by the puzzles. Secondly, interaction was still limited to walking, talking, watching. All this stalking and eaves dropping didn't change the game fundamentally - it just made executing the solutions to puzzles or acquiring information time dependent. When adventure games didn't have limited possibility spaces they didn't have puzzles, such as Robin Hood, but instead actions (such as killing) which altered the environment. These adventure games were instead really action or strategy games. They had rules of interaction and NPC behavior which were understandable and exploitable. So for example, Beneath the Steel Sky could have used it's real time theatre where you needed to obtain a certain number of arrests in order to progress onto the linear story. In order to do that, you would commit crimes and plant evidence.

Others also tried to improve on the genre by moving away from it (ie. north). LucasArts for instance included action sequences such as a simple combat engine in FA. Sometimes games included ways for the player to die and this worked, such as in the combat engine of FA. And other times it didn't. This is because when you dodge say a bullet in action shooters the important characteristic is that the death should have been predictable. ie. the fun part is dominating the rules. In games such as Beneath a Steel Sky the ways to die were not predictable. While it might have added to the sense the fictional world was dangerous, it didn't make it more fun. The repeated saving (in order to avoid redoing puzzles) broke the illusion.

Developers were trying push the point and click adventure genre north. For example,  giving more freedom by creating multiple paths allowing the player to change the order the puzzles are solved, or choosing between wittier dialogue options etc. This is because freedom is more fun than conforming to the DESIGNER's will. But we'll see there's another reason for designers trying to escape the genre later.

Story

Is it possible that an adventure game with 'old' puzzles might still be enjoyable simply because of the story? What are stories?

Whatever the form of the story (book, movie, mime etc.) we are building a map inside our heads. The viewpoint is related to how information (which changes the map) is restricted. For example, a zoomed out shot versus a zoomed in shot could place emphasis on the environment and on a facial expression respectively. In this map there are characters and the environment. Both characters and the environment can change. Each character can have different wills. Each character will also have a map in their heads, though our ability to see those is limited. The person listening to the story will create parts of the map himself, using for example memories.

The purpose for stories is for learning. For example, someone telling you about when they saw a snake and what they did. The mind is divided into sections, like a company is divided into departments. While the CEO might have complete information, some departments are only fed tidbits of info. When you hear a story about the snake, while the CEO part of your mind knows its a story, the emotional part of your mind might just be fed the info that there is danger. The response of fear would be fed back to the map being built to make it more realistic. So that were you in a fearful situation, you might recall the story about the snake. Hence stories elicit emotional responses. Note that you can still feel separate emotions, such as frustration, about the way the story is being told.

Story can be interactive such as a child playing with her tea set. Or it can be the opposite, such as watching a film. Note that watching a film can still be fun. This is because you are pretending to be taking the actions the hero takes. When you are playing a game, the degree you are pretending is less.

Let's take an example of sinking the boat in the first monkey island game. The start of this subplot is the crew (who at first showed will to help) were sunbaking (will to pleasure). Guybrush's will to dominate and will to be productive did not dominate as he could not persuade the crew. There are a couple of ways this story can play out. If Guybrush doesn't sink the ship, the crew take him back to Melee Island (ie. their will to help triumphs). If he does sink the ship, one of the outcomes is this: he gets a ride back with a cowardly ghost (will to help) who he destroys (will to be malevolent, also shows greater will to dominate than LeChuck). The crew finish in gaol (will to punish dominates them). The latter storyline is more enjoyable. Part of this is because its fun dominating the rules relating to how the story plays out. But part of this is because the combat between wills is more pleasing. The reason why interactive stories are lame (whether they change in real time, or you are choosing between story lines) is because our mind has a set way for thinking about competing wills. The degree to which the combat of wills matches that preset formula determines how satisfying it is. Hence having multiple story lines should only be used as a reward. That is, unless you can get each different story line to conform to the formula.

It's obvious that adventure games can still be enjoyable because of their story because it can be enjoyable to replay them. But the pertinent question is really for a given story, is the puzzle genre best? I mean, how ridiculous is Indiana Jones sneaking on a nazi uboat and making a club sandwich? The story best suited for the puzzle game genre would be detective games such as Sherlock Holmes and the Rose Tattoo.

The other successful story was comedy, in which case a naive, weak and manipulative main character (necessarily created by needing to be helped solving puzzles) is excusable.

The nail in the coffin

Myst had a first person perspective. Sometimes films do this for short scenes, such as Black Dahlia or Doom. This is awkward for depicting social interactions because you are removing half of the information. The other problem is without there being an AVATAR, you are feeding yourself into the map, along with the knowledge that you are watching a film/playing a computer game. While the first person perspective restricted the story because it reduced social interactions, and made it a purer puzzle game, it was still an enjoyable game. I think the blame should lay with designers who made unsatisfying adventure games. I'm not talking about clones of Myst (which I haven't played). I'm talking about games such as Monkey Island 2 and Simon the Sorcerer 2.

