Messages

I like the idea of a dorky high school teacher superhero; I'm wondering how many of the puzzles will revolve around high school science demos McGyvered into the gameplay. (A lot, I hope.)

Comments:

1. The sprite looks good, but the lockers seem a bit large.
2. Are you going to paint over his sprite to put him in the superhero costume? It would be a lot more trouble to separately animate him as a teacher and as a superhero, but it would be worth it - the superhero could stride everywhere, while his mild-mannered alter ego sort of plods, hands in pockets.
3. If there is no scene where the hero has to use water and potassium to make a bomb, I will be very sad.

Ten years ago, Computer Gaming World had a really great issue listing the "150 Best Games of All Time." It also included a list of the "Best Endings of All Time," as well as the worst. They had some good choices, but I don't have the issue anymore.

My favorite endings:

Trinity: Shocking. Maybe a bit emotionally manipulative, but in a way that's perfectly fair. See, what happens is this, as far as I can tell:

Spoiler

The good news is, your actions keep humanity safe from nuclear holocaust for over forty years. The bad new is, that's as much time as we get. As the bombs drop, you escape by fleeing to the past... and start the game's events over again. 1984 was a cynical year, I guess.

[close]

A Mind Forever Voyaging:

Spoiler

Suppose you found out that you were just a computer program, and had spent your entire life in a simulated world. Suppose, next, that you managed to save the real world from disaster, in spite of your lack of a body. How could humanity thank you? How could a program be rewarded? Well, you get the Nobel Prize, and then are allowed to return to your fake life, your fake wife, and your fake home. You know it's a lie, but reality isn't the nicest place to be you. Tasty, tasty blue pill.

[close]

As much as I like the idea of Mosely as high school quarterback, I agree with the other posts above - you'll probably be able to tell your own story better if you don't have to make GK's character consistent.

Regarding the plot in general, there's really too little to judge here; it would be nice if we could see a more engaging detail or two. It's possible to do stories about theater ghosts well, but the ground's well-worn, so there's got to be more to it than "dark secrets and a supposed ghost in a high school theater."

Likewise, while the classic "I'm doing a newspaper report on this" hook is decent enough - it beats amnesia -  why's the paper running a piece on the paranormal? In some parts of the US, there's no way they'd run that story - too controversial. And why is GK writing it?

Ben Jordan aside, most people don't go out of their way to look for paranormal stuff - this could be what sets GK apart, but it might be more believable if he were doing a school play review, or an article on the history of the theater, and then he saw something that piqued his curiosity.

(Even if you don't write for GK, there's something compelling about an ordinary man with ordinary motivations being thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Hitchcock knew this.)

Good luck!

Nobody in this thread has defined free will in a clear, intuitive, non-circular way. This is okay, I guess, because nobody in the world has, either, but it does undercut the discussion a bit.

First of all, free will is being confused with nondeterminism in some of the posts. Would it be possible for a person to have free will, and yet to be absolutely predictable? Some religious viewpoints insist that God knows everything that is to come, but simultaneously insist that people have free will. Is this coherent?

Suppose human psychology follows this set of rules:

1. Every person has a unique personality that is shaped in a totally rule-based, mechanical way by the environment. This causes them to have certain preferences. These may not be obviously self-serving - they could prefer ethical actions, for example.

2. Whenever they make a choice, they look at the alternatives and pick the one that best fits their preferences. When the decision is extremely close, much subtler aspects of their nature cause them to make an apparently random choice. This is still ultimately deterministic.

In this case, people ARE making decisions based on internal preferences. They're making their own choices - it's not as if God is coming down and forcing them to act against their preferences. Does that fact that this is totally predictable mean that it isn't free will? If so, what does free will MEAN?

Would people have free will if tough decisions were decided randomly? What if the randomness of tiny, spontaneous nerve firings produced enough noise to make these decisions truly unpredictable? That's not free will - that's a coin flip!

Improving, but I suggest large cuts. Even text adventures generally avoid long, noninteractive passages.

In fact, why not make the opening circuitry check interactive? This would force to player to start thinking like a robot immediately.

