Adv. Genre Dead? - Who still thinks that?

[LimpingFish]

Text adventures, AGI games? Are these not adventures?

Text "Adventures" could simply be termed Text "Games"...
The type-in parser of AGI has been surpassed by the Point-and-click interface.
The fact that people still make and play these types of "Adventure" is irrelevant. Commercially both are dead. The only time the term "Adventure", again in the classical sense, occurs in the mainstream is to describe those games of a Point-and-Click nature.

Also, Grim Fandango. The idea that there is a set way to do an adventure game bugs me.

Grim Fandango is no different to the point I made about Broken Sword 3.

No. Adventure games are about experiencing a story. Atleast that's how I see it. Defining an entire genre as a "game which conforms to a certain design blueprint" is ridiculously silly, I think. It would be like defining movie genres based on the type of camera and lighting used.

Aren't ALL games where the player guides a character through a path of events about experiencing a story.

Film Noir could be a genre of movie defined, at least in some part, by the type of lighting and style of camerawork, among other things.

Agreed. Blade Runner is a prime example of an adventure without a traditional inventory.

I never mentioned Inventories in my original post.

Look, no matter how you look at it Point-and-Click (God I'm tired of typing that ) has, through whatever force of cosmic alignment, come to be known as a genre in itself.
Broken Sword 3 was referred to as a Point-and-Click game in a number of reviews I read, on different formats, not only PC.

EDIT: LimpingFish is currently wearing his Lively Debate Hat :

[scotch]

Adventure means text adventure, first person myst adventure, third person point and click, platform games like Psychonauts and other types of games, to most people including me and the games press.  One guy thought I meant Tomb Raider type games when I said I made adventures.  By no means has it become synonymous with point and click games, not even in this community.  That's good, I love point and click, I don't think the interface is dead, but there are more adventure game interfaces.

[dgunpluggered]

Text adventures, AGI games? Are these not adventures?

Text "Adventures" could simply be termed Text "Games"...
The type-in parser of AGI has been surpassed by the Point-and-click interface.
The fact that people still make and play these types of "Adventure" is irrelevant. Commercially both are dead. The only time the term "Adventure", again in the classical sense, occurs in the mainstream is to describe those games of a Point-and-Click nature.

Well, if you're going to talk about surpassed technologies, we might as well save this discussion until the Holograph 3000 Touch Interface PC comes out (due in 2020) because around 80% (a guess) of software, including games, are point'n'click by convention. Look at most PC operating systems -- they're point'n'click. It's the way most software works. Of course the mainstream is going to focus on point'n'click adventures, because most software is point'n'click by default.

However, that doesn't mean that we can't eschew these conventions for new ones. Grim Fandango is an example of this.

Also, Grim Fandango. The idea that there is a set way to do an adventure game bugs me.

Grim Fandango is no different to the point I made about Broken Sword 3.

Actually it is different. Your original point was:

"Broken Sword 3 is still basically point-and-click."

Grim Fandango isn't point and click.

They seem like two different points to me.

Agreed. Blade Runner is a prime example of an adventure without a traditional inventory.

I never mentioned Inventories in my original post.

Colossal did. I was just adding to his comments. And his point is still the same -- that there's no one blueprint for adventure game design.

[dgunpluggered]

Grim Fandango is no different to the point I made about Broken Sword 3.

Actually it is different. Your original point was:

"Broken Sword 3 is still basically point-and-click."

Grim Fandango isn't point and click.

They seem like two different points to me.

Actually, I'll also add that your definition of Broken Sword 3 as a point'n'click in a little... iffy? I've never played BS3, but if it's anything like Grim Fandango, it's not point'n'click. If you're going to define point'n'click as both "a mouse controlled pointer" AND "a keyboard-controlled 3D polygon character", then you might as well call the AGI system point'n'click too.

And that would just be nutty.

[Kinoko]

No matter what it is, it should be GOOD. I'm one of those people who hates others screaming to "support the industry!" when I think the industry is producing shit. I hate, hate, hate all the commercial adventure games around these days and I'm not wasting my time or money on them. If companies learn to make fun games again, I'll play. I don't particularly care about defining things into genres... I think some games are obviously one or the other, some games blur the line and some games could be said to be  amongst any number of genres. What matters above all is whether it's good (which is objective, or course, but I don't think anything commercial these days comes close in the adventure cataory).