Ron Gilbert created the worst ending in Monkey Island 2. Basically, he presented two equally compelling illusions. That's not a satisfying story ending. I think his alibi is that the game did not conform to his vision. There are complicated things in stories such as patterns of symbols which can help set up expectations in the viewers mind. For example, the dream sequence in MI 2 there is Alive parents -> skeletons -> Lechuck and then Lechuck sprays guybrush, indicating the dream is presenting information in reverse. Then in the game you encounter Lechuck -> skeletons -> Alive parents. Ron intended for there to be a scene where the cartographer drowned looking for his monocle. It's possible that this would have made the "it was all a fantasy" more compelling. ie. proceeding the creation of kids and a safer world with the death of a child in a cruel world (ie. will to cruelty precedes will to escape).

The team behind Simon the Sorcerer 2 have no alibi. The first game was fantastic. It was basically a degradation of the worlds of Narnia, LOTR and various fairy tales. Not only were characters such as the troll misbehaving by turning themselves into the victim, the main character, Simon, had no "personal growth" or character arc. He remained a bit of a shithead, sending up the fantasy genre. But the second game was a degradation of the previous game world. Simon remained a shithead, again. Not only were some of the puzzles terrible (WTF magic on shoes why didn't you magic solutions to all the shitty puzzles?) but the ending was a shitty version of the monkey island 2 ending. What were they thinking?

Adventure game designers are really making a game that they lose at. The will for the PLAYER to succeed is really the will for the DESIGNER to lose.  Unlike action games, where the DESIGNER can offset this feeling because some players are better than others at the game, in an adventure game, all players ought to be equally able to beat the DESIGNER. Not only this but the designer must react to how difficult players might find the problem, and put in hints and clues. The AGS community is a cemetery of abandoned projects and I don't think it is just the enormous amount of work necessary in producing an adventure game. The nails in the coffin are that you are slaving away in order for to someone to beat you. Even those who got paid to do it are like the resentful Butler of the gaming industry who grow to resent force feeding tidbits of story through inane lateral thinking puzzles. This is why designers stopped making adventure games, or just made shitty sequels. It's possible Ron Gilbert did intend a completely vague ending, just to fuck with peoples heads. Why didn't he make Guybrush pick up the bucket of mud and then say "I just realised I hold the whole universe in my hand PS I'm the Buddha" and just end it there? Even though he went on to make adventure games with humongous, I bet if Ron Gilbert had've known how to code a FPS, the ending on MI2 would have been: turn off your computer and go and buy LOOM 3D: Is my mother on mars?

The genre died, designers killed it. Now close your browser tab and do something productive, like **removed**

link removed.

An interesting read, or at least a provoking one. And  one I disagree with A LOT.

It started here.

Quote from: the game hackademic on Sun 27/11/2011 09:24:01But the genre died.

It's not dead! It may have lost significance but has always been there, and currently it's getting through it's umpteenths resurfacing.

As for the rest- I think your system of categorisation lacks. You take game elements and see them as one thing. A game is always more than just one feature, and it can be more than the sum of its parts.

You create scales and a system, but what's the use? Take games in general. I could possibly reduce all of earths games to a dozen or so "archetypes", yet we buy several games of a genre, and will even go to great lengths to prove ShooterA is superior to ShooterB, that there are differences. That's because gamers do see features and machanics but tend to treat a game as a whole. As long as that's the case an adventure game with "old puzzles" and an "old story" and an antique GUI design can still be fresh, and the AGS community is testament to that freshness happening.

Puzzles being overdone sounds valid, but there's a factor here too- familiarity. Homo sapiens loves familiarity, it creates a sense of feeling safe. And you can play with that- and designers have. As soon as some puzzle has been established (the old key-and-newspaper trick comes to mind) it will start to change and be done different.

We love stories. Humans tell stories over and over again and hardly ever get enough. It's in our blood.

And Thief, to answer your question, is neither action nor strategy. Thief is one of the first attempts to create a role-playing game without stats by means of architecture! (Really, read it up!)

Quote from: Ghost on Sun 27/11/2011 09:27:44
A game is always more than just one feature, and it can be more than the sum of its parts.

I think I tried to convey that such as saying how games could be pushed north by certain features.

QuoteYou create scales and a system, but what's the use? .

I agree. That's why I finished with the porn recommendation.

QuoteTake games in general. I could possibly reduce all of earths games to a dozen or so "archetypes",.

Do it. For instance, I didn't make up those four categories, they're from the site culture.vg. I don't think it was easy trying to reverse engineer an explanation for them. But it must have been harder to create them in the first place! Try to see if your archetypes are better.

QuoteThat's because gamers do see features and machanics but tend to treat a game as a whole.

I tried to say that the more you played adventure games, the more you could see the mechanics underneath the illusion.

QuoteAs long as that's the case an adventure game with "old puzzles" and an "old story" and an antique GUI design can still be fresh

How?

