Messages

"the fact that they chose Colombia as the place where they took her once kidnapped does make a slight difference."

In a way, I don't think it makes a difference at all where they took her. It matters to the story and their plot yes but to anything else? I doubt they were trying to make a political commentary...

If they took her to Detroit or Harlem and were militant black people would you find that offensive or is it only because it's your country?

If they took her to the middle of Sweden people could be offended saying "Hey! Swedes aren't terrorists! Don't portray us as such!" and then we get into the problem of not being able to make anyone the bad guy for fear of hurting someone's feelings.

All of the Police Quest games [to my knowledge] take place in the United States and I don't think a single person has ever had a problem with the setting in relation to the content. I certainly don't care that murder and serial killing and drunk driving and bike gangs and drug deals are portrayed in a game set in the US because that stuff happens. And even if it didn't it's just a game.

I'm not saying you can't have an opinion or a feeling but posting it in such a way... I dunno, wouldn't it have been better to contact the dev team who made the game specifically and ask them some questions before assuming all of this?

If your post was about research and how important it can be to making a game, I agree, but it just comes off as you being angry about the game.

As far as not wanting to start an issue: You might want to change the thread title or something, that isn't really not starting an issue, the same on the zak boards, you don't like how they made their game, how are they going to like you joining their forums to basically call them stupid and bad people?

It's just a game...

So what? If you want to be offended by someone making a game then you're going to have a hard life, in my opinion.

Colombia doesn't have a jungle, that's really offensive to you?

Seriously, it's just a game. It's not that important.

Also: Has anyone ever been kidnapped in Bogota? If so then is it really that much of a stretch for someone to be kidnapped in a fake pretend game?

There are tons and tons and tons of games where people get kidnapped in the United States, it's not a sleight against the United States, it's just a plot point.

Release Something! was basically the idea behind the One Room One Week comp, get people who are just sitting around pretending to work on their huge 400 room game to actually do something that they can release, I'm glad it worked and so many people entered [though there are more of you out there!]

I think if this were to happen everyone who says they'll release something puts there name in, that way everyone will know that you're going to release something and if you don't do it no one will like you and call you names behind your back.

I'd release something... Hell, it's been a few years since I mentioned Time Out, I guess it's time...

http://kafkaskoffee.com

I use photoshop and image ready, check out my tutorials.

Image Ready is a godsend for me for animation and especially now that AGS has animate gif import.

These are not entries but I like them anyway:

I will answer you anyway,

I'd suggested just writing "Holodeck backgrounds taken from the Insta-Game pack at sylpher.com/ig" Since you're probably using backgrounds from Cornjob and Rodekill and me.

Good luck

http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?igk55q1auyh8

OBEY

also:

http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?igk6061awihw

You should also make her 'lady bumps' bounce a little when she fires the gun.

If you add this I will destroy you in 3 different dimensions... I hope to hell Darth was kidding

try taking out frames 10, 12 and 13, she fires the gun very slowly and removing these frames will add a KICK to the gun

Stuh, this is not real. Sorry.

Glumol?

Pff. noobs... SCRAMM is where it's at.

BRAND X IN THE HIZZY!

Isn't there some rule about not pretending to be a moderator?

Thought so...

* Eric makes obvious and yet hilarious joke about CJ not wanting to start an internet relationship with him

There, now that's out of the way

please calm down.

I love how the article is about Tim Schaffer and yet they have a huge 2 page image taking up more room than the words of a star wars image...

What I can agree with, there is a similarity between certain text adventures and graphical adventures that you could lump together and go "This is how you make a certain type of adventure game."

However, there are still many many many ways to explore the adventure game arena than we have explored so far. If people limit themselves to copying the way LA or Sierra or whatever did adventure games then they aren't doing the adventure genre any favours, in my opinion.

Also remember, back in the day Sierra AGI games were sold as "3D!" so...

