Topic: What is wrong with the adventure games genre?

[Le Woltaire]

The biggest problem that I see with adventure gaming is that it is virtual.
It has nothing to do with the real existing world and it's true perceptions.
That might be the wrong thing about gaming in general.

I reached about 200.000 people with my games.
But I never really saw any player in reality.
Objectively these persons do not exist in my life and they never existed.

I can reach real persons and adventures in my daily life as a practicing architect.
I saw people dying on constructions sites, cheating for money,
workers going into jail because they tried to beat each other up,
corrupt politicians, great successes, big failures and so on...

That's the real adventure after all...
And it is not a game...
Virtual worlds seem to kill reality and want to make us dull.
They create wrong dopamine paths and are often a vortex of no return for the users.

Ron Gilbert was the first developer to warn about this development in the outro of Monkey Island 2,
when he gave the players an instruction about what they could do else instead of playing a computer game.
Later he told Tim Schaefer on YouTube that Monkey Island 2 "is just a stupid computer game".

[Crimson Wizard]

The biggest problem that I see with adventure gaming is that it is virtual.
It has nothing to do with the real existing world and it's true perceptions.
That might be the wrong thing about gaming in general.

Hey, but I can tell the same about books. They let you live through someone elses stories instead of doing your own. Is not it?
I guess, escapism did not start with videogames.



Trying to speak more in topic, I can only do so from player's perspective, and it came to me recently that except common lack of replayability, there is another thing that makes adventure games special, sometimes in negative way.

I do not know what term to use here, thus I will describe it.
In most games, whether they be action games, puzzles or strategies, you learn game elements and mechanics, which let you to later recognize patterns and rationally find a solution to solve more and more complicated tasks.

In adventure games, however, there is rarely such thing, and when there is - it stands out so much that may became a trademark of a game series*. Aside from most elementary actions (move mouse here, click, move there, click) there is not often something that repeats itself, preparing players for more difficult situations.

For example, in many action games the common pattern is finding weak spot of the "boss". Once you got it first few times you already know what to look for in the future encounters.
In adventures, instead of learning useful patterns, players learn a lot of boring and uninteresting ones: click through every dialog option, use every item on every other item, and so on.
Often this is a result of the lack of consistency and rationale in the game script. Game authors may be not far-thinking enough, or too lazy to create a gameplay system. Game becomes trial and error, where players, instead of thinking of reasonable ways to solve a puzzle, are trying to guess what was in the authors mind when they created the game**. Sometimes they may do so instinctively, because they learnt to not trust author's rationale.

* On example I can think about is MI's swordfights. Also, in the same MI series there was a feature of "reproducing previously met puzzle, but this time using substitute items".
** Of course, I am not talking about every single adventure game out there, but this is the general feeling I have about the genre.

[KyriakosCH]

^And a book/story is far less directly allowing for the player/reader to do anything. I had issues with adapting my own storywork as an adventure game. Eg the one i ended finishing (the Chrysalis) is quite different than my story it was adapted from, although the main story is the same.
The difference is due to needing to have something to 'play', which is actually a burden in the story, cause you don't want to have emptyness or allow for needless movement by the reader, while in the game you have to include the ability to just wander around while trying to figure what you can do.

I did try to not make my own first game be too much like a story set progression, although it is still a balance

[Le Woltaire]

Hey, but I can tell the same about books. They let you live through someone elses stories instead of doing your own. Is not it?
I guess, escapism did not start with videogames.

I think it is more a theme about haptics.
Certain media try do eliminate a complex usage of the hand.
But the human brain developed through the usage of the hand.
This was the first step of human evolution.

If one eliminates the usage of the hand, he eliminates the productive sites of the brain.
The adventure game genre has eliminated the haptic question for sure from the beginning.
Point&Click is a reduction to keyboard and mouse.
Most working places have developed into this type of situation.

The most complex way to train your haptic abilities is to play an instrument and make music.
Another example given: Why should one read or write a book about Kung-Fu or make a game about it.
The next Kung-Fu school is probably right around the corner.

The only reason why adventure gaming would make sense nowadays is in order to warn and remind players,
of what is going on in real world and motivate them to become more active.
So if the adventure game confronts the player with what he really is or became,
it basically does the job.