Something about Mark Twain... rumours exaggerated... tumty-tum...

There might well be the same number of people playing adventure games as there were in the 90s. It's just that the number of people playing other kinds of video game has increased enormously.

Quote from: Ali on Sun 27/11/2011 10:02:26
Something about Mark Twain... rumours exaggerated... tumty-tum...

Are you saying the adventure game genre isn't dead it's just gay?

Heh. Seriously, what is your point? In your opinion the genre's dead. At best this is a personal opinion, and everyone's allowed to have those. Classic shooters, platform games and Tetris are also dead, and damn do I mourn them. Only that a month later or so, they'll stop being dead.

Quote from: the game hackademic on Sun 27/11/2011 09:24:01
The AGS community is a cemetery of abandoned projects
...

The genre died ...  Now close your browser tab and do something productive, like watch porn.

Why do you disturb this cosy graveyard?

                        (http://g.picoodle.com/e95hyxj4.gif)

Trolling Discussions will give you much more fun in a living forum ... and btw.:

Don't
           (http://i.imgur.com/tNqi6.gif)

... „PLAYING“ it is much more productive, than watching  ;)

This is obviously a very elaborate spam message. And therefore I OWN THE RIGHT OF A PIG TO ASK FOR ITS REMOVAL. K. LOL.


To answer the question, adventure games are dead, stop telling us already.

Quote from: Dualnames on Sun 27/11/2011 11:22:25
To answer the question, adventure games are dead, stop telling us already.

But now you know who killed it.

Also, what's up with everyone making resentful comments?

They're not resentful, they just don't quite see your point, including when you call adventure games gay (was that supposed to be funny or something?  :-\).

To be honest your write-up is a chaotic mess. It wasn't any more informative than the thread's title.

Have a look at "The nail in the coffin" chapter for example - the last one, so as a reader I'd hope you'd sum up your points somehow.

You start off with informing the reader that there exist first person perspective adventure games and they are all myst-clones-  more like puzzle games with little character interaction (which just shows you didn't play the likes of Tex Murphy). But that point leads you nowhere. You follow it directly with an unrelated "I think the blame should lay with designers who made unsatisfying adventure games." And as a major example of such "unsatisfying adventure game" you start talking about Monkey Island 2 - one of the most beloved and highly evaluated adventure games from the time of the genre's heyday. But of course it turns out you don't really talk about the game itself, just go on and on for several last paragraphs about the MI2 story's ending. You explain why it's bad storytelling to end things that way. I can even agree with you on that, but does that ending cutscene really have such a great importance for the genre's death/weakness? If it does, you never attempt to explain how. And then your treatise ends.

The whole text reads like that more or less. Watching porn might indeed be more productive in pondering the fate of adventure games than reading it.

Quote from: the game hackademic on Sun 27/11/2011 11:36:53

Also, what's up with everyone making resentful comments?

You come onto an adventure game forum for the express purpose of insulting adventure games, and are surprised when you get some resentment?

We've heard this argument time and again, but there's one undeniable fact.  Whether the genre is dead or not, whether the mechanics don't "work" or not, there are lots of folks who still play and enjoy them.  Heck, for five years I've made a fulltime career out of making and selling these games (http://www.wadjeteyegames.com).  So the genre is still alive and kicking from where I stand.

Quote from: the game hackademic on Sun 27/11/2011 11:36:53
Also, what's up with everyone making resentful comments?

Well, your very first post in the forums is a huge wall of text- though not badly written and apparently with some thought poured into it. It's flawed argument in my opinion, but it's not a whole lot of broken grammar.
But you neither state your point, nor do you offer hints if you're serious or not, and you're not even adding the somewhat expected "let's discuss".

This makes it easy to read your post as: "I'm new, you don't know me, but you are making these dead games and should watch porn instead". It would be very easy to consider your post as nothing but (rather good) trolling, but personally I'd give the benefit of doubt.

So, do you want to discuss this? Is this something you wish to exchange opinions about? Or did you really just want to tell us we're wasting our time?

Also, welcome to the forums!

I mean the genre is so dead, that gemini rue, on ign got punished with a 9.0 rating. IN YOUR FACE ADVENTURE GAME GENRE.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/115/1159074p1.html

Ok, let's look at it this way - define "dead" and how would some other genres (shooters, strategy, RPG) become "dead"?
Because I think you'll find that all of the genre's are pretty much "dead", if this is something along the lines of evolving and changing, what has changed in shooters since 90s - QTE, regen health and for the most part less colors in graphics, but everything else is the same. What has changed in strategies - some have gone to a 3rd dimension and greater scale, but the mechanics are pretty much the same and Starcraft has the most mainstream polished/balanced gameplay, but since like Dune, nothing really has changed.

