Piece of Silence *early spoiler*

[Wormsie]

Yeah, the Syberia -like adventure games of today are absolute SHIT, pure GARBAGE. I hate them, I HATE SYBERIA! I hate point and click! Argharghaaargghhhh!

[Udvarnoky]

Yes, A Vampyre Story, about which is known... absolutely nothing. Except that it looks pretty and has vampires vampyres in it. My level of enthusiasm for that game is not outstandingly high.

I am interested in what Telltale comes up with, but I'm not too excited about a game which hasn't even been announced yet...

More is known about A Vampyre Story than that. We know that it will be a lot like The Curse of Monkey Island in regards to its interface/artwork, and that it's being produced by ex-LucasArts employees, notably Bill Tiller. There's also a limited story known, yeah. It would appear as if the goal of AVS is to be exactly like a LucasArts adventure game in all but name. It's like Autumn Moon isn't doing anything new or groundbreaking and they know it; they're simply catering to a limited group of people. Obviously being among their number I think it's awesome, but this can't be a game that adventure evolution supporters are going to take too kindly to.

Even less is known about Telltale, but we do know a great deal about the team and their direct involvement with Freelance Police (which has given them some free positive publicity). I guess I'm excited about them because they actually seem to have a grasp of what story-driven games should be like, and it appears as though they will try to experiment a bit more than Autumn Moon. I dunno. It's not much, but it's the kind of stuff people like me get very excited about in times like these.

[Chris]

More is known about A Vampyre Story than that. We know that it will be a lot like The Curse of Monkey Island in regards to its interface/artwork, and that it's being produced by ex-LucasArts employees, notably Bill Tiller. There's also a limited story known, yeah. It would appear as if the goal of AVS is to be exactly like a LucasArts adventure game in all but name. It's like Autumn Moon isn't doing anything new or groundbreaking and they know it; they're simply catering to a limited group of people. Obviously being among their number I think it's awesome, but this can't be a game that adventure evolution supporters are going to take too kindly to.

Even less is known about Telltale, but we do know a great deal about the team and their direct involvement with Freelance Police (which has given them some free positive publicity). I guess I'm excited about them because they actually seem to have a grasp of what story-driven games should be like, and it appears as though they will try to experiment a bit more than Autumn Moon. I dunno. It's not much, but it's the kind of stuff people like me get very excited about in times like these.

The problem is, we don't know that they have a grasp of what story-driven games should be like. Well, maybe they know what they should be like, but we have no idea if they know how to make one. Anyone who plays and loves LucasArts games knows what a good story-driven game is but these guys aren't writers; it wasn't their job on the LEC titles. I'm sure the game will look really good but honestly there's nothing indicating the characters or character development or dialogue or anything will be solid.

[Udvarnoky]

Again, optimism comes with this sort of territory in my case. Still, though, Brendan Ferguson is in fact a writer and if his Telltale and Dudebrough blogs are anything to go by he's a very funny guy who at least probably has a decent handle on character writing. Also, you'd think that even though the rest of the team aren't writers they'd had to have picked up something from the talent they worked with (Schafer, Stemmle) if they loved making these kinds of games enough to start a new company that specializes in them. The team has a pretty impressive background (at least in terms of the projects worked on) and they at least seem like they may be headed in the right direction. I've been pretty satisfied with their comments in all interviews so far though as you've said it's easy to talk about magically revolutionizing the genre and quite another to actually accomplish it. So, yeah, I haven't got much to go by, but I've just got a feeling (or I'm delusional and naive).

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

The problem is, we don't know that they have a grasp of what story-driven games should be like. Well, maybe they know what they should be like, but we have no idea if they know how to make one. Anyone who plays and loves LucasArts games knows what a good story-driven game is but these guys aren't writers; it wasn't their job on the LEC titles. I'm sure the game will look really good but honestly there's nothing indicating the characters or character development or dialogue or anything will be solid.

Not to mention that, since no one actually PLAYED Freelance Police, we can't say "We know this will be great because they made Freelance Police!" We can just wait and hope for the best.

