What makes a good adventure game?

[Toefur]

In an effort to make my games... good... I need to analyse what it is that makes a good adventure games. Of course tehre's my opinion... and then everyone elses opinion.

And it's not just that I want to try to make a game that adheres to certain standards just so people will like it... It's that I want to recognise what it is that makes a -quality- adventure game; so regardless of whether people like it or not... it can still be viewed as a production that contains at least a certain degree of quality.

I know there's the story itself... but what makes an adventure game story a -quality- one? What aspects of gameplay make it -quality- gameplay? Etc.

[BOYD1981]

deja vu...

[Toefur]

That was helpful... thanks...  

[Quintaros]

I believe Boyd's point is that this topic has been discussed here before, multiple times.  Perhaps you could do a search for old threads to get some answers.

[BOYD1981]

the thing with all games, not just adventure games, is that what's good to one person is rubbish to the next, as a developer it is up to you to create something which you think is good and a majority of people that play that type of game will also enjoy, therefore this question can only be answered with opinions and not facts, some people like nice graphics, some people like good strong characters, others like humour, some people like a mixture of everything.
the best thing to do is make a game, release it, see what kind of response it gets, then go with the majority and make another game, but keep a little of what the minority liked, then again see what response it got, then go with the minority rather than the majority, make another game, rinse and repeat...

[TerranRich]

Ah, great, Rehashed Thread and General Waste of Bandwidth #47! Here we go again...

[Squinky]

Heh, I've never understood what the difference between loooking up an old thread and posting in it or just making a new one was...

Dosen't searching about the forum for those forgotten topics burn bandwith also?

Heh

Anyway, on topic. Characters should be memorable, that to me is the most important. If I can't identify with the character, I don't really give a crap for the game....

[Meowster]

Hang on, if you're so worried about wasting bandwidth, why reply with something completely off topic and unhelpful?

Anyway, for me the most important part of a game are the characters. I don't know if I got the grammar in that sentence right. Anyway, I also believe that it doesn't just lie down to one aspect of design, it's a combination of all elements, after being well thought out and planned, being put together. Things that I think are important are atmosphere, music, graphics*, characters, story, dialogue... pretty much everything.

*GRAPHICS!!! By graphics, I don't mean they have to be awesome 3D renderings made in Maya or something. Just so long as time and effort has been put into making them detailed and interesting, it doesn't matter whether they're particularly realistic or if they don't have that WOW factor. In Graphics, I find colour, shading and layout very important. I know you're gonna dig into me for saying graphics are important, but I don't mean graphics, I mean the design of the graphics. Hm. Does that even make sense?

Okay, example. Pleughburg had pretty flat graphics. A lot of people think the graphics suck. But I thought they were brilliant graphics. They were detailed, well coloured, had a lot of atmosphere, and always left you wondering with a little chill up your spine, what was going to be around the next corner. THAT is my idea of good graphics.


PS Toefur... I like your name

[DoorKnobHandle]

I thin this explanation is helpful:

The thing, which makes you say: "Wow! This has been a really great game!" after paying an (adventure) game, is not the only the sum of all the graphics, story, characters, music, sounds (...), it is a bit more than the sum of this all!
SO, if you make a game, you'll notice sometimes in the development process, that the game now is a bit more than just the sum of all the included things. If you notice this, your game is "good"!

[Meowster]

Precisely, and I just thought of an example.

DOTT and Grim Fandango had a sum of all these things... graphics, design, characters, music, etc..

Braindead 13 had GORGEOUS graphics, and I mean they were so good they would make you weak at the knees just looking at them... and nothing else. That game sucked.

Sam n Max had great design, graphics, characters... but I found the music got annoying very very quickly. This didn't really spoil the game for me, but it still annoyed me.

The Dig had lovely music and graphics, but the characters and story sucked butthole. This totally spoiled the game for me, no matter how gorgeously designed it was, or how beautiful the music was.

