How do genres evolve?

[Babar]

So this video brought back to my mind an old debate that's been going on for years, but had not happened here for a while now: "Why did adventure games die?" (the last response here being akin to 'they didn't'). I guess we can discuss that, and there may be some interesting points from that discussion, but what struck me was his reasoning: the genre (traditional graphical point and click adventures) fell out due to tired and old mechanics and unintuitive puzzles, and it seems a compelling argument: mechanically, an adventure game made 25 years ago could easily have been made today (and vice versa), while during that time, other genres developed, and keep on developing and improving and evolving.

On the surface of it, that argument makes sense, but then I started wondering- how did other genres evolve that adventure games didn't?
I can think of lots of quality of life improvements in other genres (mouse-look in FPSes, dumping tank controls in 3rd person games), but do those really count as "evolutions"?

And the next video in the series discusses some of the evolution in adventure games. So a roughly chronological list would be something like:

Interactive Fiction

Graphical Interactive Fiction

Graphical Point & Click Adventure Games

FMV Visual Novels Walking Simulators Branching Narrative QTE games Adventure Elements in non-adventures

(that last row probably has a lot more intermixing and hierarchy, but I was just keeping it simple)

So obviously adventure games are not dead. They just keep evolving. But then I come back to something- the traditional "Graphical Point & Click Adventure Games" do seem dead. Sure, we had a record breaking kickstarter a couple years ago (one that I participated in), but the results, while fun, were nothing groundbreaking or signifying any great return.
The same video series says "Much of the design problems that plagued the last wave of American adventure games, were still there in broken age: Nonsense, obtuse, trial-and-error puzzles, repetitive VO, dull, very slow gameplay". We have even a number of commercial releases of AGS games, and they're quality stuff for what they are, but does that count as a return, or just serving a very niche market?

What do you think?

[Ali]

I blame the fans, who endured a decade years of mostly horrible point and click games in the 2000s, and cleave to the mechanics of the 90s "classics" rather than the things that actually made them enjoyable. I recently made a similar observation to your point about tank controls - no one would say that Doom Eternal wasn't really an FPS because it uses analogue sticks. But adventure game devotees are ready to insist that Firewatch, Life is Strange, Dear Esther and Telltale games DO NOT count as adventure games because they lack an incredibly outdated 1990s interface. It's particularly absurd, because it's not like interfaces have ever been consistent across adventure games.

Narrative is huge in games now, it's given much more thought in mainstream games than it was in the 90s. Even if you do want a traditional point and clicks, loads of really good ones are getting made by indie teams. But the die-hard point-and-clickers don't like them either, because they lack the AAA production values that about 5 Lucas Arts games had.

I love traditional adventure games as much as anyone - I've written for three of them in the last few months - but I hate this corrosive nostalgia. Adventure games are dead, as long as we insist on them having both million dollar budgets and a 30 year old UI which was quite rubbish in the first place.

[Jack]

Yes, they didn't die. They diminished and moved to the east.

The answer you are looking for even shows in the table you posted. Technology. Point-and-click adventure games came about because the technology would allow it, and faded into the background when technology allowed more interactive forms of storytelling. It got replaced by games like Abe's Oddysee, and later Half-life 2.

But traditional point-and-clicks are still around, and they even do good business, even though the content of these commercial titles more often than not could be better. The genre does not have to be defined by crap like Broken Age. It got that wad of cash before people were really into crowdfunding. Before there were many projects and before people knew what to expect.

Why do we still support this genre with our work? Two reasons: Technology again. A lot of us would be making games in another form if we could afford the time, but this is a great way to have a narrative-based game on a budget. And the second reason is nostalgia. But there's good nostalgia and bad nostalgia, and the bad kind is one of the genre's biggest problems in the modern age: Nostalgia for its own sake. The people who made the greats of old, like Beneath a Steel Sky weren't chiefly trying to imitate something from the past. They had a story they wanted to tell, or a world they wanted to create, and they did it with what was available to them to best do it.