The problem is that most adventure games are drifting into a feel-good direction.
And those who do not usually drift into pseudo-intellectual manierism or are simply just remakes.
There is a similar developement in movie industry.

[Mr Underhill]

I agree that in today's insane market your point and click should have at least one extra hook other than being the genre itself. Good examples: I find Dave Gilbert's approach of trying to dissociate his games from the idea of "oldschool" a viable direction. One that I'm not personally following - heck, a lot of our kickstarter success was based on selling it as a loveletter to Lucas Arts 90s games, which it really is - but, again, viable approach - sell what is essentially point and click as a modern experience. And that's just the thing, put a spin on it. The way your frame your pitch to the world is very, very important.

If you're in it to earn your daily bread, you HAVE to be creative about it. Here's one idea (that I'm desperately hoping will work for our game): tie your creation into something that already exists; something bigger and maybe a bit more popular than what a couple of niche forums on the internet are all about.

I know we're all in it for the love and not the super-widespread appeal, but it really, really helps if there's a connection between your game and any kind of cultural phenomenon that has mainstream appeal. Obviously, it shouldn't be forced. When creating art, none of us are really starting from scratch, but rather smashing things that we love together and then sifting them through our personal filter. In my case, it was stuff like Lucas Arts games, cats, and the Cthulhu mythos. The latter is a pretty darn' popular phenomenon to be connected to - maybe too popular sometimes, to the point of people going "Cthulhu AGAIN?" - But if it's coming from a place of honesty and passion, yeah, why the hell not? And that's just one example. I'm not saying rip off well-known media or ride a trend for the sake of it; just find something you and a heck of a lot more people have in common and enjoy, and try building in that direction.

Yes, we're all making what is ultimately antiquated (mechanically, at least) games, but sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending it's not 2018 and just trying to remake (not literally) Monkey Island or Kings's Quest - unless you're their original creator - is not going to cut it. You ignore the zeitgeist at your own risk, and you're risking enough by making an adventure game already. Working in a vacuum is a bad, bad, bad idea. You should be up to date with where indie games in general are constantly.

And, last but not least, echoing the sentiment about keeping in touch with your audience and constantly reminding them that you exist. Yes, trying to make a game and at the same time remembering to tweet, post to facebook, stream on twitch daily and talk to your (future/potential) fans on discord can be super time consuming, but 100% worth it, especially if it's your first game and not a lot of people know who you are. You simply can't just put your game up on the internet, even on Steam, and expect anyone to discover it or care, regardless of the effort you've put into the product itself.

And that's my 2 Eurocents Captain Obvious rant. Fingers crossed for everyone in this thread and their games.

[Le Woltaire]

My conclusion is that the problem is not the adventure game genre.
It is the mouse and input device driven game play and the morphology that does not allow
the full perception of the games possiblilities.

The real future of adventure gaming can be found in the holodeck.
As soon as a holodeck is possible where people can life their adventure truly,
any computer based game will not make sense anymore.

So we theorically should focus on the developement and usage of a holodeck engine.
That's the one and only way into future.

[Danvzare]

• We live in a society where attention spans are very low.

I hate it when people say this. Attention spans were much lower when I was a kid than they are now.

Back when I was a kid, you would play a game for about fifteen minutes, maybe an hour at most, then switch to another game. Usually going through about ten games in a day if not more, and eventually returning to those games the next day. Nowadays though, people play the same game (and no other) for months, even years. Plenty of people are still playing Breath of the Wild, and that game came out a year ago.
Games are now starting to be marketed more as services than products, with a constant stream of updates and DLC, to keep you invested and playing. If attention spans were lower than ever, then that business strategy wouldn't be working.
I mean, just look at Minecraft! That game came out years ago, and it's still very relevant with loads of people still playing it!

Attention spans are very VERY high nowadays. Much higher than they were when I was a kid. But all anyone ever does is talk like an old man saying things like "Back in my day kids used to talk to each other!" Not realizing that people probably do that much more now than they had ever done before (after all, what do you think they're doing on those phones of theirs).

[Crimson Wizard]

My conclusion is that the problem is not the adventure game genre.
It is the mouse and input device driven game play and the morphology that does not allow
the full perception of the games possiblilities.

The real future of adventure gaming can be found in the holodeck.
As soon as a holodeck is possible where people can life their adventure truly,
any computer based game will not make sense anymore.