But if you don't want to change it so drastically, you could consider just trimming the less polished bits. For example, you needn't say that the robot experiences...

"a cold, mechanic satisfaction, with no hint of pleasure. But then, you yourself have never known any other kind of satisfaction. Or of pleasure.  [etc.]"

What you describe here in five sentences is either very straightforward, or totally inexpressible. In any case, it's dangerous to tell the player exactly what to feel. Better to show the PC's state through its actions, rather than explain in detail.

Furthermore, can we really expect to reach any insights into emotion, consciousness, or humanity in the first paragraphs of a game? Those will come, if they come at all, after the player has gotten emotionally engaged.

After all, being told that a PC doesn't feel, and then being told that it is worried, affects me little. Why should I care? It's like meeting a stranger in the street and being greeted with, "Sir? I don't feel anything. No, wait. I do. Good day!"

---

On to the rewrites.

"Electric life courses through your body. One by one, millions of switches are turned on as they are found to be perfectly functional, and hundreds more are bypassed and filed for examination in your next medical inspection. Thousands of circuits are activated and bring you to life.
   Satisfied that it is working properly, your system allows you all your voluntary functions. It is a cold, mechanic satisfaction, with no hint of pleasure. But then, you yourself have never known any other kind of satisfaction. Or of pleasure. Meaningless words, the lot of them - citizens have no time for such abstractions. Nor do they care.
   You open your eyes and step out of your regenerative booth. Words did not build your booth, words did not build your Domus or the 4.367 other Exos that lived there. If you thought about it, you'd conclude that words are meaningless and useless, a weak substitute for numbers and calculations. But, of course, you do not.
   Your inner timer informs you that you have 1 hour, 47 minutes and 24 seconds before you are due to report for work. You calculate that is time enough to invest in some mental exercise. And so thinking, you place your hand on the console of your personal panel.
   A single line of light passes trough the console, reads the identification in your palm and fingers, informs you that you are, indeed, the Exo unit you believe yourself to be, and brings to life your personal screen. You choose to spend some time on a Chess match.
   Before long, your conscience is almost gone, entirely engrossed on the challenge."

So, what can we do?

First, bearing in mind what I said about philosophical speculation above, let's cut the bit about satisfaction and words. The meaninglessness of words is a great theme for a text adventure - you can really exploit the format to illustrate the problem - but why pound it in now?

"Electric life courses through your body. One by one, millions of switches are turned on as they are found to be perfectly functional, and hundreds more are bypassed and filed for examination in your next medical inspection. Thousands of circuits are activated and bring you to life.
   Satisfied that it is working properly, your system allows you all your voluntary functions. It is a cold, mechanic satisfaction.
   As you step from your regenerative booth, your inner timer informs you that you have 1 hour, 47 minutes and 24 seconds before you are due to report for work. You calculate that is time enough to invest in some mental exercise. And so thinking, you place your hand on the console of your personal panel.
   A single line of light passes trough the console, reads the identification in your palm and fingers, informs you that you are, indeed, the Exo unit you believe yourself to be, and brings to life your personal screen. You choose to spend some time on a Chess match.
   Before long, your conscience is almost gone, entirely engrossed on the challenge."

But this cut has altered the flow of the passage - and revealed how barren of interesting action it really is. Well, let's trim it down to the bone:

"Electric life courses through your body. As you step from your regenerative booth, your timer informs you that you have 1 hour, 47 minutes and 24 seconds before you are due to report for work. It is enough time to engage in mental exercise.
   You place your hand on your personal console. A line of light scans it, informs you that you are the Exo unit you believe yourself to be, and brings to life the screen. You choose to spend some time on a chess match.
   Before long, your external awareness fades, your mind engrossed in the challenge."

Okay, it's cut down to a skeleton (though we could, and should, cut even more if we can!) but it's also as DEAD as a skeleton. All traces of personal interest have vanished. Well, let's do this step-by-step. Which details are most striking? The circuit bypass is nice, so let's put that back in. The "4.367 other Exos" bit is neat - what does the .367 mean? Also, it makes the phrase, "you are, indeed, the Exo unit you believe yourself to be" unnecessary, which is good, since it's awkward.