I swear, and I'll keep talking about this game until I'm stone cold dead, but if only some of you could play Giftpia. It's an EXCELLENT example of how a game can be utterly original and utterly fun at the same time. I'd have that games babies if I could have the licence for it. I'd translate it for free if they let me. Anything, so long as it could be released outside of Japan. I think that one game alone is good enough reason for learning Japanese. It pisses me off that great, amazing, heart-stopping games like this are being released in ways that the majority of people can't experience them (or even hear about them in the first place).

[LimpingFish]

My point about Broken Sword 3 was simple this; Using the cursor keys, you directly move the character George to what ever object you want him to interact with. You then click the the mouse button to make him interact with it. Depending on what it is (a flowerpot, a person, a door) he will perform the appropriate action.

(A lot like Grim Fandango )

This is no different than playing Broken Sword 2, but instead of directly moving the character, you point the cursor at said object, click, and George makes his own way there.

So, in effect, they simply made the 3D model of George the cursor. How can you not see the point I'm trying to make?

That fact that the game is constructed from polygons hasn't changed its basic gameplay design.

Look:

The Secret of Monkey Island.
Broken Sword.
Grim Fandango.
The Longest Journey.
Broken Sword 3.

They are all basically the same game. 3D, Sierra-Style Icons, Lucasarts Verb List, even Grim Fandango, which on the surface seems to have NO interface, change little of the basic design of the 'Point-and-Click Adventure Game'.

My point about technological advances was from a commercial pov.

This is all very strange to me.You have people bring up Deus Ex (which is far closer to a first-person RPG than it will ever be to an P-and-C style of game) and talks of new ways of constructing "Adventure" games, when very few people seem to get the point I'm making.

From Maniac Manison to Freddy Phrakas to Broken Sword 3, and all mutations in between, the golden design rules of the P-and-C genre, or sub-genre, have stayed the same.

How much can you take away before it becomes something else?

P.s: If anybody says "Aren't all PC games Point-and Click?Hee, Hee!" go to the back of the line

[Ghormak]

No. Adventure games are about experiencing a story. Atleast that's how I see it. Defining an entire genre as a "game which conforms to a certain design blueprint" is ridiculously silly, I think. It would be like defining movie genres based on the type of camera and lighting used.

Aren't ALL games where the player guides a character through a path of events about experiencing a story.

Yes. Which is my point. Adventure game is a silly and too broad a definition.

[LimpingFish]

No. Adventure games are about experiencing a story. Atleast that's how I see it. Defining an entire genre as a "game which conforms to a certain design blueprint" is ridiculously silly, I think. It would be like defining movie genres based on the type of camera and lighting used.

Aren't ALL games where the player guides a character through a path of events about experiencing a story.

Yes. Which is my point. Adventure game is a silly and too broad a definition.

That's what I meant. The term "Adventure" doesn't accurately describe the kind of games we're talking about. So that leaves "Point-and-Click", wherein the players actions within a game are limited to pointing and clicking, either in the traditional cursor sense, or polygon sense, a logical choice.

I may not be getting across what I 'm trying to say in the most articulate manner, but think about it.

[MrColossal]

But your original point was this it seemed:

But if you remove the point-and click aspect COMPLETELY does it still make it an adventure game, in the classical sense I mean.

As in, if you remove pointing and clicking can that game still be an adventure game.

My point is:

Grim Fandango and some AGI Games didn't have any pointing and clicking along with 95% of text adventures. These are all adventure games.

And you just brush off text adventures with a one sentence comment about them being text games. Which is quite ignorant of text adventures.

The type-in parser of AGI has been surpassed by the Point-and-click interface.

What does this have to do with anything? Are they no longer adventures because another interface has come out?

The fact that people still make and play these types of "Adventure" is irrelevant. Commercially both are dead. The only time the term "Adventure", again in the classical sense, occurs in the mainstream is to describe those games of a Point-and-Click nature.

What does this conversation have to do with a game being sold? And I bet if you asked the current gaming public what an adventure game is you'd get a huge broad list of games. As scotch said Tomb Raider would be cited, along with Zelda and probably a ton of what most of us would call platformer games.

The term "Point-and Click Adventure Game" usually describes a game which conforms to a certain design blueprint. How much of that design can you strip away before it stops being an "Adventure" game?

While I agree if someone says to me "This is a point and click adventure game." I will think in my head "There is a mouse cursor and various verbs for me to choose, along with a walk icon that let's me move a character through a series of backgrounds."

