What makes an adventure game Great...

[Joseph]

I was wondering your thoughts on what exacly makes a point and click adventure game...Great.

What kinds of things must be present...and absent...so that while you are playing you are totally immersed...and when you finish you just want to play it again and again!?

I was thinking one of the things that is a "must" is the choice of music, for example. What I personally hate are puzzles that are too linear...like only 1 way to solve a puzzle. I also am a fan of dying in a game cause it can give "tension" if you never know whts going to happen. I hate the fact some games dont "kill you", it kills the "tension" (in my opinion).

Care to post your thoughts? It would be interesting to have people's opinions on this!

[JpSoft]

I dont like dead-ends, and probably, the most important thing for me are the dialogs.

E

[Radiant]

Atmosphere is good.

For me, what is also important is replayability. An excellent example is the Fate of Atlantis, with its different paths, or Maniac Mansion with its different combinations of kids you can use. Other than those I rarely find a reason to play any adventure game a second time (although I realize that's a matter of taste, of course).

Also, a lack of such things as pixel hunts and nonsensical puzzles, because those can really ruin the gameplay. Interestingly, dead ends are a big NO in graphical adventures, but aren't nearly as bad in text adventures, presumably because it's much faster to retrace your steps in those.

[MoodyBlues]

Yeah, atmosphere is a big one for me, too.  I can forgive iffy puzzle design if I feel immersed in a game.  To create a good atmosphere, ambient sounds are key; they tell you there's a world outside of what you're immediately doing.

That said, puzzles are important and should be logical.  I don't mind if they're fairly obvious since the world needs games of all difficulty levels.  However, puzzles should not be difficult because of their obscurity; random clickfests are not fun.

Also, hotspots shouldn't be too small.  I played a game recently where I had the solution to the puzzle (use main board on computer), but I had trouble using the item on something because I wasn't clicking the right spot (the friggin' keyboard).  ARGH.

[zabnat]

Graphics, sound and music have to be good enough. Story and the flow are important for me. Flow means that puzzles shouldn't be too hard for me (I'm not very good at puzzles) so I can follow the story in good pace. GUI should be one that is not needed, I don't want to control the GUI to control the game, I want to control the game. So if there are more actions there should be keyboard shortcuts for them.

[Krazy]

Obviously a good story and good writing are probably the most paramount things I can think of. Nice graphics, music and voice acting to enhance the atmosphere and immersion are definitely a plus.

I think that puzzles should be organic to a games overall story design and every puzzle you solve should feel like a real step forward. I think puzzles should be clever and challenging enough to the player without feeling unfair. Day of The Tentacle is one of the best examples of puzzle design I can think of, the whole game fits together so perfectly and the puzzles are all fair and logical without being hair pullingly frustrating.

I am not a fan of dead ends, or deaths that don't allow you to restart from just before you died. I really only ever like the adventure game death when its used for humorous effect such as in Leisure Suit Larry 6.

I think that's another thing that I think is really important, a good sense of humour. Even in "serious" games, I think it's still important to give your game a sense of humanity with a good dose of humour.

[Vince Twelve]

Nudity, mostly.

[SSH]

Having someone called Gilbert involved in their production... 

[Igor Hardy]

Voice talent.

[Privateer Puddin']

Nudity, mostly.

Excellent, my game is awesome twice then so far!

[Nikolas]

Nudity, mostly.

So,...

Resonance will have nutidy then?

Cause I'd love to check ProgZys pixel art in nude models and stuff! 

[EliasFrost]

I personally think it's all about making the player have the biggest role in the game, letting the player do all the work, having him or her standing in the centre of the events almost all the time. Bioshock did this very well. And of course the bizarre humour.

[Greg Squire]

... I hate the fact some games dont "kill you", it kills the "tension" (in my opinion).

I feel just the opposite, I hate games that do kill you (especially when it's completely arbitrary).  It can be extremely frustrating to start completely over (especially when you are hours into the game already).  I think LucasArts had the right idea when they made their adventures a bit more "safe".

I think the main things for me that make an adventure good are: 
1) Compelling Story
2) Good art/sound/music/voices
3) Challenging puzzles (but not insanely hard or ridiculous stuff like killing the troll with a rubber duck), and lastly
4) Having a good hint system (so you don't have to look up walkthroughs).

[cosmicr]

original story and rewarding gameplay.

[miguel]

Boobs will help. Lots of it.

[DutchMarco]

I'd choose aesthetic appeal because I found that that's what drwe me into DOTT and FoA, But thinking about it a little more, I thikn some untangible things like atmosphere and good puzzles (challenging but solvable - DOTT again), I'd like to point out that I really enjoyed the vaccuum - a game with minimalist rgaphics, but nevertheless they worked real well, and I enjoyed playing the game - until I ran into a puzzle that I couldn't solve. I'm affraid to say I ended up quitting shortly thereafter. I found I couldn't even solve the game by going bak a few saves  - the way it was made (which was kinda cool), was thateven small decisions filtered through in a big way. - And I had made the wrong decisions - so I'd have to replay from the beginning - I didn't want to.

