Fairygdmther

And you people wonder why there are stereotypes about young guys and their short attention spans! sigh... FGM

No, AGA - fucking insane is when you try to put words into other people's mouths. FGM

On Jan 22, 2005, at AG I posted this: At the risk of pitting myself in a battle between BJ and Trep, I would like to interject something here. I do feel that the adventure genre DOES need a shot in the arm - it does need to evolve. But taking that in the direction of fighting or other action sequences is NOT the way to do it. Graphics - the adv developers have mastered this - environments are gorgeous true-to-life vistas. Audio - many games have wonderful audio tracks and appropriate music to the situation 3D vs 2D - adv games have mastered the 2D slide-show, but barely made any inroads toward 3D real-time interactive environments - needs work Gameplay - why can't a 3D graphic engine allow use of an inventory? why can't items be picked up and manipulated? - needs a lot of work Movement - eliminating the dizzying movement found in many games when point and click is not used - needs work Exploration - a few games have allowed for total exploration - new area and needs work Linearity - any game CAN be replayed, but to enhance replayability it's necessary to introduce a much greater percentage of nonlinearity, through choices in action as well as conversation - needs work Story - enough with the hokey rehashed stories! get a writer! - needs major work Character development - along with story, we need to see some progression in the main character - he/she represents us, so he/she better be good and getting better - needs a lot of work User-friendly controls - adv games run the gamut from excellent to god-awful - why must each new game reinvent the wheel? - needs work Puzzles - good puzzles are difficult to construct so that they can be accomplished by the majority of the players, yet are still enjoyed by the die-hard puzzle aficionados. Everyone seems to agree, though, they need to be integrated with the story, and not something to extend the length of the game. - needs work Inventory management - ease of use should be de rigeur by now, but it isn't. labels need to be seen on mouseover to identify the green blob as a gem. also, when a player progresses to the next level, items no longer needed should be automatically removed from the inventory - scrolling thru 60 unlabelled items can be a nightmare - needs work Saving - this should not even be an issue, but it is - unlimited manual saves - period! - needs work Miscellaneous - alternate camera angles would help in many games, even if only on closeup; a journal is a nice feature, as is the ability to keep your own notes within the game; many players would like to keep track of points as they progress - a nice option; separate sound level controls for music, background sounds and voices, and the ability to mute music and background sounds as needed; subtitles on ALL games; color palettes chosen to avoid the color-blindness issues - this is a very common problem; immediate restore after a death to just before - please don't make us go thru 5 min of lead-up to the problem; listen to your beta testers - all of them, they are your buffer between you and the world, and fix the mistakes before the games are released. Admit errors and release patches in a timely fashion; if you must install copy-protection, use one that won't hurt those who legitimately purchase your game. Summary - Adventure games need to progress - desperately. When you stand still, you fall behind. They need to evolve - into better adventure games - not into hybrids. There's plenty of room in the gaming world for hybrids - some of which are truly excellent. But there's also room for newer, better adventure games to be made. And later replied with this the next day: Yes, Trep, I did forget Marketing as an issue, and I meant to rant about it one more time, but still, for the games themselves what I'm asking for doesn't involve that much more work or money, just an emphasis on player enjoyment. Reading some of the intervening posts I was wondering if we've just become too jaded. We've all played many adv games, and too many bad ones, to be sure, but to complain about Syberia, for instance, bothers me. It was a totally original story with gorgeous graphics, and not all the puzzles were THAT easy, though some were. And the complaints about crossing so many screens where nothing is happening smacks of impatience - impatience because things aren't happening fast enough for the player - hello? These are adventure games - you're supposed to be having enough time to look around and explore. If things aren't moving quickly enough for you, then perhaps you are playing the wrong genre for you. I also feel that some of the complaints about Syberia is that it was well-liked, and it's just not cool to like something that's popular - it's much more cool to criticize it. And complaining about 10 year old Myst? This game rocked the genre - for good or for bad, it altered the way adventures are viewed. You don't have to like Myst, but, damn, at least give it credit for being an original and with a groundbreaking approach to graphics. Sure, I'd love to have more games like Obsidian, or Timelapse, or Sanitarium, but these games didn't make it big, and the teams have been dismantled. And ineffective marketing is what killed them. Perhaps the Lucas Arts and Sierra games were also prone to the insipid marketing practices, I don't know for sure, but those teams, too, are gone. Game development has increased exponentially in the last ten years, as a result of many factors - console development, Myst (like it or no), and growing popular interest. Many colleges are now offering programs, so maore people are getting into game making fields. But who are these people? Largely they are twenty-something year old males, and the majority of twenty-something year old males like action gameplay. The older games that you're all lamenting that are not being made any more? They were developed by older software developers - those for whom action was not always the prime concern. I'm not trying to start the age-wars again, but that is reality. If the games made with the biggest bucks are the biggest sellers, then that's where the money will continue to flow. And because the marketers have been twidding their thumbs and not researching the various gaming genre's audiences, they are missing the boat on a huge possible source of entry level gamers in the men and women of 35 or older. You can't bring people in to play games that don't exist, and the ones that do exist are riddled with errors, poor gameplay and inventory management, etc., then you're going to discourage those who may come in and try adv games. And why are they so bad? Because there isn't the money put into them to improve them, when they're not going to make big money. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone criticizes TAC (The Adventure Company) for their mediocre games, and they are right about that. However TAC gets adventure games out with popular themes (Egypt, Atlantis, etc), with pretty boxes that catch the eye of those not knowledgeable about games, and they impulse buy them. They don't have great stories, or the best graphics, but they can be run on older machines. TAC has brought many gamers into the fold, and I'm one of them (Atlantis II or Beyond Atlantis). Once these people learn what a huge number of adventure games there are out there that don't involve violence, they get sucked into the gaming world. While TAC's marketing isn't the greatest either, they are bringing people in. That's more than I can say for the mega-game developers do for adventures. The primary issues with the adventure gaming world isn't that there aren't any good games, it's that the ones that are coming out haven't had the best financial backing to bring out the best in them (for example - Journey to the Center of the Earth). How do we reach the developers, and make them see that there is a market for the games? How do we get them to market the games to the right people, so that we get more games sold? The more games that are sold (and this is where games like Syberia come in), the more money will be given for future games to be made with all the bells and whistles. And you aren't going to sell games if people don't know about them. Yes, we in the forums know, but to bring in new people, you need to get them interested. FGM