[Udvarnoky]

Not to mention that, since no one actually PLAYED Freelance Police, we can't say "We know this will be great because they made Freelance Police!" We can just wait and hope for the best.

Except they've been part of OTHER adventure games as well, and I happen to like Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

Except they've been part of OTHER adventure games as well, and I happen to like Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island.

Well played Clerks...

[Salka]

I remember when Vel told me Luna was going to suck because it wasn't going to be Point and Click...

Anyway, no offence to anybody, but the Dudebrough blog is kind of lame and tedious. However, the Telltale guys seem super enthusiastic. Maybe they will turn out something mind-blowing.

In other news, there's a blister on my baby toe, and it hurts. I am considering draining it because otherwise the pressure might cause it to burst while I'm walking, and then I'll have a wet sock, and that would be gross. But I am afraid of needles and afraid to stick a needle in to my toe. Hmm. Hmmmmm. HMMMMMM.

[RLacey]

I worry that, with the notable exceptions of games such as Dreamfall and Farenheit, the situation for the adventure game looks no better than it did several years ago.

But then I remember In Memoriam, and that tells me that there are people trying to do something different. Only time will tell on the success front, though ...

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I worry that, with the notable exceptions of games such as Dreamfall and Farenheit, the situation for the adventure game looks no better than it did several years ago.

But then I remember In Memoriam, and that tells me that there are people trying to do something different. Only time will tell on the success front, though ...

To be honest, one could say that much of the Adventure Genre is composed of "notable exceptions". Companies like Sierra and Lucas Arts were the exception, not the rule, and the Crappy Games outweigh the good ones genre wide. Isn't this true of all games though? For every Half Life 2 you have 4 or 5 Serious Sams.

Eventually people will get bored with the limited genre they are being offered and demand more.

[RLacey]

To be honest, one could say that much of the Adventure Genre is composed of "notable exceptions". Companies like Sierra and Lucas Arts were the exception, not the rule, and the Crappy Games outweigh the good ones genre wide. Isn't this true of all games though? For every Half Life 2 you have 4 or 5 Serious Sams.

Eventually people will get bored with the limited genre they are being offered and demand more.

You're right, of course, but don't forget that there are far more FPS games being made than adventure games. Which is why the situation with adventure games is worrying, because you might not even get a great game each year.

[Mailman]

...I think it's generally a mistake to use fixed camera angles in a fully 3-D adventure game. While it has certain advantages, it doesn't lend itself nearly as well to the exploratory instinct as first-person or trailing third-person perspectives, and that's a big part of what made adventure games work.

Agreement. This was one of my biggest gripes with Broken Sword 3. I remember when I entered a room that had a big awesome looking machine in it, only I couldn't quite look at the whole thing because the camera was placed in a stupid place, so I ended up running around the room, desperately trying to look at the machine. I never quite got the impression of what kind of machine it was, and how big it was, because I only managed to get small glimpses at it.

Granted, I don't think the machine played a big part of the game, but it was there and I wanted to look at it.

[Guest]

Going back to the Moment of Silence for a bit...

I know a lot of people had a similar gripe, but after playing the demo, I wasn't exactly enthused to go out, and get the product itself...yet I did. Why? Because it was a point and click adventure game, and because people were really singing and dancing about it.

Basically, I believed in the hype.

So I plough through the game...get to the end, see the finish, and am left sat in front of my computer, not really questioning much of anything, just having witnessed the game and not really thinking about a lot else. I wasn't going over the dynamic experiences that the game pulled me through along the way. I wasn't thinking "OMGWTFSEQUALSEQUALOMG!!!". I was just kinda there thinking..."Oh, it's over...oh well...what shall I play next?"

Great point made earlier, just because point and clickers are rare in this day and age, they instantly get a sort of 50% marking, for just existing. In truth, I thought the voice acting was dire in MOS, even laughable at times. The puzzles were decent, although the last one, was damned infuriating, and just time consuming more than anything else. Some sections of the game, I really enjoyed, and House of Tales did do quite a few things right with the game. But it no way deserved the huge amount of acclaim it seems to have amassed, sorry guys. There's nothing particulary new and outstanding about the game, and I wouldn't say the story was so enthralling that it kept you on the edge of your seat from coast to coast. The game was probably one of the better Adventure titles released in recent years, but let's be honest...that's saying f*** all!!!