While I agree with some things you say now it is only because you have changed what you're saying. You don't mention that point and click is the definition of adventure game anymore but now say that the various ways of interacting with the environment in old adventure games are similar, this I can agree with.

"If you remove too many of the Basic Adventure Game Elements, when does it become something else?"

In my opinion, this depends on each individual person playing the game. If you remove the inventory and the character interaction and the environment interaction is it still an adventure game? Some people say no, some people say Myst. Who knows, I'm not to worried about when a game changes from adventure game to adventure/RPG or adventure/FPS, I'm more worried when a game changes from good to horribly bad [i.e. Myst]

So let's get this straight then.

Your original question was:

"But if you remove the point-and click aspect COMPLETELY does it still make it an adventure game, in the classical sense I mean."

Grim Fandango is brought up and you say that it's still basically a point and click adventure game. So then by that logic a point and click adventure game is just a text adventure with graphics. Pointing and clicking is the same design as typing "north" or "south".

The words point and click do not apply to game design they apply to the fact that you have a mouse cursor and you click it and where you click it is where an action is applied. What you're talking about is just adventure game design. Why does it have to be anything else?

But your original point was this it seemed:

But if you remove the point-and click aspect COMPLETELY does it still make it an adventure game, in the classical sense I mean.

As in, if you remove pointing and clicking can that game still be an adventure game.

My point is:

Grim Fandango and some AGI Games didn't have any pointing and clicking along with 95% of text adventures. These are all adventure games.

And you just brush off text adventures with a one sentence comment about them being text games. Which is quite ignorant of text adventures.

The type-in parser of AGI has been surpassed by the Point-and-click interface.

What does this have to do with anything? Are they no longer adventures because another interface has come out?

The fact that people still make and play these types of "Adventure" is irrelevant. Commercially both are dead. The only time the term "Adventure", again in the classical sense, occurs in the mainstream is to describe those games of a Point-and-Click nature.

What does this conversation have to do with a game being sold? And I bet if you asked the current gaming public what an adventure game is you'd get a huge broad list of games. As scotch said Tomb Raider would be cited, along with Zelda and probably a ton of what most of us would call platformer games.

The term "Point-and Click Adventure Game" usually describes a game which conforms to a certain design blueprint. How much of that design can you strip away before it stops being an "Adventure" game?

While I agree if someone says to me "This is a point and click adventure game." I will think in my head "There is a mouse cursor and various verbs for me to choose, along with a walk icon that let's me move a character through a series of backgrounds."

That's about it. It doesn't bring anything else with it. In fact it narrows down what the game can be, what if it's a first person game and there is no 'walk'? What else should I think about? To some people an adventure game is where you can't die but "point and click adventure game" doesn't say anything about not dying. Tons of people love Quest for Glory and that is what they'll think of when you mention "point and click adventure game" and that has RPG elements and fighting and dying.

From Maniac Manison to Freddy Phrakas to Broken Sword 3, and all mutations in between, the golden design rules of the P-and-C genre, or sub-genre, have stayed the same.

Don't you see that you are lumping a huge range of games into the idea of a point and click so the design rules are very different. Grim Fandango has absolutely no inventory puzzles, with the interface it's impossible, everything has to be handled in the game play area. That changes the design rule a whole lot. Maniac Mansion has multiple ways to die and walking deads which, in my opinion, completely changes the design rules again.

If you tried to define for us what you thought were the "golden design rules" I guarantee there would be people saying "But what about this? This isn't an adventure game anymore?" Unless you made the definition a vague thing like:

"All games where the player guides a character through a path of events to experience a story is an adventure game."

Dude, don't touch his anus

Text adventures, AGI games? Are these not adventures?

I don't think you point anything in these games but you do click keys...

Also, Grim Fandango. The idea that there is a set way to do an adventure game bugs me.

If I make a game and call it an adventure game someone can say "Yea but there's no inventory, adventure games have inventories." Or point and click interfaces or dialogues or whatever...

I don't think I necessarily love adventure games, I just love fun games.