The Grand List of Adventure Game Cliches

[Saren]

I thought that this would be a fun thread!

1. There are convoluted puzzles that you have to do in order to get information/get an object. Sticky taping a cellphone to a cat, anyone? (Secret Files Tunguska)

2. You must do favours for NPCs. No, they can't just give you important information or objects vital to saving the world out of the goodness of their own hearts.

3. Walk, don't run! I have played a lot of adventure games in my time and most PCs walk painfully slowly. It drives me nuts!

[Grim]

I got one word: CROWBAR.  8)

[Igor Hardy]

Newspaper under the door + key on the other side!

[pmartin]

>Bubble gum and a paper clip is worth more than gold.

> stealing.

> "A food item. I bet it tastes so good, but for no apparent reason I'll keep it for later."

> Piece of glass

[Monsieur OUXX]

> I know exactly how to solve this puzzle! Oh but wait I have to "look at" some obscure pixel-hunty thingie FIRST. Otherwise the in-game character doesn't understand yet what he has to do.

Oh, and the second part of it :
> I've done the action that has made the character understand what he has to do, but the game hasn't made it clear to me, the player. So I never retried doing "that thing" I knew exactly would solve the puzzle.
...Out of desperation, you randomly retry after 5 hours of game -- This time it works!!!  But you don't know why. You've tried that very same action one billion times before!


(the Runaway series is doing that for a living : cracking the lab's code with fingerprints --making the monkey drunk by swapping water with alcohol -- fishing under the ice with an improvised fishing rod)

[Babar]

You know, I can't think of a single mainstream adventure game that ever used the newspaper under the door thing...perhaps I haven't played enough

But yeah...what pmartin said: KLEPTOMANIACAL  STEALING .

[Radiant]

You Can't Get Ye Flask.

[gameboy]

Things hidden under floorboards or carpets. Or behind paintings or posters.

[Igor Hardy]

> the main hero gives sarcastic remarks about every single object around him

You know, I can't think of a single mainstream adventure game that ever used the newspaper under the door thing...perhaps I haven't played enough

off the top of my head:

Alone in the Dark 2
Back to the Future
The Whispered World

[Eggie]

Also Simon The Sorcerer and one of the Zorks. I've always wanted to make a game where you escape the dungeon by accidentally stabbing a nosy guard in the eye.

> I think I can gather these ingredients from the five rooms immediately around me, but I might have to make some substitutions.
> These cigarettes use a tobacco from Morocco. TO THE AIRPORT!

[Igor Hardy]

> "Adventure" or "Quest" (or "Conquest") in the title.

[Monsieur OUXX]

> "Adventure" or "Quest" (or "Conquest") in the title.

DemoQuest 

[Babar]

> I think I can gather these ingredients from the five rooms immediately around me, but I might have to make some substitutions.

Oooh, I had forgotten about that...I think Monkey Island 2 popularised that, with the voodoo substitutions, right? Or was it 1 and the map recipe?

Seems a fairly silly puzzle idea, and it's a bit sad that it got overused so much, especially in games it did not fit..."Oh, I need an apple for this puzzle? I shall take a pineapple, and dip it in red paint!"

[Turtiathan]

I am still new to adventure games but I like the following:
- Making a makeshift gun with a metal pipe, nails, and gunpowder.
- Using chewed bubble gum to fix a broken piece of pottery.

Let's not forget the most important one.
- Wasting time trying to figure out a puzzle/problem only to find out that you missed an important item/object.

[Radiant]

Oooh, I had forgotten about that...I think Monkey Island 2 popularised that, with the voodoo substitutions, right? Or was it 1 and the map recipe?

The first (e.g. instead of using a pressed human skull, you use a flag with a skull motif).

However, the second lets you make a voodoo recipe normally early in the game, and then repeating it with substituted ingredients late in the game. That's rather clever.

To be honest I don't recall ever having a reaction like "omg, not this puzzle again", at least, not in an adventure game.

[Babar]

I noticed it in very many AGS games especially...it just seemed odd to me, someone taking a very specific puzzle from a game, and then turning it into some sort of "puzzle type" that is repeatedly applied to several games.

[Igor Hardy]

> pencil + notepad => revealing a secret message left by the villain

> people using their birthday dates as safe codes (and computer passwords) or leaving notes with the code/password lying around

[Big GC]

Your hero awakens in a strange location - begin game

Your hero has no memory - begin game

[Igor Hardy]

Your hero awakens in a strange location - begin game

Your hero has no memory - begin game

That happens even more often in other genres.

[selmiak]

Your hero awakens in a strange location - begin game

Your hero has no memory - begin game

That happens even more often in other genres.

this happenes after every good party...