On that note, we might want to cut another detail - the timer. See, if this rising is habitual, and the time to regeneration is precisely calibrated, should the protagonist even need to check a timer? Consider the alternative: "As there is an inevitable gap of 1 hour, 47 minutes, and 24 seconds (+/- 4 seconds) between activation and the call to report for duty, you choose to engage in mental exercise."

After all, does the Exo consciously need to calculate these things whenever a time is needed? What about precisely timed actions, like walking? While a robot might be able to measure time much more precisely than a human being, making that process conscious (whatever that means) actually introduces a processing/attention problem, especially given that this robot has a limit on the number of things it can pay attention to at once.

So let's make these changes:

"Electric life courses through your body. One by one, millions of switches are turned on as they are found to be perfectly functional, and hundreds more are bypassed and filed for examination in your next medical inspection. Stepping from your regenerative booth, you note that, as usual, there will be an interval of 1 hour, 47 minutes, and 24 seconds (+/- 4 seconds) until the call to duty.
   Enough time, then, for mental exercise. You place your hand on your personal console. A line of light scans it, informs you that you are the Exo unit you believe yourself to be, and brings to life the screen. You choose to spend some time on a chess match.
   Before long, your external awareness fades, your mind engrossed in the challenge."

Still dull. To cut down on text bulk and kick it up a notch, we'll replace several of the passive constructions with active verbs. Yes, this is trite advice. Yes, passive constructions can be useful. But an opening has got to grab the player. Sure, you may want to distance the player from the PC, but using limp constructions isn't the best way to do it. Also, let's restructure some sentences for brevity.

"Electricity courses through ten million tiny circuits, bypassing just over a hundred defective switches. You'll have them checked at your next medical inspection.

Stepping from your regenerative booth, you note that, as usual, there will be an interval of 1 hour, 47 minutes, and 24 seconds (+/- 4 seconds) until you are called to duty, along with the other 4.367 other Exos living in your Domus. Enough time for mental exercise.

You place a clammy hand on your personal console, and wait as a thin line of light scans it and activates the screen. A chess match begins. Before long, your external awareness fades, your mind engrossed in the challenge."

It still needs editing for flow - always a problem for me - but at least it's more to the point.

[Note: A later nitpick: "Your conscience is almost gone, entirely engrossed in the challenge" is a misuse of the word conscience, at least in its current usage. While archaically the word can mean "consciousness," that usage is now downright misleading. If you have thematic reasons for this, though, go ahead.]

---

I hope that helped. For further guidance, the following text adventure openings are great models to work from:

"Sharp words between the superpowers. Tanks in East Berlin. And now, reports the BBC, rumors of a satellite blackout. It's enough to spoil your continental breakfast.

But the world will have to wait. This is the last day of your $599 London Getaway Package, and you're determined to soak up as much of that authentic English ambience as you can. So you've left the tour bus behind, ditched the camera and escaped to Hyde Park for a contemplative stroll through the Kensington Gardens. "

- Trinity, by Brian Moriarty

---

"You come around a corner, away from the noise of the opening.

There is only one exhibit.  She stands in the spotlight, with her back to you: a sweep of pale hair on paler skin, a column of emerald silk that ends in a pool at her feet.  She might be the model in a perfume ad; the trophy wife at a formal gathering; one of the guests at this very opening, standing on an empty pedestal in some ironic act of artistic deconstruction --

You hesitate, about to turn away.  Her hand balls into a fist.

"They told me you were coming."'

- Galatea, by Emily Short

---
This one's especially worth including, given that you play as a computer in this game:

"You "hear" a message coming in on the official message line: "PRISM? Perelman here. The psych tests have all checked out at 100%, which means that you've recovered from the, ah, awakening without any trauma or other serious effects.
We'll be ready to begin the simulation soon. By the way, your piece is in the current issue of Dakota Online."

