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In the golden age of adventure games, other genres were pretty bad. Action games were crude in graphics, repetitive and boring (from Pacman to Mario to Commander Keen to Prince of Persia),

That's simply not true. There have been many popular genres, often simultaneously. If you think the games you mention are crude in graphics (for their time) repetititive (except possibly pacman) and boring, you likely haven't played any of them. These games were extremely popular, for good reason.

I'd wager that for any year that you consider part of the 'golden age of adventure gaming' there were at least three highly popular and bestselling games that weren't adventures.

So back then because other genres were unrealistic and reptitive adventure games appealed more because it was a more complete experience,

I can think of many adventure games that are not realistic (most of them, in fact, depending on your definition of 'realism'). Also, several adventure games are repetitive - any of them that involves verb-guessing, pixel-hunting, an overly obtuse puzzle or a maze.

Today when games simulate realistically almost everything in life, poeple want to do that. It's sad that graphics are more important to this generation then character and epic story

And yet Nethack remains as popular as ever, people download and play NES roms, and retro gaming is still on the uprise.

1) Action-Adventure: for example Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine - A game that I really enjoyed because not only was able to jump, run, whip, shoot guns, raft down a river,

And yet a game that was rather impopular and considered poor for its genre. Also, action adventures have been around since Lara Croft (and, arguably, Ultima Underworld). Hardly novel.

2) RPGs - in an RPG you also play a character with a background, there's an epic story developing ... Which also goes very well with playing in highly interactive realistic 3D worlds.

Such games have been in existence since at least Elder Scrolls Arena, and arguably Ultima VI. Again, hardly novel.

I don't actually think there's a decline in the amount of adventure game players (as witnessed by the community here and at IF Archive, for instance). Rather, there has been an increase in the amount of gamers overall, leading to a relative decrease of adventure games. In the Golden Age, selling 10000 copies was considered pretty good. Nowadays, with gaming having become a billion dollar industry, it is considered pretty poor.

In my experience, against both men and women, a healthy dose of sarcasm usually does the trick.

That said, I don't particularly see why you can swear at a man but not at a woman. If you're a swearing kind of person, and the other party starts it, it's free game as far as I'm concerned.

Auctioneers are ranked (by people buying stuff from them). That might give an idea of how trustworthy said person is. Given how much you paid for it and the fact that it works (or does it?) I'd say you should be happy with it - consider that there are also people that'll take your money and not send you any goods.

"Video card failed to initialize."

Bummer.

If you sell your AGS game to clams, you must give all your prophets to Chris. Er, whu?

You can't check off the internet the best way to kill the baddy in level 4, or which is the best path to take to dodge the ghosts in Pacman, or which tile to move so the picture puzzle is complete.

Actually you can. There are FAQs and walkthroughs for any number of platformers, maze games, shmups, fighting games and puzzlers all over the internet. Google is your friend.

I got stuck in adventure games way before I had any internet, and the frustration was enough to put you off the game for years (which it did, until I got the internet).

Back then, there were help lines, BBSes and many many magazines that printed walkthroughs.

Thinking about it, puzzles are pretty absurd.

Sometimes. Good puzzles are not absurd, though.

The question arises, are puzzles really necessary for an adventure game?

Not really, an interactive story could work. But for it to be interactive there really should be multiple endings, and technically that makes it a puzzle to figure out how to reach all of them (unless it's obvious). However, the IF genre has a couple of good puzzle-less (or at least puzzle-light) entries.

over the path of the story: If the player saves the damsel in distress, he'd get an extra hand to help him defeat the evil wizard. If he sacrifices her and drinks her blood, he'd grow more powerful, and be able to defeat the evil wizard anyway.

Sounds like a puzzle to me
However, I can see a way this could go. Several RPGs have little or no puzzle (and sometimes, little or no plot forks) and can still be fun. Might & Magic comes to mind. But they do become games that are played on the endurance factor, rather than creativity.

How puzzling should puzzle be so as not to need a walkthrough? CAN there be a specific (good) amount?

Matter of taste, of course. There are easy games and hard games, silly games and serious games. TSOMI is far easier than MI2. DOTT uses a far more wacky logic than QfG. Etc. But what you call an 'intrinsically solvable puzzle' is not really a puzzle - in a way, you're deluding the player into thinking he has influence over the gameflow, when in fact all options give the same result.