Moos - I'm not implying anything of the sort - do a google search on testosterone and competitiveness and read it for yourself. I didn't do the studies, I've just read about them. Also, there have been studies that todays young men do have lower testosterone levels, perhaps due to environmental influences - there are many chemicals that break down to estrogen-like substances and get into the drinking water. I certainly couldn't say if any of this may/may not apply to you personally. FGM

There are two long threads that go into this at AG Groups... and Myst. That's where that idea came from. FGM

Now this is a generalization, but imagine a 38 yr old woman, her kids are at least high school age or older, she's been working in an office where she's gotten comfortable with PC's, and now has some leisure time to play. She's played the online casual games, but is looking for more. A friend shows her Syberia, and she's wowed by the beautiful scenery, and didn't even know this kind of game existed. The only games she's seen before were the ones her kids played, and they were nothing like this, they were shooters, sports games, racing games, etc. There's a woman protagonist, a modern woman, not a scantily dressed, impossibly endowed woman, but one like she might know from her office. She can identify with this woman. She doesn't know what to do, but this friend helps her get started, shows her how to get a w/t if she gets stuck, and shows her the forums (probably GB), and she's now an adv gamer. As far as her other interests, she probably reads Danielle Steele, does the crossword from the daily paper, and watches a few sitcoms on TV, like Friends, Seinfeld, etc. Now this is a portrayal, and not a real person, but there are many like her here in the US. Does this still seem so far-fetched to you? Can you not see this woman? FGM

