Haven't seen this posted here. There is an editorial posted on PC Gamer on how to save the adventure game genre.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/09/04/dont-quit-how-to-save-adventures-225/

The intro does not start well for us...

for the link Dave.

Hey it's by Richard Cobbett.
He used to post on the Adventure newsgroup, back when it was still lively -- and before he got a job at PCGamer.

I, too, recognized the name. In fact, those were the first words I looked on that page, mainly because I was curious at who would have the credentials to write such an article.

Hmmm... Interesting...

Dave.

I'm afraid I'm always tempted not to read past the first couple of lines of articles like this.
I disagree with so much that is said in them !!!!

Innovation is a two-edged sword. If you wow the critics but most gamers find the innovation to be frustrating and/or difficult, the game doesn't sell well. Why didn't we see lots of The Last Express clones? Because The Last Express cost so much to make and sold so poorly. From what I can tell, the game pretty much bankrupted its publisher.

Runaway, on the other hand, spawned sequels. Two of them. The company that made the game is still in business, creating adventure games.

I remember a time when adventure gamers were told that they had to adapt to 3D graphics with keyboard-only interfaces because these innovations were the wave of the future. Did these innovations, looking back, serve the adventure genre well?

The Experiment was innovative in many ways. Why don't we see more games like it? Because it is truly a bear to play. You admire the innovation while you mutter under your breath at the awkwardness of the movement and the little tiny pixel arrows that have to be distinguished/clicked on.

I posted recently, asking how many people had actually finished an older game -- the remarkably innovative Of Light and Darkness. No one posted that they had. The gameplay is different than any other adventure game. The art is surreal, and the story is, well, out there. It's a rewarding experience if you can make it through, but it's almost impossible to make it all the way through.

For some reason, we never saw an Of Light and Darkness Part II.

Yes, there are innovations that bring the genre forward and are rapidly adopted. But they tend to be incremental, at least from what I've observed.

Becky!

I was a lilttle confused after reading the article. On one hand he is favorable to the older games like KQ series and Monkey Island series and then on the other hand criticizes those games that follow that concept and don't graduate to newer innovations.

I for one have favorable opinions of most of the games that he criticized. (runaway and Grey matter as an example). The article is a good read but I have several points of disagreement.

As has been said "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and in adventure games quality of adventure gaming is in the eye (or possible hands) of the player.

"I remember a time when adventure gamers were told that they had to adapt to 3D graphics with keyboard-only interfaces because these innovations were the wave of the future. Did these innovations, looking back, serve the adventure genre well?"

Well, it doesn't seem so and he acknowledged it (and won my heart) when he mentioned the "underwhelming Gabriel Knight 3". And didn't he mention innovations that had nothing to do with how good the game looked (or was supposed to look) and more to do with how it was played...character development, multiple challenges, multiple paths?


"But at heart, the best adventures were great not because of their technology but because of how they used it, and that always started with finding new ideas instead of willingly tying themselves down to What These Games Must Be."

That seems to be the crux of his argument. Of course, I haven't been playing adventure games nearly as long as many of you but it makes sense to me.

Which is not to say that I haven't enjoyed games that he sneers at, like Jack Keene, but I realize that's never going to be anyone's classic for any number of reasons, thinking outside the box least of all.


"I was a little confused after reading the article. On one hand he is favorable to the older games like KQ series and Monkey Island series and then on the other hand criticizes those games that follow that concept and don't graduate to newer innovations."

Well, there you go, I thought he explained himself rather well. "Oh, that worked and people loved it! Let's do it over and over and over and not take any risks!" At least, that's what I read.

Anyway, I enjoyed the article and I don't think it would hurt some of the big game developers to read it. Truthfully, playing it safe doesn't seem to have helped them much, at least in regard to sales. I'm not fond of 3D and lord knows I don't want action in my adventures but surely there are some next gen Tim Schafers out there who are just itching to show what they can do with AGs if they're given backing and a free hand. It worked once.

Gil.

He should have stopped with "Adventures don’t actually need the latest technology, of course."

I don't agree with this person. I enjoyed every game he mocked. I want my sequel to A Vampyre Story, for example. And I liked the Runaway games.

Probably a good thing I'm not a member there.

Becky, you got me intrigued. I didn't know this Of Light and Darkness was innovative. I always heard only that it was a combination of beautiful graphics and weak gameplay - no one told me more. Could you write a bit about what made that game unique?

This topic is very interesting to me. For better or worse I'm making my own new adventure game completely experimental. I really hope it'll intrigue rather than alienate.

Ascovel -- the game is so unusual that it's hard to describe. At the most basic level, you are matching historical figures to their defining sin, using the traditional seven deadly sins. As I recall there's also a bunch of druids who are part of a rock band, an angel who is an exotic dancer, and a really, really bad guy who is an aspect of Satan. Sort of.

You have a deadline -- the apocalypse, though there are ways in the game to delay it.

A description of the gameplay is here in the walkthrough we wrote. There's also some philosophy about the game near the end of the walkthrough if you are philosophically inclined.

Is the gameplay weak? The gameplay is very different and difficult. Does that make it weak?

You really ought to play the game.