[Babar]

I gave up on new adventure games in the 2000s, spent that time catching up with the classics I missed. I don't regret that decision in the least .

Half-life 2 (or Abe's Oddysee, not played that one) doesn't really scratch the same itch that the traditional adventure games did, I don't think it can be said that they replaced them. I guess that would be an interesting avenue to explore. For me, personally, my favourite traditional P&C adventure games were the Monkey Island games, King's Quest games, Space Quest games, etc.- games that aside from being adventure games, actual gave the sense of being part of an adventure, on an epic journey. For others it might be different. The most recent game that scratched that itch for me was the lovely, lovely (but terribly bug-ridden, for me) Wandersong.

And my point about Broken Age was that people got exactly what was advertised- an adventure game akin to those from the "golden age", with warts and all. If Broken Age had come out 25 years ago, it would have won literally all the awards. But the genre has evolved now.

[Snarky]

Sure, we had a record breaking kickstarter a couple years ago (one that I participated in), but the results, while fun, were nothing groundbreaking or signifying any great return.

Just to remind you, the year is 2020. The Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter was in 2012, and Broken Age came out in 2014â€"2015.

I'm not sure that game was ever supposed to be "groundbreaking or signifying any great return," either. Nor do I believe it would have "won literally all the awards" 25 years ago. (Personally, I think the game is fine, but not by any means a standout.) In any case, what I don't get is why it should be our touchstone to discuss the state of the genre today. Why not look to, for example, the AGGIE Award nominees for the last few years? By having dedicated categories for traditional and non-traditional adventure games, it conveniently allows us to consider and compare both strands of the genre.

Finalists for best traditional adventure, 2019
Whispers of a Machine
Jenny LeClue â€" Detectivú
Eastshade
Life Is Strange 2
Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders
Sumatra: Fate of Yandi

Finalists for best non-traditional adventure, 2019
Outer Wilds
Disco Elysium
Hypnospace Outlaw
Moons of Madness
Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements

[Danvzare]

I blame the fans, who endured a decade years of mostly horrible point and click games in the 2000s, and cleave to the mechanics of the 90s "classics" rather than the things that actually made them enjoyable. I recently made a similar observation to your point about tank controls - no one would say that Doom Eternal wasn't really an FPS because it uses analogue sticks. But adventure game devotees are ready to insist that Firewatch, Life is Strange, Dear Esther and Telltale games DO NOT count as adventure games because they lack an incredibly outdated 1990s interface. It's particularly absurd, because it's not like interfaces have ever been consistent across adventure games.

I kinda completely agree with you. 
But something that comes to mind, is that to most people Point and Click Adventure games are like pixel art.
Yes, there's a better way to do it now, thanks to the improvement of technology. But there's something about that style that stuck with us.
You can get a 3D model, apply some filters, and make it look like pixel art. But it won't actually be proper pixel art. And to me, Adventure games are kinda like that.

That all being said, the interface has almost nothing to do with it. It's the content. The reason why I don't consider Telltale's games to be Adventure games (at least, not the same type as DotT), is because of a lack of the gameplay loop that old-school adventure games have. Their early games, from Sam and Max to Back to the Future, had that gameplay loop. Every game from The Walking Dead and onwards, has a different gameplay loop, that more closely resembles a visual novel.

And as for the conversation of genres as a whole. They evolve, split, get renamed, merge, ect.
People complain about Roguelikes and Metroidvanias being named after games, while being unaware that Adventure games are also named after a game... it's called Adventure. 
And then people start to forget what the genres mean, with many Roguelites now being called Roguelikes, and what was called Roguelikes now being called Mystery Dungeon games.
Then of course there's the games that come out that didn't gain their genre until much later. LSD Dream Emulator is clearly a Walking Simulator, and Alone in the Dark is clearly a Survival Horror, but they weren't referred to as such back then, and I still haven't seen anyone refer to LSD Dream Emulator as a Walking Simulator.
Genres are constantly shifting. We've simply carved out a chunk and named it Point and Click Adventure Games, and are now holding onto it for dear life.

