Your take on the state of point and click adventure games.

[Ali]

In my opinion, adventure games between 2000-2010 were mostly bad, retaining all the awful features of 90s adventure games and almost none of the good qualities.

But... but Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! came out in 2007... I think the second half of the 2000s was already quite decent actually. Wadjet Eye was slowly raising its head, I actually enjoyed Dreamfall back in the day, there was Machinarium, early Telltale stuff, a couple of Daedalic games, a fair amount of quality AGS freebies. I mean, even in the so-called golden ages of point & click games, there were only a handful of quality releases each year. How many true classics there actually are from that era, 10-20?

Ha ha, well I don't think Nelly would register on the game-o-meter. But you're right about Dreamfall, Machinarium and Dave's early games. But, for me, the turn of the century was dominated by dozens of virtually indistinguishable Adventure Company / Frogwares-esque games with banal rendered realist graphics and incomprehensibly silly puzzle design. Perhaps the problem was exacerbated because, as an English speaker, I began playing games that were translated (infuriatingly badly) into English - bad translations being something that non-English speakers were probably already inured to.

The reason I came to AGS in the first place was the dearth of decent commercial adventures in the early 2000s. And so many more great games came out just between 2015 and 2020: Her Story, The Walking Dead, The Witness, Firewatch, Unavowed, The Outer Wilds, Night in the Woods etc. It saddens me that some people stopped playing adventure games in 1999. When I see people on social media asking for recommendations, so many of the suggestions are 30 years old - I get the impression that some hardcore adventure gamers still won't trust anything without wacky inventory items and a verb coin. And they're missing out!

[Babar]

1 hour video! Hahah...no.

But I get the idea that adventure games are stuck in the past- they do seem to be inordinately obsessed with nostalgia. Someone mentioned they were using Day of the Tentacle as an example, when it came out in the 90s, but the game was remade recently.

My take on the state of adventure games today?
I spent most of the 2000s catching up on classic 90s adventure games I had missed, and playing ones released here. I gave up on "commercial" adventure games at that point (last contemporary commercial adventure game I physically bought was possibly Syberia?).
It's undoubtedly true that adventure games are more in the mainstream now than they were then, but there's still this nostalgia attachment that needs to be shaken off. One of my most favourite (despite how buggy it was for me) adventure games I played last year (sorry AGS  ) was Wandersong. I still need to get around to Call of the Sea, too. "Commercial" stuff that still tries to ape games of the past end up really sucking for me- see Daedalic's entire catalogue (especially including the Deponia games).

[fire7side]

"Commercial" stuff that still tries to ape games of the past end up really sucking for me- see Daedalic's entire catalogue (especially including the Deponia games).

I don't see a problem with their style, it's more their substance.  I played one of their games which was not too bad, but most of them don't interest me.  If a game company is successful, that speaks for itself.  They found a market.  I think Telltale going under speaks more about what doesn't work.  They did OK for a while, but went too many times to the well.  They tried to branch out, but it was still the same style.  Then they got stuck in the Walking Dead and died. 

[Danvzare]

"Commercial" stuff that still tries to ape games of the past end up really sucking for me- see Daedalic's entire catalogue (especially including the Deponia games).

I don't see a problem with their style, it's more their substance.  I played one of their games which was not too bad, but most of them don't interest me.  If a game company is successful, that speaks for itself.  They found a market.  I think Telltale going under speaks more about what doesn't work.  They did OK for a while, but went too many times to the well.  They tried to branch out, but it was still the same style.  Then they got stuck in the Walking Dead and died. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure Telltale went under because they had one super successful game, assumed all of their games would be that successful and expanded their company in preparation for that, and then their sales went back to normal.
So uh... I guess that means I agree with you. 

[FormosaFalanster]

See, this is exactly what I expected: people in this forum debating the state of adventure games after years of being involved in it, gives much more interesting insights than these two guys in their one hour video

I find the topic fascinating.

I was actually wondering if there's a point of diminishing returns with some of this. For example, if I'd hand craft every response line in a full length game then that would take a lot more time and work than having a selection of generic blanket statements. And if most players won't even notice or care much about these small details, then is it really worth it? It's sometimes kind of hard to determine where's the line with a lot of this stuff, especially when working on a commercial game and all that time spent on polishing and adding features might not actually increase the sale numbers and interest in the game.