What I'm trying to say is that you say adventure games are dead, but don't really say what do you mean by that. Puzzles don't really get easier or more obvious (ok, maybe to a degree), but you'll always try to find a way through a maze or a find Waldo from the begining, and puzzles might be obvious but there's also the part where you don't care that much that you have to "get key from someone" if it's intriguing. It's like if you said Shooters are dead because you always have to kill someone to get somewhere or RPGs "get quest, into the dungeon, kill boss, get back for reward", rinse and repeat.

What about the story? As G said, new stories are always wanted.

If we're talking about making new games, than you probably missed a lot of this forum. They're even getting sold.

Very few stuff is "evolving" and interesting by being something completely new.

p.s. just out of curiosity, in your opinion, where does survival horror fit in (compass direction wise)? It has elements of action, solving puzzles, shooters etc.

Urgh! Again?!

HOW MANY TIMEs DO I HAVE TO KILL IT!?

I think this guy clearly wants to challenge this forums. It's like joining a cricket(sport)  forum just to tell people there that the rules are awkward or strange and difficult.

Dave Gilbert and his team recent success not only proves him wrong but also shows that he doesn't play adventure games since maybe the games he speaks about.

If he wants to debate the issues that he stated and we can benefit from it (I think that's not the case) then let him speak. If he doesn't, just let him post to himself.

Just for the record, just bought The Last Express on GOG, and I love it, feels like reading a good mystery book. 

To end, I wish I can grow old and play adventure games on a cold winter night, with a blanket on my legs and a nice cigarette to go along...maybe a cup of coffee too...and a brandy...

Quote from: miguel on Sun 27/11/2011 19:36:58
Just for the record, just bought The Last Express on GOG, and I love it, feels like reading a good mystery book. 

You'll love the ending, I promise you that!

Quote from: the game hackademic on Sun 27/11/2011 09:24:01Even though he went on to make adventure games with humongous, I bet if Ron Gilbert had've known how to code a FPS, the ending on MI2 would have been: turn off your computer and go and buy LOOM 3D: Is my mother on mars?

Seriously guys, let's all raise our hands if we're here because what we really want is to learn how to code a first-person shooter, because clearly that is the superior genre.

[doesn't raise hand]

[looks around]

Huh, that's strange. What a bunch of liars and/or masochists we must be.

Maybe a better question would be who came here to learn how to code a role-playing game, coz we all know that AGS stands for Final Fantasy Clone Machine. :D

LOOM 3 was good though, no matter what everyone says. I really enjoyed reading the logs and discovering those small story snippets, and the Hell segment was well worth the purchase.
I never found the duct tape, though. I'm pretty sure it would have enabled me to tape my flashlight to the shotgun.

-----

I had a good look at that compass system. I have thought hard and can't think of one game that would just sit in one corner of it, relying on ONE of the "rules". Shooters aren't only about "action on the environment", to take an example at random. Playing a game involves not only its mechanics, story, design etc. but also how I as a player perceive the things presented. As soon as I play a game I take an active role and create my own experience. Pretty much every game I can think of would tend towards the middle of the compass and then maybe peak a bit into one direction.

Quote from: miguel on Sun 27/11/2011 19:36:58

Dave Gilbert and his team recent success not only proves him wrong but also shows that he doesn't play adventure games since maybe the games he speaks about.

Quote
The story best suited for the puzzle game genre would be detective games such as Sherlock Holmes and the Rose Tattoo.

Quote
A point-and-click adventure game, in The Shivah players assume the role of Rabbi Russell Stone, who is visited by the police and informed that a murdered ex-member of his dilapidated New York synagogue has bequeathed him a large sum of money. Puzzled that a man with whom he had fallen out many years before had given him money, Rabbi Stone sets out to clear his name and investigate the murder. This aspect of the game follows the "cleric as private investigator" theme of the Father Dowling mysteries.

Quote
A prequel to Legacy, Unbound follows the investigations of Joey Mallone again, this time with Rosa's aunt Lauren, back in the 70s. Two apparently unconnected cases of hauntings are investigated and solved by the protagonists.

Quote
Emerald City Confidential is a 2009 computer adventure game conceived by Dave Gilbert, developed by Wadjet Eye Games and published through PlayFirst. It follows the protagonist Petra, Emerald City's only private eye,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gilbert_%28game_designer%29

If Dave Gilbert wants to prove me wrong then he should make a point and click adventure game about a boxer or a rallycar driver.

Quote from: Ascovel on Sun 27/11/2011 12:59:16
does that ending cutscene really have such a great importance for the genre's death/weakness?

Do films that flop have an impact on the careers of those involved and the film genre itself? Kinda.

I didn't watch matrix 3 because matrix 2 sucked balls. Note the similarity to monkey island 2 with the ending.

Quote from: the game hackademic on Sun 27/11/2011 22:54:46
If Dave Gilbert wants to prove me wrong then he should make a point and click adventure game about a boxer or a rallycar driver.

You've lost me.  You seem to be saying that I make a lot of mystery games.  How would making a game about a boxer prove that the genre isn't dead?  Likewise, how does making a mystery adventure game prove that it is?

edit: I just spent five minutes browsing that culture.vg site you linked.  And... wow.  I haven't seen that much misogyny and homophobia on one website since the last time I last visited the rpgcodex!