[JackPutter]

I always find it really interesting how other people categorise various pieces of media, since really it's all subjective. It's only when a large number of people all agree about certain traits that we end up with "genres" and other ways to generally describe books, films, songs, games, etc. Here's a few examples that I think illustrate just how subjective these things are:

• "The Martian" won the Golden Globe Awards for "Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy" and "Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy" and while it has lots of funny moments, a lot of people disagreed with the classification because they felt it was more of a Science-Fiction/Drama than a comedy (and obviously not a musical).
• "Old Town Road" was pulled from the Billboard Country Music Charts because the folks who run the Billboard classifications decided that it wasn't a "real" country song, despite using country-style instrumentation and having a distinctly country-style theme, especially compared with a lot of things which were already on the "country" charts which many felt were basically straight pop songs that happened to be performed by an artist from Nashville.
• The "Dark Souls" series of games blended various elements from a lot of different genres (RPG, Hack-and-slash, survival-horror) and did it in such a unique way which influenced so many other games that the term "Soulslike" is used frequently in articles and discussions to refer to games that have comparable game mechanics. Similarly, we previously saw terms like "Doom clones" and "GTA clones" describing what we now refer to as first-person-shooters and open-world-sandbox games. So when there were enough "copycats" on the market, we saw a shift towards folks saying there was a whole new genre in place.

Hopefully you see what I mean from those examples, every opinion is subjective. You wouldn't be "wrong" if you called "The Martian" a comedy, or "Old Town Road" a country song, or "Dark Souls" an RPG. Genre titles are just shorthand to help others understand the piece of media, and how each person weighs it up is their choice. If someone asked me to describe the film "Aliens" I would say it is an action film in a sci-fi setting with some horror elements. Other people might call it a horror film with a good dose of action thrown in. Others might even call it a satire of gung-ho military attitudes and corporate greed using science-fiction as a medium to deliver the message. We all experience and describe media differently. Is "Film Noir" a style, a genre, or a filmmaking movement? Depends on who you ask.

To specifically talk about adventure games, I am a bit late to the party. I remember playing "Broken Sword II - The Smoking Mirror" when I was very young, but I don't remember playing all that many point-and-click games as a youngster. I spent my younger years playing games on the PS1 and PS2, and there were very few point-and-clicks that I bought or was gifted. (Though I do still have my PS2 copy of "Broken Sword - The Sleeping Dragon"!) I started getting into adventure games when I was a good bit older and 3D graphics were commonplace. So I personally don't have much of a sense of nostalgia when it comes to the point-and-click interface, and there are many games which I would consider adventure games that others might not, as their definitions might be more narrow than mine. "Firewatch" is a good example of a game that I would definitely consider an adventure game but others might not. It was filled with expressive personality-filled dialogue, an emphasis on narrative filled with intrigue, wasn't combat-focused, and it rewarded exploration because poking around often revealed something fun or interesting. It didn't include much puzzle-solving but it made up for it with enjoyable orienteering gameplay. That was enough for me, it might not be for others.

We could argue all day on what does or doesn't fit into a genre, and that's kind of my point. Genres aren't concrete: not only do they change, flow, and evolve over time, they're also subjective based on the definition of each player/reader/viewer/listener. But even that is just my opinion too!

