Who killed Point and Click Adventure games? The Butler did it!

[the game hackademic]

Dave Gilbert and his team recent success not only proves him wrong but also shows that he doesn't play adventure games since maybe the games he speaks about.

The story best suited for the puzzle game genre would be detective games such as Sherlock Holmes and the Rose Tattoo.

A point-and-click adventure game, in The Shivah players assume the role of Rabbi Russell Stone, who is visited by the police and informed that a murdered ex-member of his dilapidated New York synagogue has bequeathed him a large sum of money. Puzzled that a man with whom he had fallen out many years before had given him money, Rabbi Stone sets out to clear his name and investigate the murder. This aspect of the game follows the "cleric as private investigator" theme of the Father Dowling mysteries.

A prequel to Legacy, Unbound follows the investigations of Joey Mallone again, this time with Rosa's aunt Lauren, back in the 70s. Two apparently unconnected cases of hauntings are investigated and solved by the protagonists.

Emerald City Confidential is a 2009 computer adventure game conceived by Dave Gilbert, developed by Wadjet Eye Games and published through PlayFirst. It follows the protagonist Petra, Emerald City's only private eye,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gilbert_%28game_designer%29

If Dave Gilbert wants to prove me wrong then he should make a point and click adventure game about a boxer or a rallycar driver.

[the game hackademic]

does that ending cutscene really have such a great importance for the genre's death/weakness?

Do films that flop have an impact on the careers of those involved and the film genre itself? Kinda.

I didn't watch matrix 3 because matrix 2 sucked balls. Note the similarity to monkey island 2 with the ending.

[Dave Gilbert]

If Dave Gilbert wants to prove me wrong then he should make a point and click adventure game about a boxer or a rallycar driver.

You've lost me.  You seem to be saying that I make a lot of mystery games.  How would making a game about a boxer prove that the genre isn't dead?  Likewise, how does making a mystery adventure game prove that it is?

edit: I just spent five minutes browsing that culture.vg site you linked.  And... wow.  I haven't seen that much misogyny and homophobia on one website since the last time I last visited the rpgcodex!

[Ali]

does that ending cutscene really have such a great importance for the genre's death/weakness?

Do films that flop have an impact on the careers of those involved and the film genre itself? Kinda.

I didn't watch matrix 3 because matrix 2 sucked balls. Note the similarity to monkey island 2 with the ending.

I hate to be drawn further into this but...

By your logic, ending of Matrix 2 should have sunk all science fiction films or possibly all hollywood blockbusters.

Moreover, the Matrix 2 wasn't really a flop, you just didn't like it.

Moreover, moreover, ALL the Matrix films are rubbish.

[the game hackademic]

p.s. just out of curiosity, in your opinion, where does survival horror fit in (compass direction wise)? It has elements of action, solving puzzles, shooters etc.

This is a good point. The classification scheme ought to be able to classify all games. If it can't, then it needs so alteration, or perhaps a better explanation.

Unfortunately, I only played alone in the dark. So I can only talk about that game.

You can beat up monsters and stuff. So that pushes it north west.

You can push wardrobes to cover windows, so that is probably a puzzle, so it is south west.

The camera is fixed so that pushes it south slightly I think because it means the player has less control over how the environment changes. It also creates this feeling you are being watched but not sure what that's about.

There are some enemies that are like traps, such as a ghost of a domestic woman (will to control) who gets up and becomes this weird assed geometric ghost (will to power). This works unlike in Beneath a Steel Sky. Atmosphere is more important in these games.

I'd say this game is in the SW but definately more north than point and click adventure games.

I had a good look at that compass system. I have thought hard and can't think of one game that would just sit in one corner of it, relying on ONE of the "rules". Shooters aren't only about "action on the environment", to take an example at random. Playing a game involves not only its mechanics, story, design etc. but also how I as a player perceive the things presented. As soon as I play a game I take an active role and create my own experience. Pretty much every game I can think of would tend towards the middle of the compass and then maybe peak a bit into one direction.

For corners: SE baking a cake SW building lego according to instructions NE putting on makeup for a date NW taking a automatic rifle down to the local post office

I mean the genres just need to be relatively different. For example, watching porn is only slightly more productive and masturbatory than philosophy. So for example RPGs are in the SE section considering they are like baking cakes. But a RPG game like Grandia 2 has such an fun combat system I would say this game is pushed northward towards a strategy game compared to other RPGs.

[Ali]

For example, watching porn is only slightly more productive and masturbatory than philosophy.

Again... I know... but seriously... WHAT?

[the game hackademic]

If Dave Gilbert wants to prove me wrong then he should make a point and click adventure game about a boxer or a rallycar driver.

You've lost me.  You seem to be saying that I make a lot of mystery games.  How would making a game about a boxer prove that the genre isn't dead?  Likewise, how does making a mystery adventure game prove that it is?