A MIND FOREVER VOYAGING
Infocom interactive fiction - a science fiction story
Copyright (c) 1985 by Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.
A MIND FOREVER VOYAGING is a trademark of Infocom, Inc.
Release 77 / Serial number 850814

You have entered Communications Mode. The following locations are equipped with communication outlets:
   PRISM Project Control Center (PPCC)
   Research Center Rooftop (RCRO)
   Dr. Perelman's Office (PEOF)
   PRISM Facility Cafeteria (PCAF)
   Maintenance Core (MACO)
   World News Network Feed (WNNF)
To activate a specific outlet, submit the associated code.

>"

Of course, there are other ways of portraying a robot. "Bad Machine," by Dan Shiovitz, begins with a "?" prompt. Typing anything then gives the intro text, which begins...

"<Constructor173 perform_task><Assembler474 pause><Climber146 perform_task><Climber508 report power_level><Planner73 advance_to (109,167)><Cleaner407 begin_term><Assaulter254 work><Assembler209 report power_level><Transport299 begin_term><Climber111 move_to Fixer380><Invader20 work><Flyer387 work><Salvager197 perform_task><Regulator243 perform_task><Salvager366 advance_to (739,76)><Digger115 report power_level><Scout136 perform_task><Recycler445 perform_task><Scout43 perform_task><Transport490 repeat><Digger294 begin_term><Constructor166 change_jurisdiction Area11><Climber468 move_to Fixer352><Drone197 change_jurisdiction Area27><Assaulter342 begin_term><Salvager91 work><Lifter491 move_to Fixer394><Maintainer254 advance_to (599,571)><Transport32 work><Transport215 work><Assaulter329 work><Assembler221 change_jurisdiction Area12><Recycler46 advance_to (459,646)><Transport470 report power_level><Maintainer37 change_jurisdiction Area56><Salvager24 work><Transport438 advance_to (528,674)><Recycler302 report power_level><Assaulter456 begin_term><Salvager407 perform_task><Climber168 repeat><Stoker27 change_jurisdiction Area60><Recycler402 move_to Fixer372><Assaulter44 work><Worker319 work><Cleaner177 move_to Fixer134><Maintainer305 end_term><Climber348 report power_level><Constructor255 work><Assembler408 repeat><Builder239 advance_to (810,386)><Salvager370 end_term><Constructor165 change_jurisdiction Area20><Driller189 pause><Regulator422 move_to Fixer257><Worker306 pause><Assembler432 work><Invader208 advance_to (542,439)><Assaulter23 work><Climber102 pause><Climber304 perform_task><Cleaner226 perform_task><Transport100 begin_term><Transport184 perform_task><Transport159 pause><Maintainer463 work><Recycler218 perform_task><Climber342 move_to Fixer318><Constructor177 report power_level><Salvager59 advance_to (324,365)><Regulator246 repeat><Cleaner115 change_jurisdiction Area25><Salvager321 move_to Fixer338><Constructor265 work><Transport113 report power_level><Compressor90 end_term><Stoker90 repeat><Worker324 pause><Assembler147 perform_task><Digger482 pause><Climber141 perform_task><Constructor5 advance_to (251,280)><Lifter424 change_jurisdiction Area54><Regulator430 repeat><Cleaner206 perform_task><Maintainer286 repeat><Climber54 change_jurisdiction Area15><Maintainer232 pause><Stoker326 perform_task><Climber451 work><Flyer215 begin_term><Recycler394 work><Compressor407 work><Worker59 transcribe><Salvager421 repeat><Salvager272 advance_to (552,278)><Salvager472 work><Recycler81 work><Salvager166 end_term><Flyer450 pause><Worker506 end_term><Constructor266 change_jurisdiction Area51><Invader473 change_jurisdiction Area50><Flyer483 perform_task><Digger448 advance_to (106,713)><Negotiator22 advance_to (786,865)><Digger70 begin_term>"

I'll echo the statements that the art style looks terrific and polished. It reminds me more than a little of the excellent webcomic Achewood, which has won quite a bit of acclaim with an equally simple, but expressive, drawing style.

Regarding types of puzzles:

It's dangerous to declare, on the outset, that one kind of puzzle is automatically bad.