That's about it. It doesn't bring anything else with it. In fact it narrows down what the game can be, what if it's a first person game and there is no 'walk'? What else should I think about? To some people an adventure game is where you can't die but "point and click adventure game" doesn't say anything about not dying. Tons of people love Quest for Glory and that is what they'll think of when you mention "point and click adventure game" and that has RPG elements and fighting and dying.

From Maniac Manison to Freddy Phrakas to Broken Sword 3, and all mutations in between, the golden design rules of the P-and-C genre, or sub-genre, have stayed the same.

Don't you see that you are lumping a huge range of games into the idea of a point and click so the design rules are very different. Grim Fandango has absolutely no inventory puzzles, with the interface it's impossible, everything has to be handled in the game play area. That changes the design rule a whole lot. Maniac Mansion has multiple ways to die and walking deads which, in my opinion, completely changes the design rules again.

If you tried to define for us what you thought were the "golden design rules" I guarantee there would be people saying "But what about this? This isn't an adventure game anymore?" Unless you made the definition a vague thing like:

"All games where the player guides a character through a path of events to experience a story is an adventure game."

[LimpingFish]

Look, we're getting way too deep into this. :o

The original post was "Adv. Genre Dead?".

All I'm saying is, that if you look at it, little has changed throughout the Adventure Games'
life. My "Blueprint" wasn't about particular puzzle techniques, or how an inventory is handled, but about how the move from text, to P-and-C, and on to 3D hasn't altered how a designer expects a player to approach his or her game.

And how the term "Adventure", in the mainsteam, defines absolutely nothing about interface or content in the same way as First-Person Shooter, or Third-Person Plaform Game has.
Even the term Survival Horror usually denotes a specific set of design elements.

(Yes, Resident Evil 4 not withstanding... 8) )

I'm not trying to "lump" the many variations of the Adventure Game together, but rather show how, even with many differences, the core of what we perceive it to be remains intact.

Note: I actually enjoyed the entrants in the IF competition this year, even 'The Ninja'

EDIT: When I mentioned "...the term Adventure in the mainstream is used..." I meant how the gaming press uses it as a give-all to describe ANY Point-and Click game, be it CSI or Grim Fandango. Most recent reviews of these types of game tend to begin with the line; "Every now and again, someone comes along and tries to revive the Adventure Game genre...".
I think the press and the public have made up their mind already :'(

EDIT: LimpingFish is tired, so he's gone to bed. 'Night 'night all.

[Pelican]

I have to agree with MrColossal and Kinoko. I do tend to be a bit more forgiving of flaws in adventure games, simply because there aren't so many these days (skipping over the defining adventure games issue - we'll be here all day ). However, if a game is crap, its crap, and the Adventure Company produces crap (excepting Return to Mysterious Island - I loved those puzzles!).

In general though, I tend to think of adventures as games which have strong storylines and employ puzzles of a more cerebral nature. Course, this doesn't really work for timed puzzles, which tend to be reaction based. But thats the aspect of adventure games which drew me to them, so that how I tend to define them.

[dgmacunplugged]

I just want to get one thing straight...

(A lot like Grim Fandango )

No it's not. Grim Fandango doesn't use the mouse. It's not point'n'click. Deal with it.

[LimpingFish]

I just want to get one thing straight...

(A lot like Grim Fandango )

No it's not. Grim Fandango doesn't use the mouse. It's not point'n'click. Deal with it.

Stubborness isn't very construtive

I never denied Grim Fandango was different. But, if you controlled Manny with a cursor instead of the arrow keys, nothing else in the game would have to be changed to fit the new control system. Therefore, on its most basic design level, Grim Fandango bears far more relation to the Point-and-ClickÃ,  family than it does to any other.

If I controlled Manny with a touch-screen interface it would still be legitimate to call it Point-and-Click. Joypad, mouse, stylus, it makes no difference.

This is my argument.

The 3D element to Grim Fandango is simply window-dressing. Its world is no more three-dimensional than adding Walk-Behinds in AGS. Its an illusion.

And just because it dispenses with a conventional Inventory, changes very little.

Therefore:

Secret of Monkey Island
Grim Fandango
=
Same game.

I realise I've painted a large bullseye right in the center of my forehead by saying this, but analysing and deconstructing the elements which go into game design is an area that I'm extremely interested in.

Do it enough times, in enough genres, and you start to see that the basic key elements to designing a game in any given genre, can actually, and accurately, be defined.

Maybe I'm too anal ::)when you get down to it, but I think its important.

It doesn't change how I approach a genre game, or hamper my enjoyment of any given title, but it's just an area I think about.

(LimpingFishs' Boring Academic Reasoning Hat is in overdrive!)