And I agree that Boobs will help - but they won't salvage a bad game, esp. not if they're too low-res

[Vince Twelve]

Nudity, mostly.

So,...

Resonance will have nutidy then?

Cause I'd love to check ProgZys pixel art in nude models and stuff! 

I just saw this post.  And actually, yes, there will be nudity in Resonance.

[Anian]

Can I direct this topic a bit in one direction I was pondering about a few days ago:
What makes a horror adventure game great??

What is it that's scary when it's on the screen? Cheap scares (like somebody jumping up from behind you), gore (body parts etc.), solitude mixed helpless characters (most japanese games are kinda like that) or maybe even pure atmosphere (just music, sounds and sights) of not knowing what is "out there"... Which of those elements make for a good horror adventure? Actually I think movies are best at making a good horror piece, but it is a mixed bag, on the other hand books and written stuff doesn't do it for me, it can make me turn pages faster, but rarely do I feel something more.
Adventure (and I really think it's the only way it can be done good, cause it's just not so much of a horror game if you're a badass marine with an assault rifle) horror games are kinda hard to make though...well make them so they're still "fun" to play and not be too frustrating or too hard. For example I always like to avoid timed events but they're kinda one of the main effective and easy solution for instant adrenaline rush, but in my game I would probably make them a cutscene (like a monster is coming so a cutscene shows that you hid somewhere). My favourites are where you just have a presence of something evil but you don't need to actually see it.
What kind of puzzles and the amount of graphic violence is most cool?

So any other thoughts on that?

EDIT: One thing I would avoid, that I hate in movies, although it is one more of the things that's easy to use for plot - characters do something that would be a good thing, like barricade, but then someone freaks out and spoils everything, or somebody gets bitten by a zombie but doesn't tell anyone about that until of course it's too late. Always felt that was a cheap way out. Soooo many more cliches like that though.

[Babar]

Actually, it is kind of the opposite for me...I don't remember ever being scared while watching a "horror" movie, but there's been a couple of times while reading a book that I've felt fear (although even that is pretty rare). Who knows, perhaps I've been watching the wrong movies?

I'm not really fond of horror adventure games either, mostly because they don't work for me. After playing 5000 other games with the "blood-spattered carpet", that just doesn't work for me. It didn't work for me the first time.
Random scraps of paper/computer notes/memories that you find throughout the gameworld, (usually completely irrelevant to the gameplay) chronicling gradual dementia is another ploy that has grown old.
Grisly blood-soaked, garishly nude people? No, I've grown jaded to that.

Heck, it is usually the same ploys they use with movies (although movies include a couple of their own special ploys such as the camera creeping behind the protagonist along with ominous music).

In fact, if anyone has any suggestions to a good horror movie, something with more than cheap "Booh!" scares, then please tell me!

[blueskirt]

I feel just the opposite, I hate games that do kill you (especially when it's completely arbitrary).  It can be extremely frustrating to start completely over (especially when you are hours into the game already).  I think LucasArts had the right idea when they made their adventures a bit more "safe".

But arbitrary deaths are different from logical deaths. It's one thing to die by falling from every cliffs or while interacting with an unthreatening object, it's another to get killed by a monster in a haunted house or while you are snooping around in an area full of armed bad guys. There are situations in games where getting killed is perfectly logical, and not getting killed would ruin the mood completly. Even LucasArts killed you in Fate of Atlantis when it was necessary.

Also, bundled with funny animations and death messages, arbitrary deaths can be a feature. Throw in a "Try Again" button and players will find themselves searching for new ways to die to see what happen. Death in adventure games can be good or bad, it's just a matter of how it is implemented and foreshadowed.

What kind of puzzles and the amount of graphic violence is most cool?

Graphical violence? Not a lot. With horror games I find that the promise of gore is far more effective than the gore itself. Just set the right mood, the right atmosphere, and when the monster start chasing you, your imagination will do the rest. The best way to ruin the horror out of a game is to just freeze anytime something potentially lethal can happen to you and watch what happen. The next time you will play the scene, the scare will be gone. Surprises or unexpected events are far more effective than gore. Even better would if they could be randomly generated at the start of the game so each time you replay a game you can potentially be surprised. And once again, with the right mood and atmosphere, the promise of surprises can be more effective than surprises themselves.

A second thing I found that scare the crap out of me in horror games is when I don't know beforehand that they are horror games. Generally, the games that scared me the most were game that started with a pretty normal, ordinary, light-hearted atmosphere and gradually shifted toward spooky, horror territory.

Being helpless also greatly help. Give me big guns and smooth responsive controls and I'll just blast my way through anything spooky. Give me no weapon, or weapons bundled with clunky control schemes and I'll certainly think twice everytime an enemy appears.