[Babar]

Oh, I think Broken Age is "just fine" as well, my point was that it adhered to an outdated paradigm of the "traditional point & click adventure", which probably is what contributed to it being "just fine", and why I said that if it had come out 25 years ago rather than today (when the "traditional point & click adventure" paradigm was more contemporary), it would have won all the awards. And I chose it specifically because it's the game from the last couple years that had the same sort of exposure a similar game from 25 years ago would have had. I can't say the same for any of the games you listed among "best traditional adventure game" (I know of "Whispers of a Machine" and "Sumatra: Fate of Yandi" only for being AGS games) except Life is Strange 2, which is a strange case: I haven't played it, but I did play 1, and I wouldn't have considered it a "traditional adventure game" (and neither did the Aggies, as evidenced by it winning the Reader's Choice award for non-traditional adventure game way back in 2015). Is Life is Strange 2 more traditionally adventure game than 1 was, or did they just relax their criteria?

Also, I'm not sure the comparison to pixel art is fair. You can still make good quality "pixel art" today, and it would still be good by the standards of art today. Taking design sensibilities from 25 years ago and try supplanting them into today and they will definitely feel very dated. Those games were incredible back then because that is what we had back then. I'd be curious as to the success of Monkey Island 2 if it were released today, and had never existed before. Would it receive praise for anything other than writing?

[Ali]

I think Lucas Arts adventure games aren't the best examples of pixel art as an aesthetic. Especially not Monkey Island 2, because they were scanned drawings/paintings. So they could easily have looked the same but better in high resolution.

But I also don't think the comparison is very helpful. Mosaics, cross stitching and weaving have been making images out of discrete regions of colour for a long, long time. Pixel art is a medium in its own right. It's retro, but not dated in the same way that the SCUMM interface is dated.

[Snarky]

5â€"6 years ago is not by any definition the "last couple of" years, was my point.

And while Broken Age got a lot of attention at the time (arguably mainly for things that weren't to do with the game itself), I think there's also been a fair amount of attention given to more recent games that are far more relevant to discuss. Even if you limit it to high-profile "traditional" point-and-click adventures, doesn't it make more sense to talk about Unavowed and Whispers of a Machine than Broken Age?

For sure there are legitimate criticisms to be made of the gameplay in contemporary point-and-clickers, but I feel that criticism should be made on the basis of games like Detective Di, Lamplight City, Unforeseen Incidents, Paradigm, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, CHUCHEL, etc. â€" games that actually represent the state of (that segment of) the genre today.

[Babar]

I think Lucas Arts adventure games aren't the best examples of pixel art as an aesthetic. Especially not Monkey Island 2, because they were scanned drawings/paintings. So they could easily have looked the same but better in high resolution.

But I also don't think the comparison is very helpful. Mosaics, cross stitching and weaving have been making images out of discrete regions of colour for a long, long time. Pixel art is a medium in its own right. It's retro, but not dated in the same way that the SCUMM interface is dated.

Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about pixel art, then I shifted my focus to adventure games (not pixel art in adventure games) to carry over the comparison. I agree, while MI2 art is beautiful, it isn't really a meaningful example of pixel art.

Snarky, I don't think the genre has provided notably new things between Broken Age and now, so I used that as an example, but alright, it seems that mentioning it has created a bit of a digression. Do you feel that the games you mentioned rise above the criticisms that video (and I) made of traditional point & clickers using the example of Broken Age? Of the ones I played/know of, I don't (and Amanita games are a peculiar breed of point & click adventures, maybe more similar to the original Gobliiins games, I'm not sure I'd group them with the others, but the criticisms broadly apply to Chuchel as well).

[Ali]

Unavowed was widely, and I think rightly, praised as a step forward for point and clicks in a number of ways. It dispensed with almost all the much-loved but mostly terrible features of the traditional point and click - obtuse solutions, inventory combinations, cumbersome interfaces, excessive back-tracking etc. And unlike many non-linear narrative games, the Bioware-style mission structure meant players were able to meaningful choices that impacted on the ending.

[Snarky]

Do you feel that the games you mentioned rise above the criticisms that video (and I) made of traditional point & clickers using the example of Broken Age?

Two things: First, I'm not terribly impressed with the videos either as an accurate history of the genre or an incisive analysis. The criticism of the gameplay of classic point-and-click games doesn't really go any deeper than "I don't like inventory puzzles, so games with inventory puzzles are bad."

