Adventure thoughts by someone whose 'heart is not in it'

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I was burned by a fellow gamer at another forum, she accused me of not having my heart in adventure games just because I also play games from genres other than adventure, because I hadn't played nowhere near as many adventures as she, and because I'm lamenting on the lack of progression and forward thinking in the adventure game. This may sound condescending, but I truly feel sorry for those hardcore adventure gamers who insist on their games being only this (2D, point-&-click) or that (slider puzzles, cartoony, Myst style), or declaring audibly and proudly that the new batch of games don't interest them and howling over the fact that Lucas Arts and Sierra had abandoned them forever. Hers was a hurtful remark, I guess I deserved it, being angry and defensive. But I was also frustrated, I only wanted what was best for the genre in the end so that it would have a fighting chance and maybe even puncture the mainstream market saturated with too many sports games, platformers, and fist person shooters.

Gabriel Knight 3, Silent Hill.

Gabriel Knight 3 will always sit deep in my heart. It was my introduction to the adventure game. Yet my foray was late, the tail end of the tail end of the genre's so called 'golden age'. Growing up on Pacman, Tempest, and Space Armada, I moved on and realized I wanted games where my [main] motivation to win was the story, not the highest score or fastest time (although I like that too sometimes). It was the story and characters that drove me when I played Silent Hill on my old Playstation - not arcade at all, but an exquisitely crafted adventure with an obscure but compelling story, and characters I actually cared about, and even one who I cried over. Innocently I thought that GK3 was indicative of the the genre's quality and vision. But based on the reviews, demos, and some actual titles bought, I was wrong. In a sense, I was spared the fall. I was absent during the genre's golden age, and appeared during its hibernation, and am now awaiting its possible renaissance.

I didn't know you're supposed to pledge allegiance to the adventure game, as that hurtful fellow gamer insinuated. But I couldn't pledge. Not while there are games in other genres exploring traditional adventure cornerstones and even transcending them through innovative design and scope and even theme. I cried like no pure adventure game ever made me when I watched the ending to Silent Hill 2 (the water ending), with its tale of self denial, faith, guilt, and failed redemption. No adventure game had ever touched me that way, and I may be wrong, but I can't imagine a typical adventure delving into such treacherous emotional terrain so bravely. I teared up at key moments in Beyond Good & Evil, even fantasized about living the kind of life the main character, Jade, lives.

Beyond Good & Evil, Fable.

They say the magic is gone from the adventure game genre. I think they're right. The magic really has gone. It's gone over to the games in other genres. It's gone and manifested itself in the heartwrenching story in Silent Hill 2. It's gone and breathed life into the tragic character of Isako in No One Lives Forever 2. It's gone and entered and populated the world of Jade in Beyond Good & Evil. It's gone to colour and enliven the universes of Psychonauts and Fable, and other upcoming games.

And yet, my devotion to the adventure genre stays firm. With upcoming progressive titles like Dreamfall, Facade, and Fahrenheit, and even the classically conservative Still Life and A Vampyre Story, the genre is far from dead. The magic is gone, but that only clears the way for perhaps a new kind of magic, that of innovation, diversification, and rebirth in a new form. Why not? I welcome it, and I would never snub anyone whose heart is not entirely in it. Truth is, my own heart never really abandoned it, instead my heart spread out and followed the essence of adventure to the other genres that welcomed it, ironically, as a way to enrich and progress their own games. So I ask you, is my heart not in it, then?

[Erwin_Br]

I think you're right, and I also think you should post this on the mentioned forum too because some people don't seem to understand.

--Erwin

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Some people will not want to understand and I'll be lynched anyway regardless. Because my 'heart is not in it'.

[Farbror]

Okay, so what do we like so much about Adventure Games? Don't say "Gameplay!" beacuse guess what, there is no gameplay in adventure games. At least not in my definition, if someone asks, I'll explain why.

No, the answer is of course the believable characters that we can identify ourselves with, the living breathing world that we know exists somewhere out there, the satisfying story that we both want and don't want to happen in reality. That's what we like! We don't particularly like being thrown into a locked room and then try and get out of there using only a spoon and some stickers, no, what we like is that we HAVE to get out, otherwise we cannot advance the story! That's what we like about adventure games!