[MrColossal]

So let's get this straight then.

Your original question was:

"But if you remove the point-and click aspect COMPLETELY does it still make it an adventure game, in the classical sense I mean."

Grim Fandango is brought up and you say that it's still basically a point and click adventure game. So then by that logic a point and click adventure game is just a text adventure with graphics. Pointing and clicking is the same design as typing "north" or "south".

The words point and click do not apply to game design they apply to the fact that you have a mouse cursor and you click it and where you click it is where an action is applied. What you're talking about is just adventure game design. Why does it have to be anything else?

[LimpingFish]

So let's get this straight then.

Your original question was:

"But if you remove the point-and click aspect COMPLETELY does it still make it an adventure game, in the classical sense I mean."

Grim Fandango is brought up and you say that it's still basically a point and click adventure game. So then by that logic a point and click adventure game is just a text adventure with graphics. Pointing and clicking is the same design as typing "north" or "south".

The words point and click do not apply to game design they apply to the fact that you have a mouse cursor and you click it and where you click it is where an action is applied. What you're talking about is just adventure game design. Why does it have to be anything else?

Yes, a P-and C Adventure IS just a Text adventure with graphics. Its a different way for the player to interact with characters and puzzles, but its core remains the same.

I'd like to bring up a term that seems to have been misplaced...

Graphic Adventure.

Back in the early 90's if a magazine described a game as a 'Graphic Adventure' I could instantly form an opinion on what to expect from it. AGI, P-and-C, it didn't matter. I knew basically how the game was going to play.

But if you look at it, all games are ADVENTURES and all games have GRAPHICS (text games not withstanding ) so its a meaningless label.
Nonetheless, when it was used, I, and many other like-minded gamers, knew what it meant.

Maybe shortening the term to 'Adventure' is were everybody went wrong.

I still stand by what I said about basic 'Adventure' game design, and how it has remained more or less the same, regardless of technological or interface evolution.

Pointing an arrow with a mouse, guiding a character with a joypad and pressing 'x' when he or she is standing next to hotspot, typing 'Go North' and 'Unlock Door', its all interchangable. I believe, and I know you'll correct me if I'm wrong , that Grim Fandango could be played with an AGI interface, without having to change any of the puzzles. Or as a Text Adventure? Doesn't this add resonance to my 'Basic Adventure Game Design' theory?

Maybe, in the beginning, I made a mistake with "if you remove the point-and click aspect COMPLETELY does it still make it an adventure game". Maybe what I should have said was:

If you remove too many of the Basic Adventure Game Elements, when does it become something else?

Or have I just made it worse?

[MrColossal]

What I can agree with, there is a similarity between certain text adventures and graphical adventures that you could lump together and go "This is how you make a certain type of adventure game."

However, there are still many many many ways to explore the adventure game arena than we have explored so far. If people limit themselves to copying the way LA or Sierra or whatever did adventure games then they aren't doing the adventure genre any favours, in my opinion.

Also remember, back in the day Sierra AGI games were sold as "3D!" so...

While I agree with some things you say now it is only because you have changed what you're saying. You don't mention that point and click is the definition of adventure game anymore but now say that the various ways of interacting with the environment in old adventure games are similar, this I can agree with.

"If you remove too many of the Basic Adventure Game Elements, when does it become something else?"

In my opinion, this depends on each individual person playing the game. If you remove the inventory and the character interaction and the environment interaction is it still an adventure game? Some people say no, some people say Myst. Who knows, I'm not to worried about when a game changes from adventure game to adventure/RPG or adventure/FPS, I'm more worried when a game changes from good to horribly bad [i.e. Myst]

[dgunpluggered]

quote]

Which is why you should stop being stubborn and accept the fact that Grim Fandango isn't point'n'click.

You don't point to anything in Grim Fandango. You don't click on anything in Grim Fandango. There's no cursor. And no, Manny is not a cursor with a 3D model wrapped around it, as you've previously said. Manny is what's known as an avatar, which is something seperate from a cursor.

Read this article to understand what point and click actually means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_and_click

You'll find this exact same definition in many encyclopedias across the web.

Take note this part:

"The use of this phrase to describe software implies that the interface can be controlled solely through the mouse, with little or no input from the keyboard, as with many graphical user interfaces."

There's no mouse control in the gaming world of Grim Fandango. As proof, it clearly says in the game's readme:

Mouse Support
-------------
There is no mouse support in this game.