Okay, but simply having a device won't automatically make games interesting. Someone still needs to program it, therefore same game design issues will be met.

BTW, I do not know if other countries have this, in Russia a new entertainment industry appeared in last several years, which gives you a "real life" adventure in a limited enviroment, with something similar to "escape the room" tasks.
EDIT: Probably like this: http://www.upout.com/blog/san-francisco-3/4-real-life-adventure-games-to-play-in-the-bay-area

[Dave Gilbert]

For what it's worth, I've been supporting my family off of making/publishing/selling adventure games for 12 years. I am well aware there was a LOT of luck at play in getting us to where we are, but if the genre was truly "dead", we'd have been on the street a long time ago. Or, heaven forbid, I'd have had to get a real job.

[Snarky]

OK, everyone who went straight to look up Danvzare's age and then smiled a little raise your hand.

Le Woltaire! Good to see you around!

[Chicky]

• We live in a society where attention spans are very low.

I hate it when people say this. Attention spans were much lower when I was a kid than they are now.

Back when I was a kid, you would play a game for about fifteen minutes, maybe an hour at most, then switch to another game. Usually going through about ten games in a day if not more, and eventually returning to those games the next day. Nowadays though, people play the same game (and no other) for months, even years. Plenty of people are still playing Breath of the Wild, and that game came out a year ago.
Games are now starting to be marketed more as services than products, with a constant stream of updates and DLC, to keep you invested and playing. If attention spans were lower than ever, then that business strategy wouldn't be working.
I mean, just look at Minecraft! That game came out years ago, and it's still very relevant with loads of people still playing it!

Attention spans are very VERY high nowadays. Much higher than they were when I was a kid. But all anyone ever does is talk like an old man saying things like "Back in my day kids used to talk to each other!" Not realizing that people probably do that much more now than they had ever done before (after all, what do you think they're doing on those phones of theirs).

An open world RPG with platforming elements is just about as far away as you can get from a point and click, my comments were in relation to the topic.

Sure people play BotW for a long time, any time the player is stuck (having trouble completing the shrine puzzles or mini-bosses) they can just walk away and do a plethora of other tasks. That's exactly the reason it's so popular, there are so many choices of where to go and what to do - hence the buzzword 'open world'.

Adventure games (in the traditional PnC sense) are very linear and have little opportunity for doing other things when the player is presented with a block in progression, they require persistence from the player that is often missing from modern titles.

Maybe we come from different backgrounds, when I was a kid we did not have 10 games available to us in one day!

[m0ds]

For what it's worth, I've been supporting my family off of making/publishing/selling adventure games for 12 years. I am well aware there was a LOT of luck at play in getting us to where we are, but if the genre was truly "dead", we'd have been on the street a long time ago. Or, heaven forbid, I'd have had to get a real job.

I am glad for you, but I do often feel there's a little nativity with this comment every time it comes up. The gods perhaps smiled down on you Dave, because you are about the only person this applies to, and it cannot be applied anywhere else. You are part of an exclusive minority. The only other point and click's that have probably matched that are Fran Bow and Thimbleweed Park, and we're talking the last DECADE there. People's who had strong reputations like the Shadow Tor guy and Augusta Cordes seem to have diminished exponentially. And what about Ragnar Tournquist, wasn't he/isn't he still a big name for the p&c genre? Luckily, you've found one of the largest waves out there and you're still riding it, to the point it might trigger a national alarm in Hawaii... But these waves are far and few between.

Let's say you left AGS. There would not be any other Dave Gilbert here. No-one even close in terms of reputation and market share (see below). Francisco may be the next best thing and then who, slasher? AnasAbdin and his popular but unreleased game? Maybe one of the runaway non-p&c's like Cart Life, or at a push a growing p&c developer like JSH. Basically whilst the equation certainly and undeniably applies to you it just doesn't seem to apply anywhere else, from p&c's in this engine and p&c's across the wider spectrum. In the last 5 years the only p&c makers to both cover family costs AND improve their standing (ie an office or multiple employees) at least in an audible manner are you and Fran Bow  (you know a lot more devs, maybe you know better on this point). We could include Skygoblin but that seems to be through sheer determination and not profits. Other folks scraping success are only doing so cos they're reaching their 2nd or 3rd creation. Similar for yourself, if you had left it at 1 game I'm sure your tune would be very different. Folks going for the "one hit wonder" point and click are doomed from the outset. You damn well best have a game plan beyond one p&c game to even stand a chance (at paying your own bills let alone the rest of your families lol).

