Messages

Dear DG,

*Ba-dum Ching!*

Yours Sincerely,
     Comedy-drum-sound

Although, I must say it bothers me to hear that any facts he mention aren't true

The point of the link I posted being to show that he refutes those claims.

Well I never...

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/

Dear Ms Macphee

My socks keep dropping fluff on the carpet.  What I want to know is: should I have salt with my chips?

A good adventure game (insert your favorite title here) tells a story. The puzzles, while they can enhance or detract from that story, serve as a vehicle for player immersion into the game world.

But not just a vehicle for immersion - the most important characteristic of puzzles is the challenge they provide.  Interaction and immersion can exist without puzzles, so why would anybody use puzzles, unless they also desired to provide a challenge?

Despite bad puzzles, a world can be a memorable experience due to the designer's storytelling ability.

A book can be a memorable experience because of the writer's storytelling ability, but that doesn't make it a good adventure game.  Adventures need more than just a good story to be great.

Even with good puzzles, no one will remember a banal world...

But is this is an impossible construction?  Good puzzles fit contextually into their gameworld, so if the puzzles are not banal, then the gameworld cannot be banal either.

...or a poor story

I disagree.  Simon the Sorceror has one of the most paper-thin stories I've ever come across, yet many people enjoyed it (including me), it spawned two sequels and is still talked about today.

But my point is this -- the puzzles should not be the focus. Players tend to remember a game holistically, so it's the story that matters.

I agree that puzzles shouldn't be the focus.  It's not a good idea to focus on one element of an adventure game over the others, if you're looking to give a complete experience.  But then that also includes focusing on the story.

It's true that players remember games where the story is good but the puzzles and interaction are poor.  However, I'm not just in this to create a buzz with players, I want to make the best adventure game I can - and that means giving equal focus to all the elements I include.

How did they define 'Adventure'?

The only reason we consider games like MI, FOA, or DOTT to be classics is because Lucasarts managed to create worlds we were interested in.

Speak for yourself .  I consider the quality of the puzzles to be an absolutely essential element in my consideration of those 3 games as classics.  Especially in FoA, whose excellent puzzles I consider the best part of the game.

So get off of "combine object A with object B" or "distract NPC C" already. Nobody cares about yet another pirate game ripoff.

Eek!  'Combine A with B' can produce actions as varied as 'Combine sniper scope with gun', 'Combine doughnuts with hairband (for makeshift earmuffs)', 'Combine blue drink with yellow drink (for super-spit green drink)', 'Combine tie with shirt', etc, etc.  It might sound like a stale formula, but only if you forget that objects A and B can be anything out of thousands and thousands of possibilities.  I'm not sure how using tried-and-tested puzzle structures is connected with pirate game ripoffs, either. :p

Puzzles exist solely to allow interactivity, enhancing a bond between the player and the game.

Well, no, because games can be highly interactive without any puzzles at all.  Puzzles create interaction and challenge the player - so if interaction can exist without puzzles, it follows that the primary reason for including puzzles is to challenge the player.

Well, I'm against the idea of the Inventory not covering good amateur games which have poor graphics, but I'm not going to boycott it (yet...  MUAHAHAHAHAAA! ).

Seriously, how about a bit more discussion with Dimi to see if we can understand each others positions a little better?

Or, here's a suggestion, Dimi: what if you make a post at the JA+ forums asking what people think of the matter, like you did with the recent survey?  Then you could just go with what the majority of your readership think, and nobody could blame you if they disagreed with your decision.

Well, this thread has been a bit of a shock for me.  Personally, I love puzzles.  I can never see them as an obstacle to the story, because I don't play adventures just for the story, I play them to enjoy a story and to have my intelligence and imagination challenged.

I agree with this whole 'movies with puzzles' argument, though.  I think it's a shame that developers haven't worked more to make games give different experiences to different players based on their decisions.  However, a lack of this doesn't spoil a game for me.

All I ask for in a game is that the player's input is crucial to the experience - whether that be through having to apply their intelligence to overcome the obstacles in the protagonists way, or influencing the story through their decisions, or both.

In the Interactive Fiction community, puzzle-less adventures are an established form.  I'm glad to see someone's having a crack at one in a graphic adventure.

With proper depth of interaction, the game shouldn't come off like an inferior movie, because it will provide an experience that no movie can possibly offer.

Um, won't people who paid $15 for Fatman be a bit annoyed if you make it free less than half a year after releasing it?

Besides, I don't see why you're dissatisfied with it - it got positive reviews elsewhere, and I've not heard anybody express disappointment in the game after buying it (on the contrary, the people at Gameboomers seem to universally love it).  Besides, it's less than half the price of other commercial games - it doesn't have to be as spectacular as the big-boy commercial releases to be worth the price tag.

If you really are concerned with its worth as a commercial release, why don't you just drop the price even further rather than remove the price completely?  The lower the price of the game, the better value for money people get.  If players and reviewers thought your game was great at $15, they're going to love it at $8 (or whatever).

Anyway, this post is just to say I don't believe you should make it freeware, because from what I've heard, it's a game worth paying for.  I have no doubt that when I get round to buying it, it'll provide me with more pleasure than some of the pricier commercial releases I've had the misfortune to buy (*gack*feeblefilessimon3dstarshiptitanic*gack*).

Man, that sucks, Rode.  We've been burgled twice, but they only took generic crap like the TV and stereo, so I can't imagine what it's like to lose a collection of your personal belongings.

Man, that's the 139456th this month.  Do magazine writers just sit around reading other publishers magazines and then copying their features?

Man, I think of a good Dinky joke, then come here to find N00bie's blown it out of the water.

Er...

was his 'Eric' Unready?  Or did he manage to enter your Gateway?

I wonder how much his distaste for the voice acting dragged down the final score?  I've seen varied reactions to the voice acting on adventure game forums (from people who hated it, to people who thought it was the best part of the game), but that is the most negative reaction to it I've ever come across.  I think to state that 'I turned off the voice support, and I think that most gamers will do the same' was a bit extreme (and out of touch).

Also, I think his criticism of the humour was a bit off.  If he's going to complain about low-brow humour, he should give the readers more examples of it than a single 'solve the puzzle by farting' joke.


But hey, I think Fatman coming from AGS has created a reviewing precedent:  the critic assesses the game, and then the community assesses the critic. :p

I say!

How can anyone express their interest to join ADAV if they're not allowed to talk about ADAV?

I love Mark Lovegrove too.  In fact, I'm carrying his baby.

...or lose an eye.

But if films function on a visual-narrative level, and books/scripts function on a textual-narrative level, how come adventures can only function on an interactive-narrative level?

It seems to me that text-adventures function on a textual-interactive-narrative level, while graphic adventures function on a visual-interactive-narrative level.