To a certain extent it is the same when you publish a book (or make a movie, maybe). You do not know if the audience will get it all. But there are also several levels of enjoyment. Some people read the book superficially and enjoyed the story, others read deeper into it and enjoy the extras. The same goes with the game: some will just enjoy the basic gameplay, others will go deep into it. When I published someone told me an interesting thing: once you have published something, it doesn't belong to you anymore, it belongs to any reader and they will make it something different. It has a life of its own. Somehow this is the same for your game: you put it out there and then  you have to let go and to accept it's not your game anymore.

maybe I've lost the faith in most developers that they can come up with a huge amount of consistent and enjoyable narrative puzzles and perhaps it would be better for some of them (myself included) to focus more on one specific aspect.

This may be partially due to... making too much games? This community surprises me in the huge amount of games they make. Even confirmed developpers who have nothing to prove. Maybe in this new decade and this new era the trend should be to do less games but spend more time in them, so the experience and wealth of knowledge acquired in the last two decades could be put to work doing better games?

Hmm, I'm curious what's your take on narrative without conflict or with minimal conflict and challenge? Don't actually know much about it, but I've seen kishōtenketsu brought out as an example sometimes. Would that be something that's feasible in games and how would that work with gameplay?

I think too much games seem to confuse conflict with scope. A lot of games at first I find very interesting because the story is set in a more domestic setting, but invariably spiral into supernatural, magical, maybe even end-of-the-world type of stories.
When you write a novel you are not afraid of writing something purely domestic. Love stories, family stories, intimate stories, and make them full of conflict and challenge from everyday life. There seem to be a taboo in narrative games about writing domestic stories. We are too fixated on the idea that a game has to be about evil forces at hand or life-or-death challenges.
In reality a lot of games outside of the purely point-and-click genre are about everyday conflicts. I wrote on my blog about "Life is Strange", and how the magical aspect takes a step back compared to the purely human and everyday life challenges. I also wrote about "Hana feels", a text adventure entirely based on a mental health issue. We do not need to be saving the world all the time.
This is also why I talk about "narrative" games rather than "adventure" games. I do not want it to be an adventure in the big sense all the time. Life is an adventure. Puzzles and gameplays are tools to tell a story, and that story do not have to be huge. Puzzles can be used to express real life tribulation and personal growth, not necessarily solving a mystery.

Definitely agree, about 70 percent of the games I play these days are AGS ones, mostly because I don't have much time for gaming in general and I also lack the hardware required for most modern games. But I do really want to broaden my horizon at some point and learn more about and from other types of modern games.

It is interesting for example to look at RPGs in general. They are an enduring genre, they are full of tropes, but they also are very well-polished and experienced in how to convey a story through a videogame.

I only watched part of the vid, but I think point and click are something like 2d platform games.  They are going to pretty much be around forever.  I play a pixel art platformer on my tablet and enjoy it.   Point and click adventures have a lot more room for diversity because they are story heavy.  They won't go away and they won't be the latest thing.  That's the nice thing about modern gaming.  We have so many options. 

This I totally agree with. And it is something I say a lot about our modern times: mainstream is irrelevant because you can look for whatever you want. There will always be such games if only because possibilities are endless.

The reason I came to AGS in the first place was the dearth of decent commercial adventures in the early 2000s. And so many more great games came out just between 2015 and 2020: Her Story, The Walking Dead, The Witness, Firewatch, Unavowed, The Outer Wilds, Night in the Woods etc. It saddens me that some people stopped playing adventure games in 1999. When I see people on social media asking for recommendations, so many of the suggestions are 30 years old - I get the impression that some hardcore adventure gamers still won't trust anything without wacky inventory items and a verb coin. And they're missing out!

1 hour video! Hahah...no.

But I get the idea that adventure games are stuck in the past- they do seem to be inordinately obsessed with nostalgia. Someone mentioned they were using Day of the Tentacle as an example, when it came out in the 90s, but the game was remade recently.