Quote from: the game hackademic on Sun 27/11/2011 23:02:48

Quote from: Ascovel on Sun 27/11/2011 12:59:16
does that ending cutscene really have such a great importance for the genre's death/weakness?

Do films that flop have an impact on the careers of those involved and the film genre itself? Kinda.

I didn't watch matrix 3 because matrix 2 sucked balls. Note the similarity to monkey island 2 with the ending.

I hate to be drawn further into this but...

By your logic, ending of Matrix 2 should have sunk all science fiction films or possibly all hollywood blockbusters.

Moreover, the Matrix 2 wasn't really a flop, you just didn't like it.

Moreover, moreover, ALL the Matrix films are rubbish.

Quote from: anian on Sun 27/11/2011 14:44:40
p.s. just out of curiosity, in your opinion, where does survival horror fit in (compass direction wise)? It has elements of action, solving puzzles, shooters etc.

This is a good point. The classification scheme ought to be able to classify all games. If it can't, then it needs so alteration, or perhaps a better explanation.

Unfortunately, I only played alone in the dark. So I can only talk about that game.

You can beat up monsters and stuff. So that pushes it north west.

You can push wardrobes to cover windows, so that is probably a puzzle, so it is south west.

The camera is fixed so that pushes it south slightly I think because it means the player has less control over how the environment changes. It also creates this feeling you are being watched but not sure what that's about.

There are some enemies that are like traps, such as a ghost of a domestic woman (will to control) who gets up and becomes this weird assed geometric ghost (will to power). This works unlike in Beneath a Steel Sky. Atmosphere is more important in these games.

I'd say this game is in the SW but definately more north than point and click adventure games.

Quote
I had a good look at that compass system. I have thought hard and can't think of one game that would just sit in one corner of it, relying on ONE of the "rules". Shooters aren't only about "action on the environment", to take an example at random. Playing a game involves not only its mechanics, story, design etc. but also how I as a player perceive the things presented. As soon as I play a game I take an active role and create my own experience. Pretty much every game I can think of would tend towards the middle of the compass and then maybe peak a bit into one direction.

For corners: SE baking a cake SW building lego according to instructions NE putting on makeup for a date NW taking a automatic rifle down to the local post office

I mean the genres just need to be relatively different. For example, watching porn is only slightly more productive and masturbatory than philosophy. So for example RPGs are in the SE section considering they are like baking cakes. But a RPG game like Grandia 2 has such an fun combat system I would say this game is pushed northward towards a strategy game compared to other RPGs.

Quote from: the game hackademic on Mon 28/11/2011 00:16:08
For example, watching porn is only slightly more productive and masturbatory than philosophy.

Again... I know... but seriously... WHAT?

Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Sun 27/11/2011 23:14:14

Quote from: the game hackademic on Sun 27/11/2011 22:54:46
If Dave Gilbert wants to prove me wrong then he should make a point and click adventure game about a boxer or a rallycar driver.

You've lost me.  You seem to be saying that I make a lot of mystery games.  How would making a game about a boxer prove that the genre isn't dead?  Likewise, how does making a mystery adventure game prove that it is?

In the first post I said that the adventure games have two niche genres. One is detective games where the story and lateral thinking puzzles fit together. So the answer to why didn't they keep making indiana jones point and click adventure games is because the story is better suited to a tomb raider like action game.

People are hung up on the "genre is dead" statement and keep arguing it's a zombie or it's on life support. It doesn't matter what you call it it still doesn't change the essay.

THE ESSAY SAID RPGS ARE LIKE BAKING A CAKE. REFUTE THAT PLZ

Can you at least stop swearing and bringing up porn please? It adds nothing to the conversation.

Providing little to no rationale for stated claims, providing little to no actual response to stated questions which probe regarding stated claims, getting upset that people are getting "hung up" on the stated topic, and posting in all caps demanding that we all start discussing an aside as if it were the primary topic to begin with, and doing so with an oh-so-pleasant "PLZ" at the end.

Are we in agreement yet that this is clearly a troll?

Oh, and Role-Playing Games bear as much semblance to baking a cake as an apple does to a monkey wrench. Refute that, please.

Hail to the Troll !!!


No seriously, I agree with the style-definition issue. 3rd-person "adventure games" ARE all "Role-Playing games" by strict definition (real-life definition), and today's RPG are way more adventuresque that any qualified "adventure games".

The same reason, I beleve my fun of playing Maniac Mansion / Zak McKraken back in time has few to do with puzzle-solving and none of them were really story-driven. (Chick in basement - must save the chick | Artifact must be builted - let's built the artifact).

Now, that this had been said,
***/me tuts - please don't write that sort of thing on this board.

Apparently Hackademic is icycalm AKA Alex Kierkegaard AKA Anthony Zirbas, etc., i.e. the owner of the website linked to in the first post which requires a €25/year subscription to fully view.