WEG in a way, and I don't mean any disrespect, is a bit of a point & click black hole. All the media outlets and fans get sucked into the WEG point and click event horizon and don't really find their way out. Look at any comment here, 90% of them come with "Dave Gilbert" written alongside it. Sure they seem to dip in and out of other games but they don't seem to hold up anyone elses luck, reputation or stature in the P&C genre. But in a way, it's almost like sucking up a very finite universe. It's hard to describe but I guess the best mundane way would be "market share". You have a very high market share, and there is only so much point & click market to go around, so everyone else only gets a very tiny piece, if any. We've reached a point where some p&c folk won't play games other than WEG games, or where they will compare every other p&c to WEG titles. Like I say, black hole (it's not your fault tho lol, it was sort of inevitable because someone needed to fill the missing sierra/lucasarts gap that was present). But now we know, once that gap is filled there isn't much room for anything more/else in this genre. Not to say that leads to failure for everyone else or anything, we all know this is a niche, we all know the hole has never been very big regardless.

This is no-one's fault. Certainly, you built up your reputation and no-one can take that away from you or anyone else in a similar position (ie Ron Gilbert's). It just means the rest of us have to work extra hard for even that little bit of market share. To have a similar market share as you not even "extra hard" cuts it. I honestly think you'd need to start from the bottom again to understand this and how difficult the market has become, regardless of being dead or alive, because your 12 years experience have had a different path & outcome to most other modern p&c developers. You're the only (indie) p&c dev that RPS and PC Gamer will cover for example, and that has a direct effect on market share, and as we all know, that was down to who you knew moreso than what you knew. And that's sort of the sad truth for p&c devs, if you don't have friends in high places then you can sort of get fucked having any of the already small market share. All that said though I do go back to my original point of making good games with good stories and that market share will open up to you, and that must be why you Dave have found a big portion of it. The strength of the design and story is going to herald the longevity of a popular title, not the marketing strategy. But here we are in 2018, and not even you want to do a straight point n click anymore lol

ps. Good points Chicky! 'Fraid I'd tend to agree about attention spans. They aren't what they used to be. Maybe attention span isn't the right word, maybe it's more along the lines of "throwaway culture". Everything is disposable now. That game you bought for 50p on Steam? well who cares if you never get round to it, it was a disposable 50p. Spend 29.99 and you're gonna play that son' bitch. My "tell" for attention spans are mobile phones. The people that constantly need to check their phone have a low attention span. People who own a phone but never get it out to "check", and I mean literally just "check" if anything about it has changed (on their screen) they probably have a higher attention span. I'm pretty sure if you had 2 people, one of whom checks their phone every 5 minutes and the other who checks it every 2 hours, and then you had them undertake a task like build a model kit that requires patience & typically takes 4 hours or so, the former would flounder early and the latter would be more likely to see it through.

[Le Woltaire]

Okay, but simply having a device won't automatically make games interesting. Someone still needs to program it, therefore same game design issues will be met.

BTW, I do not know if other countries have this, in Russia a new entertainment industry appeared in last several years, which gives you a "real life" adventure in a limited enviroment, with something similar to "escape the room" tasks.
EDIT: Probably like this: http://www.upout.com/blog/san-francisco-3/4-real-life-adventure-games-to-play-in-the-bay-area

Definitely. But the design issues will be contemporary at least.
Or if they would be done today they would be the work of a pioneer.
And they will include much more dimensions.

The AGS Design issues are very conservative.
Take a engine like Unity for example which is basically free.
The possiblities are contemporary and not totally retro.

My position always was, as long as AGS does not understand basic contemporary formats
it is and remains an uncomplete conservative thing that will be forgotten sooner or later and therefore a time waster.

- I proposed the support of vector based file formats. (2D at least)
- I proposed a deep understanding of 3d max and maja files and characters with animation support.
- I proposed subpixel rendering for scaled sprite movements.

None of these important steps has been realized in the past 10 years...
That's not a real developement after all...
There is no progression.