Second, the videos don't in fact agree with your position. Of the 35+ minutes total, only the last minute and a half or so are about the state of the genre today, and it's actually a very positive assessment, focusing on how the indie scene is "pumping out new and interesting spins on the adventure game." It explicitly lists Resonance and Gemini Rue (yeah, the video creator also has a skewed idea of "contemporary") among games that "put modern design sensibilities into the old-style point-and-click formula," and concludes that the genre is doing better than ever.

And that's more in line with the reality I recognize. A reality where adventure gamers have an unprecedented wide variety of choice, depending on their tastes and mood. Where arguments about the validity of "walking sims" have been â€" for the most part â€" put to rest years ago.

I think there's a place in the genre both for puzzle-light or puzzle-less games, and the classic inventory puzzles with their "obtuse solutions" (or, which I think is more relevant, the way traditional adventure games integrate a gameplay mechanic oriented around puzzles within their narrative). Can those games be dull and suffer from all sorts of design problems? Of course! Puzzle design is hard. But getting rid of these elements doesn't guarantee that the game will be any better: there are plenty of dull narrative games as well. I don't agree that the paradigm is fundamentally broken.

To me the best analogy is to something like classic mystery fiction. There was a heyday (the era of Agatha Christie and her peers) when it was all fairly fresh and writers could come up with entirely new stories all within the same genre framework. You could have "groundbreaking" mystery stories on a regular basis. But that's over. Nowadays, the genre has split into a hundred sub-genres catering to every which taste, from bleak psychological thrillers to police procedurals to historical mysteries to serial killer POV stories to supernatural "urban fantasy" mysteries to cozy mysteries with baking recipes included. And yet there are still some hoary old conventions (e.g. the final confrontation where the solution is presented) that can be found in most of them.

You can still do something with in the conventions of the classic Sherlock Holmes/Poirot-style "solve the murder in the manor house" setup, but it's hardly going to be groundbreaking no matter what you come up with. And that's fine, because there are other options available if you don't want something traditional. What would be the point of coming in and complaining that something like Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries or Grantchester are still clinging to century-old genre conventions, with many of the same problems?

[LimpingFish]

Any contemporary adventure games that adhere to the visual and mechanical style of the "classics" of the genre, do so for a very specific reason and, one might argue, a very specific audience.

As to the evolution of the genre, I think it's naive to expect that, if publishers had kept funding and publishing this very specific style of adventure game, that what we would have today would look anything like what has gone before. As Ali says, the mechanics of most of these games was pretty bad, even back in the day, and to expect developers not to have moved on in terms of designing and refining not only how their games played but also how their narratives were experienced is, frankly, expecting the opposite of evolution. So anybody who claims that x or y aren't adventure games because they did away with certain mechanics is...well...wrong.

I gave up on new adventure games in the 2000s, spent that time catching up with the classics I missed. I don't regret that decision in the least .

I've been knee-deep in ScummVM over the last fortnight or so, and I've got to say, putting aside the rose-tints, most of these games are a pain in A to play through. Even the classics, and especially the Sierra catalogue. As for LucasArts, I would probably be willing to argue that only those games post The Dig are enjoyable in a non-nostalgic state of mind. In other words, those games that started to move away from that earlier style of design. There's a very good reason why a lot of people (including myself) consider Grim Fandango the pinnacle of LucasArts' adventure output; it retains the spirit, humour and, most importantly, the emphasis on narrative, while refining (and improving) the mechanics to an almost unrecognizable degree.

[Snarky]

As for LucasArts, I would probably be willing to argue that only those games post The Dig are enjoyable in a non-nostalgic state of mind. In other words, those games that started to move away from that earlier style of design. There's a very good reason why a lot of people (including myself) consider Grim Fandango the pinnacle of LucasArts' adventure output; it retains the spirit, humour and, most importantly, the emphasis on narrative, while refining (and improving) the mechanics to an almost unrecognizable degree.