In the first post I said that the adventure games have two niche genres. One is detective games where the story and lateral thinking puzzles fit together. So the answer to why didn't they keep making indiana jones point and click adventure games is because the story is better suited to a tomb raider like action game.

People are hung up on the "genre is dead" statement and keep arguing it's a zombie or it's on life support. It doesn't matter what you call it it still doesn't change the essay.

THE ESSAY SAID RPGS ARE LIKE BAKING A CAKE. REFUTE THAT PLZ

[m0ds]

Can you at least stop swearing and bringing up porn please? It adds nothing to the conversation.

[monkey0506]

Providing little to no rationale for stated claims, providing little to no actual response to stated questions which probe regarding stated claims, getting upset that people are getting "hung up" on the stated topic, and posting in all caps demanding that we all start discussing an aside as if it were the primary topic to begin with, and doing so with an oh-so-pleasant "PLZ" at the end.

Are we in agreement yet that this is clearly a troll?

Oh, and Role-Playing Games bear as much semblance to baking a cake as an apple does to a monkey wrench. Refute that, please.

[LUniqueDan]

Hail to the Troll !!!


No seriously, I agree with the style-definition issue. 3rd-person "adventure games" ARE all "Role-Playing games" by strict definition (real-life definition), and today's RPG are way more adventuresque that any qualified "adventure games".

The same reason, I beleve my fun of playing Maniac Mansion / Zak McKraken back in time has few to do with puzzle-solving and none of them were really story-driven. (Chick in basement - must save the chick | Artifact must be builted - let's built the artifact).

Now, that this had been said,
***

* m0ds tuts - please don't write that sort of thing on this board.

[Daniel Eakins]

Apparently Hackademic is icycalm AKA Alex Kierkegaard AKA Anthony Zirbas, etc., i.e. the owner of the website linked to in the first post which requires a €25/year subscription to fully view.

[LimpingFish]

Wouldn't a site such as Adventure Gamers have been a better point of impact for this opinion-bomb?

...which requires a â,¬25/year subscription to fully view.

I guess a steady income is required to maintain such levels of unbridled gobshitery.

[Ponch]

unbridled gobshitery.

I cannot wait for my first opportunity to use this in a sentence. 

[the game hackademic]

Icycalm would never refer to himself as a hack.

Also, you did not refute my RPGs are a lot like baking cakes. Clearly they are. When you bake a cake, the person who wrote the instructions is getting you to use the oven to change the cake mix to a cake. In other words, this is a really shitty game, which amounts to watching something change slowly. Which is what RPGs are, if you take away the story and combat. This is undeniably true. The next time you see 'final fantasy x', you will think 'final fantasy cake-mix'.

People are being pretty resentful when all I am doing is giving them the gift of knowledge. Imagine for a moment if a Greek philosopher, one of the good ones not a loser like Socrates, got in a time machine, came to our century, crammed alot of knowledge about science, then played computer games and told you a little about them. What would you do? You would resent that person for claiming he knew more about games than you, even though you had probably put zero effort in to understanding them. What does that say?

And no, I'm not a time travelling Greek philosopher, that was just an analogy. Nor am I a creature who hides under bridges and harasses goats. Can we please stop being so accusatory?

I agree about the comment about porn and swearing, but these jerk-offs need to stop this accusatory bullshit. I am not angry when I talk in all caps. My computer does not format my text according to my emotions. If it did, the text would be blue, because all this accusatory bullshit is uncalled for and making me cry. What am I, Britney Spears?

I bet you'd like my text blue. Because then you could ignore what I said, instead of reading what I said and then posting claiming that you are ignoring what I said, because you are unable to control your will to learn. You have to announce you are too cool to post in this thread? WTF sort out your will to learn and will to look cool and stop making contradictory posts which only make people cry.

Okay, let's try to get back on topic. Okay, so Mr. Gilbert made a game about a Jewish detective and it was a hit. Now, someone who hadn't read my insightful essay would think "I should make a point and click adventure game about a historian who discovers the holocaust was fake, and is hunted by rabbi assassins, because that would sell like Mr Gilberts". STOP. THINK. Should this game really be made, or should it be made as an action game? If your story was more like the movie national treasure, then a game in the SW section would be acceptable. But if your story focused on these ruthless rabbi assassins, who honed their combat skills punching palestinian children, then you should make an action game. It's about identifying niche stories for different genres.

I'm helping the community of game developers. Please open up about your resentment towards the adventure genre, instead of directing it at me.

[Scavenger]

Apparently Hackademic is icycalm AKA Alex Kierkegaard AKA Anthony Zirbas, etc., i.e. the owner of the website linked to in the first post which requires a €25/year subscription to fully view.