I think that, in the text adventure community, a few people have a perverse desire to take the most hated puzzle types, and then try to make something entertaining out of them - just to see if they can pull it off.

So I've seen some of the following:

1.

A clever maze variant that not only requires no really tedious stuff from the player, but also makes perfect sense for the story and setting - and might even be considered essential.

2.

Several games that turn die-and-restart into an addictive process by being short and engaging, turning the whole game into a puzzle of planning. "Lock and Key" and "Varicella," both by Adam Cadre, are pretty much at the top of this form.

The first is a great comedy in which you are a villian's dungeon architect, facing an adventurer who, in spite of being at an apparent disadvantage, just happens to have all the items on hand he needs to escape his cell and kill you. Repeatedly. Eventually, though, you can, with care, set up the traps you need to counter his capacious inventory and kill him.

The second is more darkly comic (yes, darker than the game where you play the murderous mastermind), but requires replaying to win, and is, by the standards of this thread, incredibly unfair. It lets you get all the way to the ending before killing you. As one character remarks, ironically, it's SUCH a shame that life doesn't give second chances...

3.

Two games that integrated die-and-restore into the plot.

I can't give their names, because this is an automatic spoiler. But in one, you have to ask somebody questions in the first act based on what you see in the second. Of course, it helps that you're a psychic with the power of RESTART...

In the other, you can exert conscious control over time itself, and pick the timelines that give the best outcomes. Taking full advantage of this is necessary to get one utterly brilliant ending, but not to get others.

4.

Brilliant math puzzles.

Come on. They exist. Especially when they hinge not on arithmetic, but on deduction, or give some sort of insight into the gameworld. The slightly tedious number system puzzles in the graphic adventure RAMA are good examples of a case where these contribute immensely to the game's atmosphere.

The jar-breaking thing? A Legend of Zelda stack a few years ago had that.

Suppose you were given the following challenge:

You must create an adventure game with a budget of $300 or so - $600 if you're ambitious, but bear in mind you aren't getting paid for this. It must be a multiplayer game, it must have intriguing challenges and puzzles, it must stimulate (and require) imagination, and it must run from 8 AM to 5 PM on a weekday. Of course, it should also be fun.

Action sequences are allowed and even encouraged, but they may be difficult to do. Because, you see, the game has to be, on some level, real. It can't be on a computer screen.

-

Every year, seniors at the California Institute of Technology try their hand at this challenge. The exact day is always kept secret to outsiders - when asked, seniors simply reply, "It's Tomorrow." But when the time comes, it's pretty obvious. Fourth-years hammer on dorm doors, screeching "IT'S DITCH DAY! WAKE UP!", then flee the campus. Classes are cancelled, and the underclassmen are left to deal with the adventures set up by the seniors.

The groggy undergrads stumble out of bed and sign up on painted boards, jostling for cool-looking stacks (the term for the games in question.) Brute force stacks may just involve a single challenge: breaking into a room with power tools, sledgehammers, and whatever else is handy. Finesse stacks may require code cracking or other ingenuity. Honor stacks may demand role playing and weird stunts; accepting the Bribe (the prize) at the end of the stack without performing these stunts would be a violation of the Caltech Honor Code. Most stacks combine all these elements into some kind of story or theme - like an adventure game, but sillier.

EXAMPLES:

In a Harry Potter stack last year, six or so students were first assigned houses and wands. These wands had various properties; some contained infrared LEDs to activate switches, some had black lights to read hidden writing, and so on. They then played through the plot of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, concluding the stack with an astounding series of challenges meant to mirror those in the book. They untangled themselves from green cargo netting (the Devil's Snare), solved a chess puzzle by moving chess pieces on a board with weight switches, solved a logic puzzle centered around potions, retrieved a key dangling from the ceiling, and so on. This was a particularly ambitious stack.

In an Ocean's Eleven-themed stack, players followed photographic clues around campus to locate block-shaped keys to open up a homemade electronic lock and break into a student's room... after another team had used a sledgehammer to smash through a concrete barrier to GET to the lock.