The moral of my story is that I like random story generators. It wasn't MadLibs but that does get the general idea

Anyone read Good Omens?

I have, but it was a long time ago and I can't remember it well thus cannot see what you're getting at. Care to elaborate?

Despite being a humoristic and tongue-in-cheek book, it has some wise words about free will and the idea that the whole point of Creation must be that humans can make their choice between good and evil.

The holy banana knows all.

If you're going to worship food... FSM rules!



...In Bill Watterson's words (paraphrased from memory)...

Calvin: I've decided to believe in predestination. Everything we do is foreordained, and therefore nothing I do wrong is really my fault.

(Hobbes trips Calvin, who falls in the mud)

Hobbes: Too bad you were fated to do that.
Calvin: THAT WASN'T FATE!!!



I mean no disrespect to the topic in using humor to discuss it. Rather, this kind of humor holds a mirror to reality, and potentially holds a mirror to the poor souls that Just Don't Get It. Even if, when the blind lead the blind, they will find it hard to spot a mirror. Ramen.

Sure, we may be animals in the biological sense, but we can think, have morals and ethics. We're human.
I CAN eat meat, but I have a choice, so I don't. The lion killing the zebra doesn't have a choice.

It's more of a gray area than you say; animals also think. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_intelligence for some background info.

Now, people always tell me I'm inconsequential. No meat, no milk, but I eat cheese? I'm a hypocrite.
They may be right, but that doesn't belittle everything else I (do not) do.

This does remind me of an old friend of mine who is vegetarian, but nevertheless eats hamburgers because he likes them. If you're going to play the ethics card, at least be consistent.


That said, I'm all in favor of freerange animals.

Anyone read Good Omens?

And they ended this speech with, "We knew we were doing the right thing because we were being prosecuted."

Lovely fallacy, that. It allows you to get away with anything because if people disagree with you, you must be right...

I hate to tell them this, but (believe it or not) God isn't responsible for every little good thing, bad thing, mishap, convenience, inconvenience, or event that happens to you in your life.

Very true. God gave people a brain for a reason.

Or, for a less biased view of things,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETA


(anything that has to label itself "this is true", in my experience, is usually wild speculation)

Looks like your walkable area is too complex. As I understand it, the walkto algorithm works by picking a number of waypoints along the road, to make sure you don't cross through non-walkable areas (and you can manually add waypoints with MoveCharacterPath() ). Since your walkable apparently consists of a lengthy, narrow, winding path, too many waypoints are required and the pathfinder halts.

(solution? Hardcode it).

[while]

Now if he somehow got a piece of the gold before dying (which seems to be the case) I suppose that the curse sustains him,

I would hope they have a better plot reason for his reappearance than rehashing the curse (aside from the point that said curse would keep him unable to eat apples, and give him no reason to be friendly to Jack). It's quite possible that the Voodoo Lady used her magic to resurrect him, instead. It's also quite possible that he isn't really alive per se.

We know only this from the film: it ignores injuries that occur while cursed,

Narrative convenience, I'm afraid

until the gold is taken away...Then he should just flop over again, logically.

Maybe I didn't understand you, but when the gold was taken away from Barbossa and returned to the chest, he DID flop over and die.

All the world's a store, and all the men and women merely payers...

If we are to make MAGS suggestions... I think it'd be cool to have a MAGS game with multiple playable characters and cooperative puzzle solving, like in Gobliins2 or Maniac Mansion. Just my $.2

What's the difference between Neil Armstrong and Michael Jackson?

Do you know why Michael Jackson got divorced?

Spoiler

He misunderstood the concept of 'having children'.

[close]

More bad jokes...


What's the difference between a banjo and an onion?

Spoiler

Nobody cries when you cut up a banjo.

[close]

What's a blonde with two brain cells?

Spoiler

Pregnant.

[close]

There are three kinds of people in this world: people who can count, and people who cannot.

I'll give it 4 out of 5 as well.

It is true that 90% of sequels suck really bad and are nothing but money grubbing (The Lion King III, Ocean's Fifteen, I Am Entirely Aware Of What You Did Last Summer, etc). However, the remaining 10% of sequels are well worth it, and this is one of them.