Wouldn't a site such as Adventure Gamers have been a better point of impact for this opinion-bomb?

Quote from: Daniel Eakins on Mon 28/11/2011 01:53:49
...which requires a â,¬25/year subscription to fully view.

I guess a steady income is required to maintain such levels of unbridled gobshitery.

Quote from: LimpingFish on Mon 28/11/2011 02:26:56
unbridled gobshitery.

I cannot wait for my first opportunity to use this in a sentence.  :D

Icycalm would never refer to himself as a hack.

Also, you did not refute my RPGs are a lot like baking cakes. Clearly they are. When you bake a cake, the person who wrote the instructions is getting you to use the oven to change the cake mix to a cake. In other words, this is a really shitty game, which amounts to watching something change slowly. Which is what RPGs are, if you take away the story and combat. This is undeniably true. The next time you see 'final fantasy x', you will think 'final fantasy cake-mix'.

People are being pretty resentful when all I am doing is giving them the gift of knowledge. Imagine for a moment if a Greek philosopher, one of the good ones not a loser like Socrates, got in a time machine, came to our century, crammed alot of knowledge about science, then played computer games and told you a little about them. What would you do? You would resent that person for claiming he knew more about games than you, even though you had probably put zero effort in to understanding them. What does that say?

And no, I'm not a time travelling Greek philosopher, that was just an analogy. Nor am I a creature who hides under bridges and harasses goats. Can we please stop being so accusatory?

I agree about the comment about porn and swearing, but these jerk-offs need to stop this accusatory bullshit. I am not angry when I talk in all caps. My computer does not format my text according to my emotions. If it did, the text would be blue, because all this accusatory bullshit is uncalled for and making me cry. What am I, Britney Spears?

I bet you'd like my text blue. Because then you could ignore what I said, instead of reading what I said and then posting claiming that you are ignoring what I said, because you are unable to control your will to learn. You have to announce you are too cool to post in this thread? WTF sort out your will to learn and will to look cool and stop making contradictory posts which only make people cry.

Okay, let's try to get back on topic. Okay, so Mr. Gilbert made a game about a Jewish detective and it was a hit. Now, someone who hadn't read my insightful essay would think "I should make a point and click adventure game about a historian who discovers the holocaust was fake, and is hunted by rabbi assassins, because that would sell like Mr Gilberts". STOP. THINK. Should this game really be made, or should it be made as an action game? If your story was more like the movie national treasure, then a game in the SW section would be acceptable. But if your story focused on these ruthless rabbi assassins, who honed their combat skills punching palestinian children, then you should make an action game. It's about identifying niche stories for different genres.

I'm helping the community of game developers. Please open up about your resentment towards the adventure genre, instead of directing it at me.

Quote from: Daniel Eakins on Mon 28/11/2011 01:53:49
Apparently Hackademic is icycalm AKA Alex Kierkegaard AKA Anthony Zirbas, etc., i.e. the owner of the website linked to in the first post which requires a €25/year subscription to fully view.

If this is the level of writing going on on that website, I'm pretty turned off to the idea of buying. This was a pretty poor advertisement. Rambling, incoherent text, inflammatory wording, little to no understanding of market trends or media as a whole, and arrogance that borders on hubris. It's a naive and pompous diatribe with pseudo-philosophical elements designed to obfuscate rather than illuminate. The comparison of Indiana Jones being better suited to an action game is ignorant of the (fiscal) popularity of Tomb Raider, and the failure of the Indiana Jones action games of the late eighties and early nineties.

Quote
Also, you did not refute my RPGs are a lot like baking cakes. Clearly they are. When you bake a cake, the person who wrote the instructions is getting you to use the oven to change the cake mix to a cake. In other words, this is a really shitty game, which amounts to watching something change slowly. Which is what RPGs are, if you take away the story and combat. This is undeniably true. The next time you see 'final fantasy x', you will think 'final fantasy cake-mix'.

I will refute this. It's also incoherent, but I'll try my best.

RPGs, in their purest, tabletop form, are mechanics for simulating the world. Good RPGs, like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and others, blend together the story and the mechanics to create a believable world. Bad rpgs slice the two apart, and the story and the mechanics do not complement each other, they compete. In a good RPG, you USE the mechanics to advance the story. It is... like a car and a train with a driving toy in it. Both get you to the end, but the train will continue the story with the toy amusing you through it. The car has you use what you're doing to get you there. Active vs. passive participation in the exploration of the world. Final Fantasy will take you to the end of it's story while you play a different game. Planescape: Torment will use the game to tell the story.

Your analogy is quite frankly, baffling. Cake mix would be a sandbox game, in which you use the mechanics to build a story. What you are describing, is watching paint dry.

Also, if you remove the story and the combat from a story and combat based game, of course you are left with nothing. You just took out the core of the game.