The reason the games of old were so successful, is because they were fresh and exciting. My God, I remember when I bought Curse of Monkey Island, I could not stop looking at the box, I was so bloody excited, I damn near wet myself. When I got Grim Fandango, I was running around the house like a three year old. When I finally got Kings Quest VI on CD, with the speech and FMV's, I swear to God, at nine years of age, I had a hard on, and was ready to whack off!!!

About as close as i've got to doing that lately, is when I got my mits on DOOM III and Half Life II. It's funny, because I was never really a big Quake or DOOM fan when they first came out, but as time has drawn on, I've slowly weened myself onto these titles, to find my satisfaction. My gaming collection is now essentially comprised of FPS and RPG, and of course, all the old Adventure games I've collected throughout the years.

That said, I will probably still be one of the first in the queue to pick up "A Vampyre Story" and "Dreamfall" when they become available.

I guess I still hold out hope, that something revolutionary will come along, just like it did all those years ago.

[Duncan]

That's pretty much what I think when I finish a new adventure game, not "Oh man, that was terrible, how the hell did that get made?" but "Oh man, how the hell did anyone think that was any good?" and it's what I expect from Moment of Silence, though I don't think I'll play it.

I agree with what you said about adventure games not being exciting anymore. (Except whacking off to King's Quest IV ) Even Dreamfall or Fahrenheit I'm not as psyched about as I am about Psychonauts.

EDIT: I wish the psyched/Psychonauts thing was intentional. That reminds me, on a vaguely related topic, I am so sure that when Psychonauts does come out some site like Gamespy or IGN will use the intro:

"Double Fine's adventure-platformer Psychonauts finally hits store shelves. But after all the hype, were we psyched for naught?"

Anyway, continue.

[Martin Ganteföhr]

My God, I remember when I bought Curse of Monkey Island, I could not stop looking at the box, I was so bloody excited, I damn near wet myself. When I got Grim Fandango, I was running around the house like a three year old. When I finally got Kings Quest VI on CD, with the speech and FMV's, I swear to God, at nine years of age, I had a hard on, and was ready to whack off!!!

You know, I'm just an ordinary guy knocking on your door with a Santa Claus costume on. I don't think my beard will ever be as real as the real beard of the real Santa Claus of your childhood, and my voice will never sound as warm and friendly as the voice of your uncle the real Santa Claus.

Still, I think the adventure games in recent years have gotten better and better. There is a lot of discussion going on on how make better adventure games, and there are a lot of teams now that I believe are to watch out for. Nothing will happen overnight, but the much-demanded "evolution" of adventure games is going on right now, I believe. And that's f***ing worth something.

[Duncan]

I'm not sure whether you mean adventure games are better now than they've ever been or that they're better now than they have been in recent years. If it's the former, though, I'm kind of curious as to why you think that?

I can appreciate your point about you and your games being compared to older designers and you're right, there is a lot of discussion, but I still can't see any improvement in current adventure games except probably resolutions being higher... which is pretty much mandated by technology advancements anyway.

[Martin Ganteföhr]

I'm not sure whether you mean adventure games are better now than they've ever been or that they're better now than they have been in recent years. If it's the former, though, I'm kind of curious as to why you think that?

It is the latter, of course.

Many of the companies that create adventure games haven't been around for a terribly long time so far, and like with everything in life, things take their time. Nobody goes to bed a McDonald's service guy and wakes up a brilliant game designer, writer or programmer.

When you look at the first games by Frogwares, Detalion, and others (even HoT, I like to think), there has been a lot of improvement. We all had to start from scratch with our companies - when HoT was founded to build MOTD, there were close to no AG developers around anymore, and the game was a living room production. This is all very different today.

