Is AGS dying the same way adventure games did?

[Iliya]

It seems that I intentionally misunderstood your point. I just found it gratuitous for you to chose marital intercourse as an example of something so unchallenging as to be pointless.

No, Ali. It's not pointless to have sex with your wife! It's pointless to make a story of it. I tried to be funny...

[Monsieur OUXX]

Are you both using some sort of parabol to say that we should marry AGS and have sex with it to revive it?

[Igor Hardy]

Meta-game puzzles are quite interesting to me - take for example the cursor puzzle at the beginning of Frantic Franko.

Wait till you see the full game and its meta-meta-puzzles.

[ThreeOhFour]

Meta-meta?

I reserve judgement until I not only see but understand this concept.

[Igor Hardy]

Meta-meta?

I reserve judgement until I not only see but understand this concept.

That simply means one level higher than the meta level.

[Saren]

I hope it's not. I have only recently discovered AGS.

[ddq]

Are you both using some sort of parabol to say that we should marry AGS and have sex with it to revive it?

AGS is underage. We should instead have sex with that chiseled Hercules of a man, Chris Jones. Mwrrrow.

[Dualnames]

I hate puzzles and i suck at making them, so take this with a pinch of salt.

Why do we need to focus on god-damn retarded same old fashioned technique of making adventure games? You know why people speculate they're dead? Cause they stopped evolving!! Cause purists and hardcore fans that bragged about finding logic on a completely retarded puzzle, are considered as geniuses in the genre! So yeah, that's why. When I first played DoTT in 2008 or 2006, I was amazed like nothing. Not by the graphics, but by the puzzles, yes they were somewhat easy, but they were so rewarding! Stop being so close-minded people!

[ThreeOhFour]

Because innovative puzzle design is a bitch. No, really, she is. She still hasn't returned that shirt she borrowed, and the cds you left at her place are now scratched beyond belief.

In order to innovate in a puzzle, you not only have to come up with a new way of presenting your gameplay, you also have to balance it and indicate it's presence and solution in a way that makes it not too obscure that you're never going to understand what the hell is going on, and not too obvious that it's not even really a puzzle anymore. With standard inventory related puzzles, we've got tons of examples of what not to do and what to do, it's easier to compare our efforts to a precedent.

Go and have another look at the Frantic Franko thread - there's a game packed full of so many twists on classic puzzle design that it's worth playing just to get a different perspective on the craft of building puzzles with unusual logic. My time spent playing the demo, however, was a blend of "This is creative stuff, there is some real potential here" and "Man, there's a lot to take in and none of it really works as I expect it to." This made it hard to get into the game; as much as I enjoyed seeing ever stranger and more unexpected twists of logic, I was held back from getting drawn in because I felt completely lost much of the time.

I think, then, that perhaps the ideal solution is not to create games absolutely *full* of totally new ideas, but to weave new ideas amongst familiar gameplay, and I think after reading the Franko thread again Igor would probably agree with me here (feel free not to). Snakes of Avalon, for example, saw a much more palatable blend of the unexpected with the familiar, and thus I enjoyed it much more, despite probably having less exciting concepts in it.

[Dualnames]

A great puzzle design example is Shifter's Box. Yeah I know. See it takes the Myst approach into a more compact and less tedious way. You visit unknown worlds and you solve puzzles.

[ThreeOhFour]

I can see the reason people compare it to Myst, however games like Riven and Myst rely on quite a bit of exploration and walking around. I managed to somehow get away with making Shifter's Box extremely linear - whilst you could travel between places whenever you wished to, you only actually needed to go backwards once in the entire game.

While this works for a short game, I think it would stick out quite noticeably in a fuller length game. I've some ideas to try at some point in the future which could be comparable to the design in !, in which I tried to give you access to a number of areas at once without the tedious walking around that bores the hell out of me in adventure games. For me, cutting down this tedious walking around time is very desirable - if only it can be done well! If we all focus on eliminating the parts of adventure games we don't like in this manner, we're bound to come up with some cool new ideas at some point.

[blueskirt]

You know why people speculate their dead? Cause they stop evolving!! Cause purists and hardcore fans that bragged about finding logic on a completely retarded puzzle are considered as geniuses in the genres!

It was more complicated than that. The death of adventure game coincided with plenty of factors: A complete change in PC owner demographic, the rise of the internet and multiplayer games, the arrival of 3D, the golden age of many, many other genres (FPS, RPG, Stealth, RTS, Turn Based Strategy, Sim games)... it's all of these factors happening at the same time that killed adventure gaming back then.

I second what you said about DOTT. That game had the best puzzles I ever seen. The only game that came close that DOTT when it comes to fun, witty and original puzzles was Time Gentlemen Please.

And I don't consider myself a purist. I am a purist in the sense that I want puzzles in my adventure games, I want adventure games that require me to turn on my brain and creativity to overcome challenges, but I don't care much if said challenges are classic items on items puzzles or new gimmicks. Go ahead and invent new gimmicks or rip off existing ones I don't really care, as long my brain is still required to progress in the game I'm fine with gimmicks, I'd even like to see more if they make new types of puzzles and stories possible.

[Igor Hardy]

I remember sitting at the ECTS thing with Marek when Charles Cecil said point and clicks were dead. I always thought that was incorrect. There is a place for the 3D adventuring market certainly, but AGS is helping p&c's thrive.

m0ds, this one is for you! Charles Cecil eats his words!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm1Ba_rdPHI

[ThreeOhFour]

Interesting video, thanks

[Dualnames]

I remember sitting at the ECTS thing with Marek when Charles Cecil said point and clicks were dead. I always thought that was incorrect. There is a place for the 3D adventuring market certainly, but AGS is helping p&c's thrive.

m0ds, this one is for you! Charles Cecil eats his words!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm1Ba_rdPHI

It happens around 5:00. IN YOUR FACE M********* !! ^__^

[Wyz]

Excellent! That really made my day

[theo]

that was an interesting little clip. Thanks for posting igor.

I wonder if people who bought the bass remake actually played it, or if it was purchased on a sheer brand recognition impulse and then simply tucked away and forgotten about (I'm asking the same about the MI remakes too). Boy, he's sitting on a couple of heavy weight brands there. I'm guessing he'll be able to sell any shite now as long as he slaps the revolution logo on top of it. That must be very tempting. Hope they don't let their fans down.

[m0ds]

I remember sitting at the ECTS thing with Marek when Charles Cecil said point and clicks were dead. I always thought that was incorrect. There is a place for the 3D adventuring market certainly, but AGS is helping p&c's thrive.

m0ds, this one is for you! Charles Cecil eats his words!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm1Ba_rdPHI

Haha, bloody brilliant! Thanks! That made my day also Really glad those words were eaten 8 years later!! Nom

And the future of Revolution sounds appealing. You can send me money personally for making Cecil think twice. By Wikipedia he actually means the long forgotten AGDzine... Oh - Is that Erin at 33 seconds? Or just a good lookalike?

Good interview.

[Snake]