QuotePeople are being pretty resentful when all I am doing is giving them the gift of knowledge. Imagine for a moment if a Greek philosopher, one of the good ones not a loser like Socrates, got in a time machine, came to our century, crammed alot of knowledge about science, then played computer games and told you a little about them. What would you do? You would resent that person for claiming he knew more about games than you, even though you had probably put zero effort in to understanding them. What does that say?

So now you imply you are a great philosopher? Okay. These greek philosophers come and play the games, and what would they think about it? They lack the necessary cultural knowledge, filmic language, game language, to fully appreciate the game. To understand a game, you need to know a lot more than "things are made of phlogiston and ash". They would probably compare it to ancient greek theatre and literature. Would they tell us more than we already know? Maybe. But would THEY be able to fully appreciate it, growing up in a culture almost completely alien to the one that produced the game? They could, if they researched everything around the game, computers in general, and narrative conventions that have changed considerably since ancient greek times, when stories were told with choruses and masks.

Now, this is nothing to do with you as a person, hackademic, but your arguements are full of holes, and they are hidden in poorly structured purple prose. You think you know more than you actually do, and you are incredibly arrogant, assuming we know less than you do and that you are some great teacher of knowledge shining the light of your incredible philosophy dow...

QuoteOkay, let's try to get back on topic. Okay, so Mr. Gilbert made a game about a Jewish detective and it was a hit. Now, someone who hadn't read my insightful essay would think "I should make a point and click adventure game about a historian who discovers the holocaust was fake, and is hunted by rabbi assassins, because that would sell like Mr Gilberts". STOP. THINK. Should this game really be made, or should it be made as an action game? If your story was more like the movie national treasure, then a game in the SW section would be acceptable. But if your story focused on these ruthless rabbi assassins, who honed their combat skills punching palestinian children, then you should make an action game. It's about identifying niche stories for different genres.

... wait, what.

Opening this thread again.

Hackademic,

I will no tell you that it's not polite (to say the least) to come into a forum that has been around for many years and tell people you are the one that really understands what adventure games are. Obviously you knew that when you first posted. And although I can tell you are an intelligent person, it would be better if you brought your thoughts and ideas on a more pleasant way.
I think you must consider yourself like the old man that came down from the mountain with all his knowledge and bombastic phrases. You know who I am talking about. I read it too.

Adventure Games aren't dead, they don't sell as much as FPS's or PES2012 because commercial interests are what gaming companies are after. But like all things in life, it can be a cycle. It just takes one good game to flip the market.
Indie game makers were never before having the commercial success they have now. It's a fact.
And what more proof do you want when the people that love the genre fight for it even knowing that making an adventure game with minimum quality is time consuming and an expensive thing to do considering the high risk.

Please, try to focus on the gaming subject, I believe people here don't want to talk about the controversial side subjects that you  pick. You must know that you will always offend somebody, even if "in the Internet, it's OK to be an idiot...".

Quote from: miguel on Tue 29/11/2011 19:16:50
"in the Internet, it's OK to be an idiot...".

No, that's your excuse.

Guys, stop being troll bait.

I'm just asking you to be a nice guy. I don't need any excuses and the phrase isn't mine. I don't agree with it either.

Again, I hope you can take something out of my previous post, nobody is against a different mind around. But you know what you're doing, and it's not nice.

Khris: You're right. I'm out.

Quote from: Khris on Tue 29/11/2011 23:03:44
Guys, stop being troll bait.

It's ok, I hid some cyanide in miguels clothes, it'll be fine.  ;)

> undress jacket
You undress the flowery jacket.
> run
I don't understand run.
>exit
You leave the room in a hurry, behind you the gnarling sounds of the troll echoed through the walls.
>close door
You close the door.
>swallow key
I don't understand swallow.
>nevermind...

Quote from: miguel on Tue 29/11/2011 23:40:34
I don't understand swallow.

No, the right anwser would be "That's what she said."  ;D

Quote from: miguel on Tue 29/11/2011 23:06:58

Again, I hope you can take something out of my previous post, nobody is against a different mind around. But you know what you're doing, and it's not nice.

What can I take out of your post? That you are yet another person who wants to claim adventure genres aren't dead, they're just zombies or on life support.

There are major problems with the essay. I think for example it could be ACTION+PREDICTABLE, ACTION + UNPREDICTABLE, REACTION + PREDICTABLE, REACTION + UNPREDICTABLE

But then why should games conform to some scheme of binary opposites. Are you losing a lot of information thinking in terms of these opposites and so end up being stupid? If games genres group around performing similar tasks, should the broad genre categories follow say how the brain is structured. eg.

QuoteThe present paper proposes that four neuromodulator systems underpin highly generalized behavioral sets, but each targets either dorsomedial or ventrolateral cortical systems, where it produces its effects in either a proactive or reactive orientation to the environment. This way systems are discriminated that control reactive approach (dopaminergic), reactive avoidance (cholinergic), proactive behavior (noradrenergic), and withdrawal (serotonergic).