It takes time to learn the grammar and methodology of a game genre, and you need to know that grammar like the back of your hand before you can go and change or improve anything about it.

We're expected to do both revive the good old days and be like Half Life 2. We might not want to do any of the two. But even if it sounds contradictory to you, I think the fundament for a promising future of adventure games has been layed with many of the (more or less recent) games that many of you don't like.

[Jake]

I very much agree with you Martin, and because what you say is probably at least for the most part very true, I hope you guys are all taking discussions like these as constructive criticism rather than pure slags/insults From the fact that you're responding like this that seems to be the case, fortunately. People are giving these games a try, and even if they don't like them as much as "the classic games of yore," it seems people aren't writing you off -- they at least grasp what you guys are going for, and are willing to give future games a shot. They're just being honest in the meantime.

[Guest]

Martin,

For the record, I did enjoy the Moment of Silence, and I am eagerly anticipating your next title. I'm glad that there are people out there, still producing the style of games I loved so much as a kid, that have this much passion about their product. I wish I had enough sack and knowledge of programming to go out there and give it a go myself.

And also for the record, it was Kings Quest VI that I got excited about, not IV...and I loved "Girl in the Tower" as well. That song owned, and should be a national anthem...or something.

[Martin Ganteföhr]

They're just being honest in the meantime.

Of course, we (and others) will never be able to please everyone -- at least not until I have seized power and have installed my totalitarian clone army regime.

But until that happens, all feedback and critcism is highly appreciated.

[RLacey]

But until that happens, all feedback and critcism is highly appreciated.

If I may wade in and say something nice here, I like this attitude . The Mystery of the Druids was...um...not very good. The Moment of Silence is (so far, as I'm still trying to fix a microwave :S) much better. A lot of the faults in MOTD - particularly the conversation system - were fixed, at least to an extent. Maybe third time's the charm?

[Duncan]

It takes time to learn the grammar and methodology of a game genre, and you need to know that grammar like the back of your hand before you can go and change or improve anything about it.

Yeah, I can definitely appreciate that. I mean one of LucasArts' first games was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so obviously everyone has trouble getting started.

I'm not really sure that everyone does expect the same level of early/mid-90's quality, though. Points were made earlier in the thread that games are praised just for being adventure games at all. And some people say that as long as they don't change anything fundamental they're excellent. I really would like to see adventure gamers (uh, the demographic, not necessarily the website) judge a game more on its merits and forget about everything else.

Although I suppose there's nothing you can do about that, so I'm just ranting. I think you guys are definitely moving in the right direction, to make myself clear, and you fielding criticism is also great. And living in New Zealand I haven't actually played Moment of Silence (actually, do you know if a release there is happening?) so I can't really personally speak to its quality, but... yeah, I think you guys are definitely moving in the right direction.

[Martin Ganteföhr]

And living in New Zealand I haven't actually played Moment of Silence (actually, do you know if a release there is happening?) so I can't really personally speak to its quality, but...

I must admit that I'm not exactly sure where things stand regarding Australia and New Zealand. I'm going to check that. As soon as I remember where I have parked my car last night.

[Marek]

Note: this post was not supposed to be this long when I started out. Whoops.

I think the decline in high-quality adventure games is relative to the decline of the adventure genre as a whole. The genre stabilized in recent years, but there definitely was a huge plunge after about 1997, but I think we still have as much stinkers as we had in Ye Olde Days.

That said, there's now so few adventure games (about 20 to 25 commercial titles a year) that comparitively few landmark titles come out that set good examples that other games can follow. There's been a huge brain drain; the creative people at Sierra, LucasArts (and studios that wanted to be like them) have moved on to doing IT work, concept work at Pixar, making platform games, writing books, or running joke-of-the-day mailinglists. They weren't fixated on adventure games as a form, they just used it as an interesting medium to do their thing. It's a medium with its own set of advantages and shortcomings that can either be played to its strengths or... not.

In my view, the current generation of adv game developers is trying hard to copy off the templates they made, but they usually only get as far as copying the outer shell - the superficial appearances of the classic point-and-click adventure - and not arriving at a deeper understanding of the delicate structure and creative possibilities of the adventure game.