So... my question is, what would you do for YOUR Ditch Day stack? What would your stack theme be? How would you implement puzzles in the real world without risking severe injury to the players? Be careful, though... if your Ditch Day stack sucks, you get counterstacked, which could mean anything from being thrown in the pond to having the door of your room replaced with a giant block of ice. Take care.

Note: Ideas suggested here may be shamelessly stolen by Caltech students. They would be appreciative... because Ditch Day is Tomorrow.

Graham Nelson said that an adventure game is a narrative at war with a crossword.

To be worth playing, an adventure needs to give the player the ability to meaningfully affect the story, explore a fascinating world, and/or solve really interesting puzzles. Not all of the above are necessary, but a game needs more than a compelling story with some overused puzzles layered on top.

Graphic adventure games have a very high busywork-to-fun ratio, in my experience. It's not as severe as that of some RPGs, but it's up there. Most of your time is spent walking around, scanning the screen for objects, and going through what are often very dull conversation trees. (Lucasarts has consistently avoided the third problem, but Grim Fandango had real issues with the first, especially in Rubacava.) Every so often, you get a bit of story, and you solve puzzles.

So, if the puzzles are not original, challenging, and clever, you end up with what amounts to a story that's been stretched as thin as possible and dispensed as a reward for walking around and doing trivial stuff. Cliché puzzles might convince the designer that the player is having fun, but they're really no better than another walk across the game map. Especially when they force the player to cross the map to solve them.

And, if you're going to watch a story, you might as well watch a movie or read a book, and get much more story and character development for your time and money. Gameplay has to be more than a set of roadblocks to the story.

I agree that making the puzzles arise naturally from the plot, characters, and setting is a good first step here - it keeps you honest, and prevents you from adding too much dull filler. But the most cliché puzzles DON'T arise naturally from these elements. Puzzles like bribing a guard aren't overused unless a game consists entirely of them. Puzzles like the horrible cliché discussed above are overused if the game even uses them once.

So, if I can't see past the cliché of the puzzles to the compelling story, it could be because I could be watching a movie, and not have to see past ANYTHING to get to the story.  A game should not have to apologize for its puzzles.

Like mazes. When was the last time you saw a genuinely _plausible_ maze in a game? They make no sense as a security measure.

Or the ubiquitous puzzle mentioned earlier in the thread. How often do you see a place where it would actually work?

Or slider puzzles. They're a fixture of the Myst-clones, but they've made their way into traditional adventures, too. WHY?

We shouldn't settle for a good story and bad puzzles, or good puzzles and a lousy story.

YakSpit: SQIV was, I think, atmospheric from beginning to end. Atmospheric is often used as a synonym for creepy, and the opening definitely had that sort of atmosphere, but the Galleria sequence also was striking that way. Everything was plastic and glowy and tacky, and the shoppers bizarre, and the whole place gave a sense of cheerful, mindless consumption. And the SQI segment nailed down the nostalgic mood nicely, too, and the inside of the supercomputer was gargantuan and a little ominous...

Wait - I thought Beyond Zork was the one with the coconut, and Zork Zero was the one with the curse...

Anyway, Zork I is a brilliant game, and Zork 0 is fun, if a bit generic (it's got the Towers of Hanoi, peg jumping, and so on), and Beyond Zork has some neat RPG elements and also some horribly frustrating RPG elements... but I don't feel that Zork 2 and Zork 3 aged quite as well. Maybe it's because they have just enough plotline to suggest there's a story there, but not enough story to be compelling. Zork I doesn't pretend to be anything more than a treasure hunt, and is fun on that level.

(I like the Enchanter series more, really. Enchanter is consistently fair but challenging, Sorcerer has one of the best time travel puzzles ever written, and Spellbreaker is a great puzzlefest with a cool ending.)

LGOP was like Space Quest, but generally better and in text. It would likely be on my list if it weren't for that horrible, horrible maze. It was fair, and you got a map, but _man_ was it repetitive and plodding.

If there's an Infocom game I'd add to the list, it would probably be The Lurking Horror.

Trinity, by Infocom. See post in Best Adventure Games thread in Popular Topics. Better than almost any book I've read or movie I've seen, it captures the fragility of peace, the terror of nuclear war, and the inevitability of the death of innocents. It's the Grave of the Fireflies of adventure games.