After all tradition is based on progression.
it comes from the latin word "Tradere" and means "develope, trade, progress"...

[Crimson Wizard]

EDIT:
Sorry, I spent about an hour composing an answer to Le Woltaire, and editing this post, but then decided to completely abandon it. I do not really see how all that is relevant to the topic author's question.
I have nothing else to submit here at the moment.

- I proposed the support of vector based file formats. (2D at least)
- I proposed a deep understanding of 3d max and maja files and characters with animation support.
- I proposed subpixel rendering for scaled sprite movements.

None of these important steps has been realized in the past 10 years...
That's not a real developement after all...
There is no progression.

No wonder there was no progression. Everyone was proposing, but who was to do all the actual work???!!!

[Monsieur OUXX]

Here's my thoughts on the matter.

Let's look at this objectively:

• The gaming industry is 100x larger than it was in the 80s/90s. This is considering the industry as a whole, including those casual gamers playing titles on mobile devices.
• A very small percentage of that number are those who 'grew up' with point and click adventures.
• A larger industry means more potential for sales, also more potential to get lost in the crowd of new releases.
• We live in a society where attention spans are very low.
• The core gameplay (or player interaction) of a point and click is driven by puzzles, something that requires a lot of patience and commitment from the player.
• The majority of popular mobile and AAA games require little to zero effort from the player in regards to understanding narrative, let alone puzzles.
• Media has become increasingly gratifying with the introduction of affordable CGI and improved *dramatic* narratives in television, a large majority are not prepared to invest in slow burning narrative (see above)
• As time passes, less people are logging onto a PC when they get home. Average families favour sitting back on the sofa and playing mobile/console games, often with television running in the background.
• Due to the lack of responsive gameplay, most point and click titles can be equally enjoyed by watching Let's Play videos.
• We are in an age where most people are now used to googling problems they encounter in life, why would this be any different for puzzles in a video game?
• A great deal of Point and Click games released are 'low-res' and the work involved in creating a higher resolution game requires a large team of very talented artists.
• Low-res games are often overlooked by the larger majority of gamers and higher resolution point and click games are generally not financially viable for indie developers.
  
• Most popular low-res games will have a unique gameplay mechanic not seen in AAA titles, often skill-driven gameplay.
• The indie game market is over saturated but very healthy (and a viable option) in comparison to 10 years ago.
• There is still a very strong and dedicated community of fans of this genre, let us not forget that.
• People buy adventure games for the story, first and foremost - something that is very hard to convey in marketing media.
• Quality visuals can go a long way when promoting a game on social media, try to tie this into the story.
• People still buy adventure games.

THANK. YOU.
I was being too lazy to post this. This sums it up entirely.
Asking "what is wrong with the adventure games genre?" is like asking "what is wrong with books?" -- i.e. "why don't people read books in 2017?". Well, they do. Just not the same people, not the same books, not as many.

[Ali]

Would the ratio of AGS Developers : Wadjet Eye be significantly different to Unity Devs : Commercially Successful Unity Devs, I wonder?

[Blondbraid]

I just wanted to point out, as some have commented that it's the point and click mechanics themselves that keeps the genre from having mainstream appeal, that games like The Sims, Diablo, Age of Empires, Starcraft and most other strategy games also are controlled mostly by pointing and clicking with the mouse, but that haven't stopped those type of games from reaching a wide audience.

[Mandle]

I'll just add a small opinion here:

I think that one of the reasons we love adventure games is that feeling of having figured something out that was not immediately obvious.

That rush you got when you realized shining the flashlight on the bats in The Dig would panic them (God, I was stuck for soooo long before I suddenly remembered that Brink hates bats and that I had a way to wake them up)... Those moments are golden!

But I've watched many experienced gamers on YouTube calling adventure games the "What the fuck do I do now?" genre of games.

When the first Zelda game was pitched nobody at Nintendo understood what it was even supposed to be. It was a character standing on a screen where nothing was going on.

They asked "What happens next?" and Shigeru Miyamoto said "Nothing, until the player moves around and makes something happen."

This was unheard of! At this point games were all about the player reacting to what was happening on the screen. There was no such thing as a game where the player acts and the game reacts to that.

And now I think we have regressed a bit where a lot of the more popular games are, at their core, more player reaction than player action.