See where I'm going with this?

Obviously the pressure on amateur games isn't as great. Once again, I stress that my idea of good graphics are in DESIGN, and not execution, or SOMETHING like that anyway.

[Yellow is a Flavor]

Fleshed-out characters with solid backstories (whether you come right out and tell about their backstories or just hint at them doesn't matter)

Good graphics, obviously. Same goes for music. You want really good music, a soundtrack needs to have some emotional songs to be remembered.

Good plot. Without a good plot, nothing in the world can make your game not suck. Talkie-games are good, but if the voices just sound unnatural and monotone, you're better off just scrapping the speech pack.

Lastly, logical puzzles. Nothing annoys me more than illogical puzzles. You want the game to be challenging, but not so hard that your players have to run to the net in search of a walkthrough at the first puzzle.

[Ginny]

Well, basically what everyone said, well designed graphics.
Spooky Ghost: I know exactly what you mean. The layout of the backgrounds should suggest the mood, the style the atmosphere, and should be interesting, i.e. interesting point of view, sometimes a dramatic impact, important things are easy to see and generally backgrounds that are designed for the story's needs.
However when I try to do this (and I almost always try) I find that I'm unable to express the atmosphere and/or mood like I imagined, due to my lack of actual artistic abillity. I can see a vivid image in my mind of how I'd like it to look (mostly with backgrounds, but some characters too) and if I take a moment to map it all out I can see the colour sceme, the way things look, Where the walkbehinds would be, etc. I only wish I could make this imagination turn into real images.
Of course, perhaps it is worse when the case is the otehr way around: the graphics are stunning art-wise, but are uninteresting. Can't say I have an example of this thogh,

Anyway, this was longer than I expected. Next, music and sound. Music should be well designed too, however I find it slightly less important, unless the game is very atmospheric or has really emotional moments or something. Like syberia, in which music was too few, but conveyed emotions. Anyway since this is very difficult IMO, and since we're talking of AGS games, music is less of an issue for me, and I rather have no music than annoying music. Sound effects are really cool when possible, they are the little additions, finishing touches for AGS games.

Story and design is of course themost important. I think design includes the whole aspect of cinematics (if any are needed) like imagining everything in the game that is part of the narrative. And good puzzles (logical, amusing when appropriate, original and varied), and good dialogs (interesting, also character design).
Good character design is also very important, and character history. I think history is better told by hints in dialogs etc, than by adctually telling it, the exception being a diary or the character remembering it and telling it nostaligically (prefferably not to another character, though it depends).

Ok, almost finished my whole theory (for some reason I thought I'd be too tired to write a lot, but it turned out I was wrong. ). What I think makes all of this come together, what brings the "wow" factor, is little things. Since all the "big" stuff has been covered, the little details, hints of the design, innovativeness in small things aswell as in big things, finishing touches, techninical stuff (i.e lack of bugs, GUI), and generally "unneccessary" things.
Imagine a game that has everything: Graphics, good design,sound, good scritping. This game can be great (well, probably would be) but it still won't neccessarilly have the wow factor. Of course, this is pretty individual, some people like some games, some people like other games.
Actually, I think background design and layout is sort of a small detail too, not neccessarilly in size but perhaps in the way ot affects the player and the game. I think these so-called "small" things are actually part of all the game componenets.
Ok, that enough, this is waaay too long.

[Las Naranjas]

If everyone has different appreciations of good AG traits, that makes it prime for discussion, if that was not the case, there would be no point.


And when the forum is devoted to the making of AG's, and supposedly good ones, for who would aspire to shit ones, I don't think there is much harm in this thread being replicated.

What there is no point in being replicated is envoking the name of bandwidth for pointless shutdowns when one has nothing to add.

[Ytterbium]

I'd reccommend doing some research on existing games to see what works and what doesn't. Beneath a Steel Sky can be downloaded free (legally) at Scummvm.org, and that's a great game. Do research on that one, seriously.