Ascovel,
There's a playthrough of Of Light and Darkness done as a series on Youtube. It starts here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vpBZ_6D6go

Playing a few of the videos in the series should give you a good idea of the gameplay. It's not for people who want to take their time, but it's interesting to watch.

That sounds definitely like something worth experiencing. I will try to seek out a game copy, and if I can't find it (or it's too expensive), then at least watch the playthrough. Thank you, Becky and Jenny!

My apologies if this has already been mentioned, but another interesting feature of this game is who designed it: Cliff Johnson, the designer of The Fool's Errand, one of the best puzzle games ever (released in 1989).

I tried playing Of Light ands Darkness many, many years ago (12 or 13 years ago, I think?) And while I do agree that the gameplay was innovative and a bit creative as well, I did not finish the game. The reason - at one point it got very frustrating not to be able to move forward in the game, because I had forgotten to do x before doing y or z. And then when someone did not get redemption for their sins, even when I followed the walktrhough from here, it also grew tiring. (let me clear - the boomer walkthrough was very clear, the game, however was not...)

And then, unfortunately, some of the lights? you used were in colour, meaning that some, or all of the puzzles, relied on being able to distunguish colurs, not only clear red from clear blue, but also the tones in between. And while I can do many things, as a colourblind persons I can't do this. (Some of the quests that involves colour puzzles in the KQ I've used a walkthrough to solve, the same goes for the musical puzzles...)

As for 3D in adventure games, I thought we had this now? I agree, however, that point and click works for adventure games, simply because the pacing is slow and it fits with the (somewhat slow) gameplay and the story being told in adventure (puzzle) games.

While I know some of you frown about action in adventure games, in Zork: Nemesis, there is a timed action sequence involving a tank and an explosive device (in the game), and in the Broken Sword games, there's an action sequence involving a goat.

I don't have problem with action sequences in adventure games as long as they make sense and is helping the story along or are used to describe the main character in the story.

Ad no, I don't think that the keyboard only method of controlling say the main character in Dreamfall helped that game at all, not in terms of gameplay and, dare I say it --- sales.

Karsten -- distinguishing colors in Of Light and Darkness is so key to the gameplay, that I'm amazed that you made significant progress in it!

Yes, some adventure games do use 3D, and this nearly always has consequences for the interface -- a good example is Broken Sword 2's interface when compared to that in Broken Sword 3. IMHO 3D interfaces are becoming easier to deal with than they were in the earlier 3D adventures -- click and dragging in Back to the Future, for instance, seems easier than in Tales of Monkey Island. But good old point-and-click is still the most accessible.

I just watched a couple of the YouTube sections of gameplay of OLAD. That is one strange game. Although I have it sitting around here somewhere, I'm in no hurry to find it.

"Well, there you go, I thought he explained himself rather well. "Oh, that worked and people loved it! Let's do it over and over and over and not take any risks!" At least, that's what I read."

That is a double edge sword. There is more than one game that was a big hit. Great story, and characters and big hit with players. They come out with a sequel taking a risk. They end up with a hybred that people hate and forget about the story and characters that people loved.

Just because you follow the formula of big hit number 1 it does not mean that choice is a cop out.

I agree there are bad adventure games out there. The bad list is longer than the good list.

Yes, but if you continue to follow a formula too long without making innovations, all you achieve is boredom.

Look at casual games, for example. They come out so thick and fast it's easy to see how the developers have to keep making improvements, trying new things if they want to please their increasingly demanding customers. The choice to do the same thing over and over in a casual game is obviously a cop out and what's more, one that doesn't pay off. They can't stand still. If they want to make money, the developers have to introduce new ways of playing, better integrated puzzles and better looking graphics. (One of these days, they may even be forced to come up with stories that don't involve traveling through time to save your grandfather after, of course, cleaning your room.)

Point and click adventure games may not be able to survive selling only to those who already love them and those who fall over a good one and discover that they do, too. Some way, someone has to figure out how to bring back the excitement AGs once seem to have engendered and that probably is not going to mean doing things the way they've always been done.

I just hope it can be done without creating those (to me) gosh awful hybrids.

Gil.

I have the Solution of all solutions on "Saving Adventure Gaming..."
Just tell all companies that produce Adv. games to drop in on this site (and Mystery Manor Forum) and discuss their game developments with the Forum members + they can take a look at the Super Duper GAMEBOOMERS ANNUAL GAME LISTS compiled by flotsam and that should give them more than enough Directions as to what To Produce and what Not to Produce.

As a slightly different "take" on the subject -- what were some recent innovative aspects of recent adventure games that you thought were successful?

For instance, I thought that Max's psychic vision and Toys of Power transformations worked well in Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse. (Perhaps this isn't the first time something similar has been used in an adventure game, but it certainly isn't common.)

I also thought that Machinarium had innovative features, including the unusual graphics and the use of pictorial bubbles instead of dialog. I enjoy dialogs, and I thought I would miss them, but I was surprised to find that the story progressed pretty well without them.

Frogware's 2D/3D perspective (Sherlock Holmes) was a pretty cool one.

I liked tiny bang story as I found it a uniquestyle of game play. It has hidden object type play but with the physics based gameplay that physicus and other edutainment type games have.

Anyhow, it certainly kept me interested!