How do you think the "mechanics" of Grim Fandango differ from those of earlier LucasArts titles? Are we just talking UI here?

[LimpingFish]

Are we just talking UI here?

The streamlining (or abandoning) of the UI plays a big part, as the UI is so ingrained in how we experience the worlds of these earlier games. Sometimes for the worse.

Grim Fandango doesn't manage to free itself completely of these problems. But compare how the player moves through the world, with the slow, imprecise plod from screen to screen of those earlier games (and some of them are so slow!) gone, and replaced with a character that (while far from perfect, and not to everybody's taste) moves in a manner more akin to how we expect a controllable character to move. On the surface, it may seem like a somewhat insignificant addition, but it greatly impacts the players experience of the game world and perhaps even the underlying structure of the game.

And yet the game is 100% an adventure game, in feel and execution.

[Snarky]

Interesting, in that I thought it was generally agreed that the controls and UI of Grim Fandango were notoriously poor. To the point where they went back and added a point-and-click verbcoin mode in the remaster (as well as options to change how movement works with the controls), after Tim Schafer admitted it just didn't work as originally designed. And made, remember, at a time when few PC gamers would have owned a controller (plus the game had serious compatibility problems with many models anyway), so most players were stuck with keyboard controls.

I just have a hard time understanding how anybody could see it as an improvement. And while some point-and-click adventure games have annoyingly slow walkspeeds and pointlessly large distances to cross, at least you only have to click once at where you want them to go, not guide them step by tedious step. I remember sooo many times where I was walking along, hit a camera switch point, then suddenly was heading in the wrong direction (sometimes turning around completely and thereby switching back to the screen I came from). And that flipping inventory! Ugh!

[Ali]

We should also remember that the now ubiquitous dual analogue stick control system wasn't immediately welcomed by critics or players. A review of Alien Resurrection from 2000 complains:

The game's control setup is its most terrifying element. The left analog stick moves you forward, back, and strafes right and left, while the right analog stick turns you and can be used to look up and down. Too often, you'll turn to face a foe and find that your weapon is aimed at the floor or ceiling while the alien gleefully hacks away at your midsection.

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/alien-resurrection-review/1900-2637344/

I'm not saying Grim Fandango's controls worked. They were pretty clunky, and involved a lot of sliding along the edges of walls. But direct control of a character is a huge boon for a sense of exploration, and I loved moving around the spaces looking for interactive things. It's more fun than sweeping a mouse across the screen. I think new players are a little baffled by the central point & click idea that you are giving instructions to a semi-independent character, rather than playing AS that character. Perhaps that divide helped adventure games develop characters that were more than just idealised, power-tripping player avatars?

[Babar]

Snarky, the 2nd video in the series talks about those newer games, I didn't link that one or focus on that, because that wasn't what I was talking about here (the adherence to a particular evolutionary step in adventure games among certain audiences and creators, even here). Not sure inventory puzzles were mentioned, the part I quoted was tired mechanics and unintuitive puzzles. But thanks for your response! I guess my view is that even today, so many people (especially here on AGS) are just pumping out the same Agatha Cristie knock-offs.

I've been knee-deep in ScummVM over the last fortnight or so, and I've got to say, putting aside the rose-tints, most of these games are a pain in A to play through. Even the classics, and especially the Sierra catalogue. As for LucasArts, I would probably be willing to argue that only those games post The Dig are enjoyable in a non-nostalgic state of mind. In other words, those games that started to move away from that earlier style of design. There's a very good reason why a lot of people (including myself) consider Grim Fandango the pinnacle of LucasArts' adventure output; it retains the spirit, humour and, most importantly, the emphasis on narrative, while refining (and improving) the mechanics to an almost unrecognizable degree.