If this is the level of writing going on on that website, I'm pretty turned off to the idea of buying. This was a pretty poor advertisement. Rambling, incoherent text, inflammatory wording, little to no understanding of market trends or media as a whole, and arrogance that borders on hubris. It's a naive and pompous diatribe with pseudo-philosophical elements designed to obfuscate rather than illuminate. The comparison of Indiana Jones being better suited to an action game is ignorant of the (fiscal) popularity of Tomb Raider, and the failure of the Indiana Jones action games of the late eighties and early nineties.

Also, you did not refute my RPGs are a lot like baking cakes. Clearly they are. When you bake a cake, the person who wrote the instructions is getting you to use the oven to change the cake mix to a cake. In other words, this is a really shitty game, which amounts to watching something change slowly. Which is what RPGs are, if you take away the story and combat. This is undeniably true. The next time you see 'final fantasy x', you will think 'final fantasy cake-mix'.

I will refute this. It's also incoherent, but I'll try my best.

RPGs, in their purest, tabletop form, are mechanics for simulating the world. Good RPGs, like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and others, blend together the story and the mechanics to create a believable world. Bad rpgs slice the two apart, and the story and the mechanics do not complement each other, they compete. In a good RPG, you USE the mechanics to advance the story. It is... like a car and a train with a driving toy in it. Both get you to the end, but the train will continue the story with the toy amusing you through it. The car has you use what you're doing to get you there. Active vs. passive participation in the exploration of the world. Final Fantasy will take you to the end of it's story while you play a different game. Planescape: Torment will use the game to tell the story.

Your analogy is quite frankly, baffling. Cake mix would be a sandbox game, in which you use the mechanics to build a story. What you are describing, is watching paint dry.

Also, if you remove the story and the combat from a story and combat based game, of course you are left with nothing. You just took out the core of the game.

People are being pretty resentful when all I am doing is giving them the gift of knowledge. Imagine for a moment if a Greek philosopher, one of the good ones not a loser like Socrates, got in a time machine, came to our century, crammed alot of knowledge about science, then played computer games and told you a little about them. What would you do? You would resent that person for claiming he knew more about games than you, even though you had probably put zero effort in to understanding them. What does that say?

So now you imply you are a great philosopher? Okay. These greek philosophers come and play the games, and what would they think about it? They lack the necessary cultural knowledge, filmic language, game language, to fully appreciate the game. To understand a game, you need to know a lot more than "things are made of phlogiston and ash". They would probably compare it to ancient greek theatre and literature. Would they tell us more than we already know? Maybe. But would THEY be able to fully appreciate it, growing up in a culture almost completely alien to the one that produced the game? They could, if they researched everything around the game, computers in general, and narrative conventions that have changed considerably since ancient greek times, when stories were told with choruses and masks.

Now, this is nothing to do with you as a person, hackademic, but your arguements are full of holes, and they are hidden in poorly structured purple prose. You think you know more than you actually do, and you are incredibly arrogant, assuming we know less than you do and that you are some great teacher of knowledge shining the light of your incredible philosophy dow...

Okay, let's try to get back on topic. Okay, so Mr. Gilbert made a game about a Jewish detective and it was a hit. Now, someone who hadn't read my insightful essay would think "I should make a point and click adventure game about a historian who discovers the holocaust was fake, and is hunted by rabbi assassins, because that would sell like Mr Gilberts". STOP. THINK. Should this game really be made, or should it be made as an action game? If your story was more like the movie national treasure, then a game in the SW section would be acceptable. But if your story focused on these ruthless rabbi assassins, who honed their combat skills punching palestinian children, then you should make an action game. It's about identifying niche stories for different genres.

... wait, what.

[Andail]

Opening this thread again.

[miguel]

Hackademic,

I will no tell you that it's not polite (to say the least) to come into a forum that has been around for many years and tell people you are the one that really understands what adventure games are. Obviously you knew that when you first posted. And although I can tell you are an intelligent person, it would be better if you brought your thoughts and ideas on a more pleasant way.
I think you must consider yourself like the old man that came down from the mountain with all his knowledge and bombastic phrases. You know who I am talking about. I read it too.

Adventure Games aren't dead, they don't sell as much as FPS's or PES2012 because commercial interests are what gaming companies are after. But like all things in life, it can be a cycle. It just takes one good game to flip the market.
Indie game makers were never before having the commercial success they have now. It's a fact.
And what more proof do you want when the people that love the genre fight for it even knowing that making an adventure game with minimum quality is time consuming and an expensive thing to do considering the high risk.

Please, try to focus on the gaming subject, I believe people here don't want to talk about the controversial side subjects that you  pick. You must know that you will always offend somebody, even if "in the Internet, it's OK to be an idiot...".

[the game hackademic]

"in the Internet, it's OK to be an idiot...".

No, that's your excuse.

[Khris]

Guys, stop being troll bait.

[miguel]

I'm just asking you to be a nice guy. I don't need any excuses and the phrase isn't mine. I don't agree with it either.

Again, I hope you can take something out of my previous post, nobody is against a different mind around. But you know what you're doing, and it's not nice.

Khris: You're right. I'm out.