It has long been noted that males are more competitive than females - numerous psychological studies have documented this. In fact the correlation seems to match testosterone levels. This is the modern day version of marking your territory, and repelling invaders. In games like The Sims, where there is no boss fight at the end, and in fact there is no endgame, this is understandably more appreciated by females than males, though many guys have played it, but soon get bored by the minutia of day-to-day management of their people. Since women bear the onus of child-rearing, as a rule, this get-them-up, make-them-eat, make-them-bathe, make-them-go-to-the-toilet, get-them-off-to-school/work is so much like real life as to be seen as a natural part of life. Of course women will connect with this more than men. And since it is non-competitive as well, it again points to the estrogen-producers rather than the testosterone-producers, as noted above. I agree that women are becoming less casual in their gaming habits, even if they don't share the same likes and dislikes as their male counterparts. There are many young women, who grew up with gaming, who tend to share the same likes as the guys, but for women as a whole, this is not the case. Maybe it has to do with a woman's initiation into the computer gaming realm. I got my first computer in 1986, and in 1987, at age 40, went to a computer programming school to program Assembler and Cobol for IBM mainframes. There were many young women doing this, but I was a complete anachronism, both in school and working as a programmer. There were plenty of guys my age and older, but very few women. Each of us has our own subjective tale to tell, but we need to see the big picture. Women gamers are on the rise, and as a whole, don't want FPS or RTS games. They are attracted to casual online games, adv games and RPG/MMORPG games. As far as the issue of consoles - women who've raised kids see these as for the kids. Many of these women learned to use PC's with their work, and are already comfortable with this environment. Console gamepads, whose button use changes for each game, seem unnecessarily complex. I need to say here, for the record, that I own an Xbox and PS2, and have played Halo, and beat it, Max Payne, didn't finish that, DOA, GTA3, etc. Many of the women I meet in forums think I'm weird (they're probably right!), and can't see the attraction. As I said, subjective experience doesn't negate the big picture. I don't think it is wrong to break down games into guy games and women's games - there really are differences - not better or worse, just different. My first venture into the gaming forums brought my attention to the numbers of female players of adv game; with further exploration of the forums, I've been pleasantly surprised to see so many guys who like them as well. There are no hard and fast rules, but only trends. And the market of 35+ women getting into gaming is the current trend, and one we need to capture, to bring in more gamers and therefore more revenue to the genre. FGM

That's not the only reason - if you're new to the genre, and many of the older (35+, not necessarily old like I am) players weren't brought up on gaming, then you do it because you want to catch up, and play the ones that others rave about. As a kid, you probably devoured games, I didn't start on adv games till 2001 - I've got a lot of catching up to do. Last year on eBay, I bought more than 60 old games from my tax refund, not because the newer ones were not to my liking, but because I wanted to play some of the older ones, many of which I still couldn't get, without paying huge bucks because they're so scarce. I would love to see Morpheus re-released, or Obsidian, which I did get. I'm still missing some of the Tex Murphy, and one of the Laura Bow games. I disagree that the blockage to change is coming from respect of the older games. It is coming from, IMHO, money issues and resistance from the dyed-in-the-wool adv gamers who don't want the same kind of changes that your age group does. I'm not familiar with OGRE, but is it a quality graphics engine like the one used in HL2? I would doubt that it could be and be free. FGM

Aw, c'mon Kingz, don't hold back, don't be shy, tell us what you really think! FGM

Duncan, by the jaded comments, I would have to say that adv gaming has already "lost" much of the 14-24 yr old males, because so many of them express the need for what is beyond the scope of adv gaming. Bold emphasis is mine - First - it isn't what I want, but rather what we may have to settle for due to poor financial climate for adv games. Second - I can't tell you how many posts I've read in other forums from parents who were able to reach their rebellious teens on the level of games only. It enabled them to bridge that gap, and gave them quality time together that was non-controversial for either. Third - You are simply wrong about there being no market for re-released games. Sanitarium and MI 1&2 were recently re-released and have sold a great many, possibly even doubling their initial sales. Fourth - regarding the age of the players making up the group wanting re-release - once again, you are simply wrong - go to some other forums and you'll see a wider age range, and that many, many are looking for older games that they missed first time around. And this addresses your question of timelessness. When the new gamer discovers adv games, they go looking for the older games like the ones they like best. As far as the graphics engines, there are some indie developers who are using these, but the best engines cost big bucks, though it can cost even more to develop your own engine for a game. The only way to compete with the other genres is to have the same kind of budget as they do, and adv games can't get that because they don't initially sell big like the FPS or RPG games. FGM

Jake, that wasn't aimed at you, believe me, but at some of the "me, too" posters. FGM

I've only played a few PS2 games, but I definitely recommend ICO and Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. ICO is a beautiful game with fighting sequences, but otherwise like adventure game. Sly is a platform game that is humorous and fun. FGM