I mean, why call something one thing when it's clearly not? I can understand your theory of "Basic Adventure Game Elements" (even though I don't agree with most of it), and you're probably confusing it by defining everything graphical as solely "point'n'click", but Grim Fandango is not point'n'click, and I've shown why above. It doesn't matter how much you warp the logic around the fundamentals of adventure games, the truth is that Grim Fandano is not a point and click.

[Cerulean]

I know a lot of point-and-click games that are about getting three objects of the same color in a row.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

LimpingFish, I'm afraid you've gotten your conventions all mixed up. The labels are rather meaningless, yes, but nonetheless, they continue to represent a certain kind of genre.

Text adventure, aka Interactive Fiction, aka Adventure
Text games. The 1st label is the most correct one, though that makes even an ASCII version of Tetris (I've seen one, for the Z-Machine) a text adventure. But it's the 3rd that's widely used now, even though EVERY game out there that has a story is interactive fiction.

RPG
Role PLaying games? Come on, again EVERY game that has a main character is an RPG, if it means stepping into the shoes of a character. Really, all adventure games - PER such definition - are RPGs.

Adventure games, aka graphic adventures
Used to be the first games to tell a story - not so any longer. They're more for the thinkers than the bashers, for the most part. Many other genres have taken something from adventure games nowadays. Which makes them pioneers. But I digress.

My point is twofold.

A) Labels aren't always literal. Especially in this case, as you've seen. Back to a couple of previous points, we all know Loom is an adventure, though it has no inventory; and Myst is an adventure, though it has no characters; and Grim Fandango is an adventure, though it has no inventory interaction; and Quest for Glory is an adventure, even though it's also an RPG; and Shannara is completely an adventure with NO RPG, even though it HAS combat. And System Shock 2 is a masterpiece with little bit of everything. By mixing up labels, all you'll get is a headache and incomunicability (I think I just made that word up ).

B) Point and click is a SUBGENRE. Deal with it. (EDIT - scratched it out, since the following reply is right - though I did not mean for the expression to be taken harshly, that's the way it was taken) It's like saying 1st-person or 3rd-person. A technical aspect of the game, nothing more. I understand your point, but you're saying the genre is called "adventure, graphic adventure or point and click adventure". Not so. While point and click has characterised the genre for a looong time now, the genre started without it (text parser) and is now moving away from it in some instances (Broken Sword 3, Grim Fandango).

[LimpingFish]

We are going around in circles.... :

I accept all of your opinions on what we are discussing here, but by telling someone to "Deal with it" or "Get over it" adds nothing to the 'debate .

Why do you refuse to entertain my theory that, by moving Manny with the cursor keys, and pressing Return when he stands in front of something interactive, is more or less the same core dynamic as directing Guybrush with a cursor.

I am well versed in the definitions of game design, thank you , spending most of my academic days in boring lectures on 'The Importance Of Player Indentification' and
'When To Allow Freeform Manifests', so pointing me towards any papers or essays on the subject would only detract from my otherwise enjoyable day

You talk of Grim Fandango as some sort of apex of Adventure game design. Its most important achievment, from a interactive standpoint, was convincing the player that he or she had some kind of new lease of freedom over controlling the main character. They didn't. It was a simple substitution of interface.

I hate the word 'Avatar'. The group of pixels I controlled in "Space Invaders" was an 'Avatar', 'Sonic The Hedgehog' is an 'Avatar'. Back in the day, we used to refer to our character on screen as our 'Sprite'. I wasn't disputing the fact that in Grim Fandango I was directly controlling my 'Avatar' rather than a cursor.

I loved, and still do love, Grim Fandango. It was by far the best of the LucasArts Adventures. But I also realize just how much of the games that came before it reside under its 'New' interface.

Manny is the 'cursor'. I use him to 'point' at an interactive object. I press 'Return' and get a predefined reaction. Mannys interaction in his world is limited to just that. Pointing and pressing return. It may cause him to do any number of wonderous things, but it's still just that simple at its core. It doesn't lessen my enjoyment of the game. It also doesn't detract from Tim Schafers' achievment. It's just something I feel COULD be discussed when talking aboutÃ,  Adventure Game Design.

By the way, I'm not flame-baiting, or trying to be a smart-arse. I'm just putting foward some theorys...


EDIT: LimpingFish has pulled the corncob out of his ass, and decided to retract all former statements. He now nominates this thread to be resigned to the Garden Of Eternal Ramblings (GOER) or locked, or killed horribly. He apologises to anyone he may have annoyed or enflamed with his headache inducing 'Theories'.
Agreed?