Oh, I agree with you absolutely (except where you say the verbcoin games were less of a pain to play ), that was my point. If I had to play those games for the first time now, I'd hate and be absolutely frustrated by them. I finally bought The Last Express a couple years ago because of all the praise that it got for its time-based mechanics (and Vel loved it  ), and unfortunately for me, it is really unplayable. I may have to eventually go through it simply as an academic, but I doubt I'd enjoy it.

[Snarky]

Snarky, the 2nd video in the series talks about those newer games

I watched both videos. (That's why I wrote "videos.")

The second video only finishes talking about Broken Age at 17:45. Then there's some stuff about other Kickstarter comebacks of old adventure game series/designers, and then a longer section about the rise and fall of Telltale. The bit devoted to the current state of the adventure game genre starts at 21:15 (38 minutes into the whole combined run-length) and runs up to 22:35 â€" 1 minute 20 seconds out of almost 40 minutes total. And it doesn't seem to agree with you.

I didn't link that one or focus on that, because that wasn't what I was talking about here (the adherence to a particular evolutionary step in adventure games among certain audiences and creators, even here).

I feel like we're trying to have two separate discussions at the same time: one about the state of the genre today, and one about what people think of the adventure games of the 90s. This doesn't really make sense to me, but if that's the way it's got to be… Like I said, I don't think the videos contributed any kind of an insightful analysis of the second question. (For example, the notion that the engines "forced" all Sierra and LucasArts games respectively to have a similar look-and-feel strikes me as pretty dubious, just as similar claims often made about AGS. I mean, Phantasmagoria was made in SCI, and Moonbase Commander in SCUMM.)

Not sure inventory puzzles were mentioned, the part I quoted was tired mechanics and unintuitive puzzles. But thanks for your response!

Maybe we're talking at cross purposes. I feel like "mechanics" is a very ambiguous term. To me, the main game mechanic of most traditional point-and-click adventure games are inventory puzzles: you progress by collecting, combining and using inventory items in somewhat non-obvious ways. And that's how I took the videos to mean it, e.g. in comparing the American games of the 90s with Japanese games, where puzzles were more dialog-based. If that's not what you meant, could you be more concrete about what you're referring to by "tired mechanics"?

As for "unintuitive" puzzles, isn't that the nature of a puzzle? That the solution should not be obvious?

If I had to play those games for the first time now, I'd hate and be absolutely frustrated by them. I finally bought The Last Express a couple years ago because of all the praise that it got for its time-based mechanics (and Vel loved it  ), and unfortunately for me, it is really unplayable. I may have to eventually go through it simply as an academic, but I doubt I'd enjoy it.

TLE may be dated or flawed, but it would be a stretch to argue that its weaknesses stem from sticking to rote point-and-click convention, or that contemporary adventure games are stuck imitating The Last Express. So how is it relevant here?

I guess my view is that even today, so many people (especially here on AGS) are just pumping out the same Agatha Cristie knock-offs.

Well, I love a good Agatha Christie knock-off: Knives Out, Gosford Park, solid "comfort TV" like Grantchester and Miss Fisher.

And my point was that Agatha Christie and that whole era/style has spawned a whole bunch of sub-genres, ranging from pretty much straight knockoffs (often with some of the edges sanded off, as in the "cozies") to ones that use many of the core elements but diverge in important ways (e.g. something like Broadchurch). So I don't see much point in criticizing a cozy mystery for being too cozy and conventional: that's what that sub-genre is about!

Similarly, if you want to discuss adventure games today, and then exclude any games that do not stick with the traditional format, you're left with… games that are pretty traditional. Huh. (As for AGS games, I also don't see much point in criticizing amateurs making games as a hobby, often for the first time, for not necessarily being in the vanguard of design; any more than in criticizing teenage girls for imitating manga artists. Of course, the more experienced and dedicated designers, particularly the professionals and semi-professionals, are a different matter.)

I know I've mainly been attacking your arguments without proposing much of my own, but it has got me thinking, and I would like to suggest an alternative idea. TBC…