I'm gonna stick my neck out here, so fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride! [rant] #1 - You guys sound like a jaded bunch of kids, who won't play unless everybody plays by your rules. You want innovation, but unless it's the specific kind you choose, it's no good, it's garbage. Benoit Sokal gave us in Syberia 1 & 2 a truly beautiful, artistic game, with a story that wasn't a cliché, (no save the princess, no Atlantis, Egypt, Mayan cultures), and made it accessible to all (even non-adventurers could play without getting stuck with impossible puzzles). Ah, but it didn't fit your mold of innovation, so it sucks! I'm not saying that you had to like it, but jeez, guys, give him some credit here. #2 - Regardless of what the past may have been, the current adventure game player, by demographics, is not the 14-24 yr old male - au contraire! It is the 35+ yr old female, who may never have played any commercial games before buying this adventure game. I think we can all agree that TAC (The Adventure Company) releases mostly mediocre games. However, they do a few things right. For one, they recognize that the numbers playing adventures need to grow, and two, that a pretty looking game on the shelves, with a familiar type theme (Atlantis, Egypt) will grab the impulse buyer, and if it is an easy game that works well, may pull this gamer into adventures. No one who is really hooked will stick with the run-of-the-mill TAC games, but bringing in more gamers means more money to develop other games. #3 - Innovation, at least the kind that many of you are demanding, needs money - huge amounts of money. No company is willing to take that risk unless there is reasonably good chance of success of huge sales. Since the average adv gamer (see #2) doesn't want action and/or timed sequences in their games, the likelihood of this direction in development is minimal. Good storytelling means hiring writers - adv games can't afford that, so they go with the tried and true stories that everyone knows anyway. #4 - Marketing for adv games is abysmal! Since the premise is that adv games are non-violent exploration/puzzle games, why not use that in the advertising? Market them as family fare, where people can play them with their kids. Make the games with easy and difficult settings so that they would be opened up to more players. Utilize the fact that adv games have a longer shelf life than other genres (they're essentially timeless), so that older games get re-released, and are available to make money for longer (read that in years) for the developers. Perhaps if they realized that, and the backers who provide the funds knew that, then more money would be available for better game development. #5 - Yes, adv games need a shot in the arm. They need to come up to the standards of the other genres, but they can't do that without the essential ingredient - money. Graphics have definitely improved, and 3D is coming in slowly, but at the expense of other parts of the game (story, gameplay, etc.). Instead of being so critical of adv games, even if it seems cool to do so, try being constructive, and help them to find ways to attract more adv game players and attract more revenue. [/rant] FGM

Marek hasn't been sticking his neck out as much lately, that's probably why. FGM

Yes, but I'm the "mutha", Deadworm! And from some of your posts I've read, you're one kickass young woman, Yufster! Glad to meetcha! BTW, Thanks, Marek! FGM

Okay, I've lurked long enough! I see that virtually all the regular posters and most of the staff from AG posts here, so I feel at home. You want to make something of that? Huh? Now it occurs to me that you could use a bit of female presence here, you know, to brighten things up a bit, and to keep you guys from hurting each other or I'll break your fucking heads! Ahem... Now many of you already know me, so I'll make my intro brief... I'm an old lady, who's a nurse, and who's done some programming (5 yrs or so), and who likes adventure gaming. I lived most of my life in Boston, then nearly 4 yrs ago I moved to Florida to be with this guy, Paul, who died 1 1/2 yrs later - I'm still in Florida. He got me into gaming, and got me hooked. While he was still alive we got an Xbox and a PS2 and I've played a few games on those as well. I'm an admin at a gorgeous adv gaming site called Mystery Manor, which if you're going to visit, be sure to see the home page where my boss lady has created a really beautiful entry to the website - try all the doors. Since that is a quiet, more sedate site, I go to several others as well, except for the two I'm banned at and one that I quit. I'm reasonably intelligent (most of the time), and have a decent sense of humor. I enjoy good discussions and debates, which I find lacking at many of the gaming sites, and rant often at fanboys and other trolls. Hope to get to meet the ones I haven't yet met, and continue to parlay with the ones I already know. Oh, BTW, call me FGM, since no one wants to type out Fairygdmther - catch you all later! FGM