Even "open world" games often have their "quest pointers" showing you exactly where to go and a notebook system to tell you exactly what to do when you get there.

People play these "lead me by the nose" games and feel like they are on some grand adventure but really, for me at least, this is not a game. It's a movie where you have to click now and then to get it out of pause mode.

It seems more and more gamers want to be hypnotized into a zen-like state of click for the easy payoff rush as a replacement for the actual magical feeling of having figured something out for themselves. Or they are happy to watch a movie where sometimes they have to click the triangle button before the timer runs out before the next scene starts.

That all being said: An adventure game has to be really, really well designed to avoid the "figure out what the author was thinking" syndrome that others have mentioned above and only about 1 in 100 do this.

But still, I really hate the kind of games that just provide the easy fix of false achievement.

Maybe I'm just getting old and grouchy.

[C.L.I.C.K.]

Looks like we reached the "my taste is superior to your taste" stage.

But to actually add something to the discussion:
There is nothing wrong. Things getting unpopular over time is natural. Most people playing adventures now already did so when they were at their biggest, or they got into contact with them through such a person.

Crying about the unfairness of not having the audience of Call of Duty, for example, will only make you look bad.

[m0ds]

Ali: I see your point and sure there is truth in that side of the argument but feel it's some other metric at play that isn't anyones real fault outside the natural balance of the gaming universe. Like, Point & Click Adventures released : People who can tolerate playing point & click adventures. You can only fill a bottle so full until it overpours. But then there's some other metric where by its like developer acclaim : casual users who'll take a chance on that. A lot of people will take a chance on a Ron Gilbert, Dave Gilbert, anyone Gilbert game in the p&c world. Less so than with something by an unheard of Something Studio-tainment. unless of course, they hit it out of the park. then they're back to the first metric of how full the bottle is to accommodate their great game, when the bottle is brimming with WEG-ola Maybe I'm not seeing the bigger picture. What I see is WEG and Daedalic as the like big 2 at the moment and everyone else is sort of doing one-offs and the more persistent devs who are releasing more often than not are not really breaking through exposure wise, possibly due to full bottle theory, possibly due to other things (making games like Space Quest 3 remake). Maybe knowing or not knowing John Walker's (see Rem, I went there again!) and stuff like that. The variables aligned for Dave and for most others they just don't, lol. I hope to be proven wrong! But where should I be looking for that proof? Point n clicks being released every day just about, yet any noise about them outside of point n click communities comes once in a blue moon.

But you could say I had a blackwell epiphany. We have all kinds of great storytellers. These games potentially limit designers and their great stories. So you've got to link, connect with, the best device for your story. Dave stories, when told through the point and click medium, show that connection. It's the case for a lot of other developers too, but not all of them. For me, I need cameras to tell my stories, which is why Unity is far more me and my storytelling connected. When that connection isn't there, it's not subtle, it's hugely obvious. Because then you just have a spreadsheet with pictures, basically. One of the boxes in the spreadsheet describes the back end of a space-ship Space Quest 3 remake in the thread as an example, didn't marry that storytelling with its perfect device. It DID back in the 80's or whenever, but the remake didn't work quite in the same way (for slightly different reasons though, as it didn't come from the actual original writer, I assume). Some p&c's are the perfect way for that story to be told. Some have stories in them but it wasn't the right way to tell/deliver that story for it to be very memorable one etc. So if the original question is "why doesn't this get attention" my personal answer is "was it the right choice in the first place" lol.

edit: actually, I've just had a blackwell convergence. You need to know someone with AAA journalism output or you need to know YouTubers with AAA subscriber numbers. Then you're sorted. That's where I have and can find/see proof, from our own catalogue. If you have an in with any of those, then your popularity/success whatever, is going to be increased. The problem is, getting either of those to play a point & click is somewhat hard. Maybe they are the problem With all that said, NOT having mass appeal might actually spare some people their sanity. If your game sold like wildfire, then that means your customer support is going to be battered like wild fire, pressure and demand will be there. A bit like a screenwriter wouldn't exactly want the entire film's problems dumped on them, a decent point and click storyteller might respect having a tamed audience. Lots of variables, each of them interesting in their own way, some good, some bad. Some of them that favour telling stories over making money, some vice versa I suppose. Never a dull moment..!