It did not sell well in 1986, and probably wouldn't even get made now.

Photopia, by Adam Cadre, is another moving one.

For graphical adventures, I'd say that The Last Express had some moving moments, but the most affecting might not have been the so-called winning ending, but one that can occur earlier in the game, and involves a heavy briefcase, a cup of coffee, and a quiet sense of melancholy.

bspeers has a point. And here's another adventure game cliché to avoid:

Everybody does what they do for only one reason, and one alone. Maaaybe two, if it's a particularly subtle game.

Lucasfan: Aha.

Okay, so they asked permission. Wise when you're doing a remake that basically replaces the original game...

Well, a lot of the games mentioned above are downright incredible.

But I'm going to root for the underdogs here. Text adventures. Not only the Infocom classics - which were great - but some of the new ones being made - which are vastly better some ways.

Okay, how can an adventure be the best adventure game ever if it has no graphics and no music? Well, on the bright side, you don't have to spend hours walking around. Type N. N. E. E. N. N and you're across the game map. Compare that to Syberia, which, although very good, consisted largely of walking - even if you solved every puzzle in a quick guess!

So, my top five favorite adventure games ever of those _not mentioned above_ are:

5. Anchorhead

"He always returns to his blood."

I'll just link to a review:

http://www.ministryofpeace.com/if-review/reviews/20030228.html

This one's dark, like STB or Trinity, but it's also much more fun, in a twisted way, than either. It's about the puzzles and the brooding and the amazing atmosphere, but it's Lovecraftian darkness so you can't take it too seriously.

Can you?

4. Slouching Towards Bedlam

"If there are words for this... they have not yet been written."

A shorter game that makes the best use of multiple endings I have ever seen. You have something very close to free will, but whether or not you get certain endings depends on how thoroughly you REALIZE that. And it's hard to say which ending is best, and which is worst.

It's steampunk - really good steampunk - with an unsettlingly dehumanizing writing style. It also has one of the best puzzles I've ever played; I got a eureka moment on it while walking down the street, and I hadn't even realized there was a puzzle THERE before.

It's great.

3. Trinity (A 1986 Infocom game.)

"Sharp words between the superpowers. Tanks in East Berlin. And now, reports the BBC, rumors of a satellite blackout. It's enough to spoil your continental breakfast. "

This one's a weird inclusion, because in addition to having no graphics, music, or on-screen action, it has some really awful save-and-restore puzzles and a lot of puzzles whose solutions relied more on symbolism than logic. But this makes sense, given the game's time-looping premise. And Trinity may be the most flat-out memorable game I've ever played.

You mirror-reverse the world. You swing the sun through the sky. You float through space in a bubble. You cross the River Styx, sprint across the desert of New Mexico, sneak through the Trinity test site, rush to defuse the first A-bomb. And, the ending is incredibly haunting.

2. Savoir-Faire

Now this one's just plain FUN, and brilliantly programmed and conceived. Magic systems in adventure games tend to either circle around artifacts or the CAST X ON Y approach, but Savoir-Faire has only two bits of magic you can use, and they're amazingly well-done, and make for some subtle, sneaky, brilliant puzzles.

The game warns that it's easy to get into an unsolvable position, but it's fair. You can beat it with saves, restores, and careful play, and I didn't get frustrated at all with it, except in the good way. This game's like the opposite of Trinity in many ways. It's sort of an old-school game with a hint of treasure hunting and a backstory that only really becomes important in the last few moves of the game. But it goes for wit instead of weight, and it scores.

Is it pretentious? Well, sometimes. But I'd rather have pretension than a game that's afraid to pretend to anything.

(City of Secrets could also be on this list, but I didn't want to put two games by the same author, no matter how incredibly ambitious and good they are.)

1. Space Quest IV

"Casually glancing at the status bar, you notice you're in Space Quest 12."