I'm not even talking about gameplay here. This is really all about "what things of your own are you going to pour into this existing mold?" I mean, sure, I think most adventure game devs today start out wanting to make games like the Big Ones of the past (e.g. Myst, Indiana Jones, Gabriel Knight, whatever) but then they drum up features, characters and settings that fit into what we're used to as labeling an adventure game. I don't think enough adventure game developers think along the lines of "hey, wouldn't it be great to make a narrative game about this guy who works in this diner and then one day blah blah blah", or "let's make a game about roaches!" or "let's make a game where you play a day in the life of a street-cop and, you know, each morning you talk to your buddies and have donuts and then WHOOM a murder". They're thinking: we need a p-n-c adventure, so let's get the List of Ingredients... female heroine, check. Gloomy, faux-mysterious or surreal (in a 3D Studio Max checkerboards-and-crystal-spheres surreal kind of way) atmosphere? Check. Boring interiors? Check. Something about atlantis/pyramids/templar knights/mayan mythology/jules verne? Checketycheckcheck triple check combo.

Before DOTT came out no one had ever really done an animated cartoon game like that. They would've probably never done DOTT if they had thought of it as an adventure game first and everything else second. The same goes for Beneath A Steel Sky and its gritty comic-book feel (this is just another arbitrary example). Revolution would never have done that game if they thought of Lure of the Temptress as the only visual or conceptual form that adventure games could take.

I think some adventure game developers need to in fact forget that they are making adventure games. For the first couple of months of development maybe they should think of what they're doing as making a movie, or a short story, or a play, or a comic strip, or just something you can tell their friends about and get them excited about the idea before even showing any artwork. Whatever works for them to get them to let go. Then they can go to their adventure game engine and use it to construct something that can proudly stand on it's own. There's too much focus on the form of the genre and not enough focus on creating a coherent and well-realized world people want to explore or play in as a character.

We need those kind of games to take the helm of the genre. Right now it's at drift, releasing the same crap over and over again -- crap that isn't inherently crap but just ill-conceived design-wise and badly written. I'm sick of the games that get 2,5, 3 or 3,5 stars at Adventure Gamers, when with a more confident and self-contained approach they could have been 4 or 4,5 star games.

I feel that something is definitely bubbling out there waiting to get out... oops no, not that -- I'm talking about some kind of awareness in the adventure game community (both amongst players and designers) that we're close to getting back where we left the genre off, but this vague awareness is only noticable if you're really really close to the genre and its community. I just hope it will manifest itself in better games a year or two down the line.

I think TMOS might be a prelude to something even greater, and Martin seems to be amongst the people who get it (hi there Martin), but it's a very slow and delicate development that still needs further encouragement. I'm getting a little bit optimistic but I'm also very impatient.

Wow, another one of these rants and I'll probably break out in maniacal laughter. Sorry for the giant post.

[Erkki]

For some reason I wandered into the JA+ forums yesterday and posted this in this thread about the horrifying rumors of Microids "adding action to their adventure games".

I think Tim Burton should have replaced the headless horseman with a headful one in Sleepy Hollow. A lot of people are probably distrubed by that headless guy and all the cutting off of heads. Oh, and especially the scene where a head is severed and falls into a basket was a bad business decision. Some people just don't like to watch things like that.

But seriously, if adventure game developers want to do something different than the pure-adventure-no-action formula, they should stop communicating with the adventure game communities, including not coming to these forums and listening to what restrictions their fans put on them. At least until their game is done.

(Maybe this isn't an issue for them at all, I'm just blabbering)

I don't know if the particular things I said are/were relevant at all, but I definitely agree with you, Marek, that the gamers shouldn't expect adventure game developers to always keep working within these very strict rules. And stop viewing them as "people who create point & click adventure games for me to play", but as creative people who create fun games. If that is the precondition of being an adventure game developer, how can anything good come from it?

And the developers should stop listening to these people (if they do listen to them) and start being creative within/on the borders/outside of the genre instead of following a set formula.