My take on the state of adventure games today?
I spent most of the 2000s catching up on classic 90s adventure games I had missed, and playing ones released here. I gave up on "commercial" adventure games at that point (last contemporary commercial adventure game I physically bought was possibly Syberia?).
It's undoubtedly true that adventure games are more in the mainstream now than they were then, but there's still this nostalgia attachment that needs to be shaken off. One of my most favourite (despite how buggy it was for me) adventure games I played last year (sorry AGS  ) was Wandersong. I still need to get around to Call of the Sea, too. "Commercial" stuff that still tries to ape games of the past end up really sucking for me- see Daedalic's entire catalogue (especially including the Deponia games).

True, once again, that we need to stop focusing on 90s games!
And true that we need to remember it has been two decades ever since, and that's two generations, thats a lot of time, that's already two other eras. And indeed, the early 2000s were a time when the internet was young, and the novelty of abandonware was maybe taking the first place, in front of new games. Just like you, I did a lot of playing these old games I could not afford to buy in the 90s!

Personally I hated Deponia, I did not went past the first chapter of the first game. The main character was just way too much of an awful and despicable individual, on top of being designed after Guybrush. I remember everyone saying "if you loved Monkey Island you will love Deponia!" That's pretty much because, like 90% of people, "I grew up playing and loving Monkey Island" that I disliked a game that rips it off without its charm.

[Chomba]

About Deponia:

Four actually.

Wow

Personally I hated Deponia, I did not went past the first chapter of the first game. The main character was just way too much of an awful and despicable individual, on top of being designed after Guybrush. I remember everyone saying "if you loved Monkey Island you will love Deponia!" That's pretty much because, like 90% of people, "I grew up playing and loving Monkey Island" that I disliked a game that rips it off without its charm.

Completely agree, also it is not only a problem of the main character, I think it is something that extends to various aspects of the game, such as the npc's or the nature of the relationships between the different characters and the type of humor or logic that is handled in that world.

When I proposed Deponia as an example, it was that of a commercially successful game and nothing more  . Obviously there will be people who like it and people who don't.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure Telltale went under because they had one super successful game, assumed all of their games would be that successful and expanded their company in preparation for that, and then their sales went back to normal.
So uh... I guess that means I agree with you.

yes, telltale made a lot of bad business decisions and they cost them dearly. It was not only something related to the quality of their products (obviously if they had reaped success after success, this would be another story).

Regarding the creative state of the genre in the industry (my opinion):

* Lately I see that several indie-developed games are veering towards a more narrative side than something interactive, where the player can perform some actions between story chunks that give a sense of interactivity that sometimes may or may not impact the story development (they usually don't, at least not in general terms). Personally, I'm not so fond of narrative heavy games (where the story progresses rather on its own), but they seem to be successful with the general public.

* Since the means of production of a videogame have been so democratized and anyone with enough will (and minimum technological requirements) can make one (which, for me, will always be a good thing), you tend to see many more games half finished or made by designers who have not been interested in learning the basic tools to tell a story (in general) or at least the dynamics inherent to the genre (For example, I recently played a game that required to have knowledge of history outside what the game provided to solve a puzzle). The same problem can extend to other areas, such as the direction of voice actors, music selection etc. It's not just something related to the script (which in this genre is fundamental).

* Many capable developers (who do everything right: coding, scripting, graphics, music, etc) get lost trying to completely revolutionize the adventure game genre with new mechanics and sandbox worlds but never finish a game.

* I don't see many collaborative games, they are usually made by one person or at most two. Above that, unless they're a studio, it's rare.
I think the genre could gain a lot if we were more willing and committed to collaborate with each other on serious proposals.

* Many times developers set out to make a game of magnitude beyond the scope of what is achievable and end up burnt out. Which is not all bad, because you learn a lot in those projects, but it's a pity when it ends up being such a big frustration that they don't come back to the development of a game.

* Lovecraft is everywhere, it is already known that it sells and many people are taking advantage of it.
(I'm not saying that anyone who does something Lovecraftian is a fraud, I'm saying that there will be many who disguise their proposals as that and in reality have no knowledge or understanding of Lovecraft's work).