Sophomoric. Funny, but not as pushy and loud about it as the Leisure Suit Larry games. Filled with little jabs at B-grade science fiction movies. Came with a little magazine that was at least as funny as the game, and in the tradition of the Infocom box stuff. Had some neat puzzles, though also had a nasty walking dead or two, and didn't have SQ3's reliance on action sequences. Also, was the first animated graphic adventure I played, and introduced me to the fun of solving puzzles better than your parents can even though you are seven years old.

Hey, this is the list of my personal favorites. I'm allowed to put something silly at the top.

Traps and moving doors? I hope these aren't the slow-moving kind. Those are silly.

Well, I agree with the above advice about motivation. But there are a number of other neat reasons for somebody to go into that kind of castle that could lead to entire stories in themselves.

What if the princess owns the castle, and, in a twist on the amnesia plot, everybody has amnesia BUT her, and so she isn't recognized by the security, and has to figure out what happened?

What if the princess's father, the king, is a tyrant, and the princess wants to depose him - preferably bloodlessly - and put somebody else on the throne?

What if the princess is in exile for a wicked attempt to usurp the throne, and is trying again, and only the king's loyal but bumbling vizier and the palace guards can stop her? You don't get enough evil princesses and good viziers, you know.

What if she is on a diplomatic visit to a country, war is declared during her stay, and she ends up trying to do some impromptu spying and learn the enemy's battle plans?

Would that scene have been better if you could have intervened and saved the Simbani, but not prevented the declaration of war? I think so.

The theoretical answer:

The owner of the game's copyright owns not only the right to distribute the original game, but also the right to all "derivative works." Therefore, if you write a fangame and distribute it, even if it is not for profit, you are infringing. However, the defense of "fair use" may help you out, in that some of the factors considered are whether or not profit was made, whether or not the derivative work was a substantial change to the original, and whether or not the new game acted as a substitute for the old one.

The fair use defense would probably not QUITE turn the lawsuit in your favor if it happened, but would likely prevent the damages from being too bad. It would be a PR nightmare for a company to ask for heavy punitive damages from a fangame maker, and the fact that the fangame did little harm would probable make compensatory damages low.

But you'd still be breaking the rules, and could be sued, and would likely lose if you were sued.

The practical answer:

Most companies allow fangames, though they have to be careful not to explicitly license them because then they might lose the ability to enforce their copyright. However, it is their right to stop you. Usually this means a cease-and-desist letter, which should be complied with promptly and without complaint. It's their game.

If you don't get a cease-and-desist, you can probably go ahead. But bear in mind that your game should not be a substitute for the original, especially if the original is still on the market in any form, including collections.

The key test for a substitute: Is anybody ever likely to say, "Well, I could buy the original, or I could download the fangame for free, so I might as well not pay?"

The KQ1 and KQ2 remakes were definitely substitutes, but got away with it because Vivendi apparently doesn't want to annoy the remaining Sierra fans. Or maybe they just don't really care. Or maybe their lawyers are all looking forward to QFG2+.

But I would suggest avoiding making your game a substitute. So, if you use graphics, music, characters, names, and everything else, your game should probably be original in other respects.

SUMMARY:

Do it. But all your work will be for naught if the company decides to stop you.

The most clichéd adventure game ever would likely be one of the King's Quest imitations that came out following their success.

But... in the interests of trying to top them.

The four most clichéd fantasy plots are Rescue the Princess, Find the Magic Artifact Pieces, Escape the Magical World You Have Been Teleported To, and Defeat the Evil Sorcerer.

The most clichéd horror setup is Trapped in a Haunted Mansion.

The most clichéd mystery plot is the Amnesia Plot.

The most clichéd science fiction plot in adventure games is, surprisingly, not the Alien Invasion (which is oddly not used all that often) but the Ancient Alien Ruins With Artifacts of Great Power Must Be Explored for Unclear Reasons plot.

So, how about a game where an amnesiac spaceman searching alien ruins is transported into a fantasy world via an ancient teleporter and finds that an evil sorcerer has stolen key parts of the artifact  so that he can't go back home until he defeats the villain in his haunted mansion lair and rescues a princess in the process?

Actually, maybe I play too many of these things, but that's starting to sound kind of cool!