But really, what shows I don't know what I'm doing is that I posted this essay here. You guys are so busy trying to say your community is great (and crying because I don't submit to that viewpoint) to offer any solutions to fix the essay. So obviously I'm going to point out what is wrong with your community (such as moderators who brag about enjoying verbally abusing the disabled, or the fact that your brains shut down on the holocaust issue).

By the way to the people who thought I was icycalm etc. I posted the essay on culture.vg after it was deleted here and they didn't think it was worth refuting, ie really bad. So obviously I'm not him.

Final note: an adventure game about the national treasure franchise but finding out the holocaust isn't real is a really good idea. Someone should make that.

(http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/internet-memes-end-of-conversation1.jpg)

(Just to get the intellectual level back up a few notches.)

You have to admit, he's a pretty good troll. I mean, every single word out of his mouth (metaphorically speaking, as we all know that in reality he is apparently mute) is so utterly inflammatory that you almost feel that you have to respond to it.

By the so-called "logic" that has been used, it's a wonder there's even an argument to be had, as one could reasonably conclude that such a person would likely be so metaphysically nihilistic as to disbelieve his own existence. Unless of course he doesn't really believe any of what he's saying anyway. Then again, I guess that is what trolls are all about.

Ugh, why am I even still awake. Am I awake? Is this real life? I have three fingers.

QuoteWhat can I take out of your post? That you are yet another person who wants to claim adventure genres aren't dead, they're just zombies or on life support.

Wow, imagine that! Yet another person that thinks you're wrong! Why? How can this be?

Adventure games are indeed not the most popular genre around, but so are movies that rely on singing and dancing, although Chicago or Mama Mia were successful. Good casting, good writers, good production and you got a hit. And although Hollywood know they can't produce mass musicals anymore, there's always room for a big production every 2 or 3 years. Is the genre dead? Years pass without a single musical on cinemas, but is it dead? The answer is NO.

Imagine that the guys that did Shreck were adventure game lovers, imagine the investment they did on the movie to be concentrated on a game. Eddy Murphy, Cameron Diaz, etc., doing the voices, the designer and artist team, the soundtrack, the writers all focused on an adventure game. You can bet that something really good would come out. That's all it takes, people investing on something.

QuoteBut then why should games conform to some scheme of binary opposites. Are you losing a lot of information thinking in terms of these opposites and so end up being stupid? If games genres group around performing similar tasks, should the broad genre categories follow say how the brain is structured. eg.

I think you're missing the point. Remember the old games? Games with bad graphics, no story except the one given on the cover, quirky sounds, some were even almost impossible to play! What made me and millions of people play them was the brain filling up the blanks. Just like a book, where you're lead into a final chapter. The art is not to give the impression you're being manipulated. Everybody knows about adventure games mechanics, one knows that without item A there's no way to reach point B. But the beauty of it is how the makers present that simple mechanics to you. All that surrounds those simple quests is, when done with good taste, what makes games better than others.

For adventure lovers, the way the genre has evolved is History. A beautiful one. From text adventures where the brain did all the visual work, to master pieces of pixel art that astonished gamers, to subtle narratives often better than many commercial books, to amazing characters that still bring a smile to our faces.

You worry too much about how it's made, let that to the ones that make games.

Wait... Which one is west? Is it the right or... left?... Oh, I'm just totally lost. I read that long post and I don't understand that analogy at all. Some good points have been made, but for the most part it's just extremely confusing. So what if adventure games are zombies? I've always LOVED zombies and can't wait for the 'zombie apocalypse' to come at last! :)

Quote from: the game hackademic on Mon 28/11/2011 02:48:59
Okay, so Mr. Gilbert made a game about a Jewish detective and it was a hit.

This is probably the funniest thing you've said so far!

I think the problem here is that you attempt to approach substantial (and i use that word as to refer to things of substance rather than as an intensifier) issues with a kind of faux-philosophy (fauxlosophy anyone?) but you lack the emotional maturity to do so effectively.

Essentially like Christopher Hitchens ending a rebuttal with "suck it fags!".

Emotional maturity is what separates a caustic writer from a childish one and lack of it is the reason why neither you nor icycalm (if you are indeed different people) will be successful, persuasive polemicists.

Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Sun 04/12/2011 22:07:23
I think the problem here is that you attempt to approach substantial (and i use that word as to refer to things of substance rather than as an intensifier) issues with a kind of faux-philosophy (fauxlosophy anyone?) but you lack the emotional maturity to do so effectively.

Essentially like Christopher Hitchens ending a rebuttal with "suck it fags!".

Emotional maturity is what separates a caustic writer from a childish one and lack of it is the reason why neither you nor icycalm (if you are indeed different people) will be successful, persuasive polemicists.

The response required would be

NO U.

Is it safe to come out now?  Deliberatey kept out of this one.  There's little more depressing than suddenly realising you're arguing with a troll.  You know you're right and they know you're right, but they still win, because getting you to argue with them is their prize.