What's Wrong with Adventure Games: Difference between revisions

BB: about the puzzle in TLJ, it actually made sense to me, because you use the ducky, the clamp, and the chain thing to create a hook, and "fish out" the key. The key was dropped there. It all depends on what you see as logical, sometimes in games it's fun to have a bit of illogical puzzles. A game would be boring if everything was totally logical, for example a key would always be sused on a door, and to cut a piece of paper for example. IMO, it's more interesting when the objects you use are not used how you would excpect to use them, but instead in an origianl way. This can also include things that would sometimes seem illogical. That's why providing hints is important, to make the player see the logic in things, or give him an idea. Grim Fandango is a great example of this.

TLJ was original too, because it took the cliche story of saving the world(s) etc, and turned it into something origianl and interesting, with a huge nackstory. This is also important, to have a lot of details about the story (the exception would be in a humourous game, but even in a game like MI it's important to know details and backstory, even if the player doesn't get to know them). If the designers have a lot of details worked out, they feel much more natural when

Sound effects I mentioned, as an addition to animation, sound effects are great for immersion and making the game not static. Once again I bring Apprentice as an example, because it did these thing so well.

Puzzles can be a problem yes, because sometimes they are brought as a standalone, when they should be intergrated entirely into the plot. They are the means, not the end.

It IS a problem with the genre because developers (commercial AND indie) rely upon it too much.

==Las Naranjas Discussion==

So, from what I'm reading so far puzzles need to be less dumb and pointless, and a lot less rigid and more flexible. With this flexiblity, tho, there's the chance of going back to the old adventure games. for example, on King's quest 1 you have to find the three lost items, but that's really all you know. then you have to walk around and find out where they are, and you're totally clueless of what to do, therefore losing your attention span. Yeah, I haven't finished King's Quest I mainly because I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. With zak mckracken and maniac mansion it was the similar style because you could basicly go anywhere and do stuff. Of course, this has changed over the years but to a super-rigid linear style that still has the same old I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing style here and there. So maybe players need more direction on what to do,... but that's all I've got. I have no idea how to accomplish this without making the game too stupid.

==Ginny Discussion==

Vartgrass: I've had and played B&W for more than year now, aswell as the expansion pack, and the interface is indeed inventive, though I dunno how it would suit adventure games. You use the mouse to change your view and location, but not in the way you would expect. It takes some getting used to. You are 'the hand of god' and you drag your way around, or double click to get somewhere directly, and use the wheel or Ctrl+up arrow/down arrow to zoom in and out. Personally I really like holding down the wheel and moving the mouse, which allows me to trun, pan, and zoom altogether, finding the best view. This wouldn't work very well in a 3rd person perspective adventure though. It might work well in a 1st person, with some altering of course.

There is more to the interface of course, the physics of the B&W world are amazingly accurate and when you throw a rock for example, how quickly, how hard, and in what direction you throw it directly affect wherer it will hit. How hard it hits affects the object that it hits. There were some things that you could call puzzles in B&W, like finding a person or a stone you needed, but these aren't at all like adventure game puzzles.

If such strong non-linearity and change, plus different possible endings, were to be implemented in a game, this would produch great results IMO, and great replayability.

'''So, from what I'm reading so far puzzles need to be less dumb and pointless, and a lot less rigid and more flexible. With this flexiblity, tho, there's the chance of going back to the old adventure games. for example, on King's quest 1 you have to find the three lost items, but that's really all you know. then you have to walk around and find out where they are, and you're totally clueless of what to do, therefore losing your attention span. Yeah, I haven't finished King's Quest I mainly because I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. With zak mckracken and maniac mansion it was the similar style because you could basicly go anywhere and do stuff. Of course, this has changed over the years but to a super-rigid linear style that still has the same old I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing style here and there. So maybe players need more direction on what to do,... but that's all I've got. I have no idea how to accomplish this without making the game too stupid.

Good idea about the game code, seriously. It could be a great sort of guide/tutorial on making games. It should be very deatiled and extensive though, so it would take a lot of work,

Who knows... Maybe someday, we'll have a way to connect our mids to the computer, and it would read our minds and we control the game by thinking, and the dialogs would be spoken by us, with responses for anything, and with special virtual reality glasses we would feel like we were inside the game. And saving and loading will be implemented by thinking about it, and poof, it's saved, or will be automatic.

It would require making sure accidental thoughts don't get read though, like maybe identifying when the thought is directed at the game.

==MachineElf (formerly Vargtass) Discussion==

==Ginny Discussion==

On topic though: "Now, there's puzzles and there's "must do's". Must do's are actions that you must carry out for the story to continue. Puzzles are challenges for the mind (how can I accomplish this/aquire that/whatever). How woul,d you feel about a game that only consists of "must do's", or perhaps sometimes not even that, but timed events carried out by NPC:s which of you have no control over. The actual GAMEPLAY is reduced, so it's perhaps not more than an interactive story of you can affect the way the plot will evolve. Is the puzzles the adventure GAMEPLAY, or is it also experiencing the story?"

{{Spoiler|In one part of the game you have to free someone from a jail cell. I forget why, havent played MI for a while, but that's your must do. In order to do it though, since the cell is locked, you have to do something. In this case it's carry grog in a timing puzzle, and use the grog on the lock before it melts the cup. This is a puzzle, but it is not in any way avoidable, it too, is an essential "must do" for completing the game.}}

A game is like a sweater. One stich seems unimportant on it's own, but take it out and the whole sweater falls apart.

IMO we shouldn't be so hard on the puzzles, they put the 'game' in 'adventure game', after all. The excpetions are mini games, extra puzzles, and easter eggs, which are not part of the neccessary "must do's", but in my opinion they do not detract from the story, instead, they can add to the game enviorment and thus add to immersion.

However, let me add my two cents to the "puzzles - do we need them?" discussion:

The major problem with adventure game plots and settings seems to be the lack of natural gameplay potential - interation that flows from within the plot, the characters and the setting. PQ is a game about a cop - what do cops do? Wouldn't it be cool to play a cop? Sure it would! Space Quest is a game about a janitor on a space ship - what do janitors do? Nah, that's too boring, let's throw him into some wild adventures. See where I'm going?

Another example, from the designer of Police Quest nonetheless, is Codename: Iceman. The player character is a spy - sounds cool, right? - what do spies do? Well, for one they don't travel across the Atlantic in a nuclear submarine, torpedoing enemy ships along the way, risking international conflict, just to infiltrate a country where - get this - a fellow spy, who you met in the Caribbean just before you mission - has been all along! What's that you're saying? The guy is a submarine captain too? Oh, I see. What do submarine captains do? They certainly DON'T do metal shop work at the lathe, trying to repair diving equipment. Nor do they play dice with one of their crew people for a piece of advanced technology essential for the mission a world peace. These are absurd tasks, that have little to do with the actual scope of the man's mission.

==Ginny Discussion==

{{Smiley}}

Here's another thing GF did well: Voice acting. Some of the best voice acting I've ever heard, and is the reason I think good voice acting is important, because it adds so much to the character and to immersion, and IMO to the enjoyment from the game too.

P.s. You're right about having too many topics here, perhaps we can focus it later on one specific subject. Looks like puzzles are getting the most attention, but it might still be a topic too wide.

Is this an annual thing, starting a debate about something after Mittens? Like a sort of activity? {{Smiley}}

[[Category:Game Theory Discussions]]