Why cannot we have these elements in other games? Beacuse in "most" other games, the "story" is just a way of moving the gameplay forward, from level to level, to give some weak excuse about all the fighting or shooting. In those games, people don't play for story, they play for the gameplay. Adventure gamers don't play for the gameplay, they play for the story. But we can have those elements, we just have to make the stories better, be it by cutscenes beetwen levels or through clever scripting, it's just that those who plays those kinds of games doesn't care, and we who care, well, we're to few to be cared about.

Interesting question, is Beyond Good and Evil an adventure game? What do you think?

[Redwall]

I don't think anyone who plays adventure games would say the thing they like about them is gameplay. I think most would say story. However, there is gameplay in adventure games - otherwise they wouldn't be games. The gameplay is the puzzles. And there are lots of adventures where the story is used to advance the gameplay - they're known as "Myst-clones", usually.

Anyway, I think adventures shouldn't be considered a genre but more of a style, which more befits the word itself, of games where the gameplay advances the story. I have no idea what you would call the traditional adventure games though.

[Jake]

Adventure games are a genre. If you don't believe me, ask any adventure game developer.

However, if you're an editor for a console gaming news mag you might say that Adventure is more of a style, but they're operating from a completely different definition of the word. Lots of time has been wasted because of the two different meanings.

And, just because most adventures don't happen in real time like most any other genre (except turn-based RPG and strategy) doesn't mean there's "no gameplay." Many turn based RPG's, or at least early ones like Dragon Warrior (one of the few I played through and am familiar with) are completely abstracted from anything resembling fighting or exploring or anything, it's just an icon moving about on a map and a lot of menu items, but those games still allegedly have "gameplay." What is so much more "gamey" about that than about controlling a picture of a guy who moves about in a picture of a town and picks up odd spools of thread, food, and small animals and combines them to use them on other obscure items in the picture of the town?

[jokemaster]

I disagree with her, like I've said with consoles, just because you like one doesn't meanyou shouldn't like the other

[Jake]

Interesting question, is Beyond Good and Evil and adventure game? What do you think?

I think BG&E is really close to an adventure game, and in some ways out-adventure-games many other recent adventures, but since they seemed to come at it from an action stance first and wove in the adventuring stuff on top of that I would be hesitant to label it strictly an adventure game. That was a poorly constructed sentence. Sorry about that.

As Kingz said to me on IM the other day, and I think many will agree, BG&E's basic gameplay mechanics are basically where adventures should have been five years ago.

I don't know if I agree when it comes to the parts of the game where you're exploring caves, finding door keys in mazes, sneaking past guards by kicking them over and over in the back of their suit, and fighting off random monsters with your staff, but for a lot of the rest of the game, yeah.

[Farbror]

Well, uh, the thing is, well, that, hmm, strange.

First of all, it has nothing to do with Real Time or Turn based. The last express was real time.... kinda... I think... and it was neat.

Yes, adventure games are a game genre, but that doesn't mean that they have any gameplay in the same sense as F-Zero has any gameplay. It all depends on your definition, I guess.

Well, I think, that, well. This is hard, you know. In almost all other games, you know what you're suposed to do, the trick is doing it. In adventure games, you (often) know what you want to do, but you don't know how. You don't know to do it. I think that's the difference. And the trick in other games is to practice the game or coming up with clever strategies or stuff, in adventure games you just have to get the "Aha" experience. It's not a measure of "mad skillzorz" or "Advanced tactics", it's a, uh, well, how should I put it. Dang, I can't. You just have to believe me.

[Jake]

How do you explain that people get better at adventure games with time then?

Adventure games have a set of gameplay constraints and rules that hold true to every game in the genre, and people who really love them and spend time on them learn how to deftly manuver through just like any other type of game, and they get better at it with practice. One of the most simple techniques, an obvious one, developed by adventure gamers is "pick up everything you see." If you've played adventure games you probably know that one. If you haven't you have to learn it to suceed with any amount of efficiency. That's a very simple obvious example, but the fact that a strategy exists at all means something.

Adventure games, and some other off beat genres, are just presented in a way thats pretty unlike most games, possibly due to the fact that in the case of adventure games, they try to strive for visual and narrative variety from game to game so you're tricked into thinking you're getting a different experience each time. There's not always a car in the middle of a screen surrounded by road, like there is for every racing game. In each new game there are always new gimmicks and twists you have to overcome and learn to manage with your existing rules of the genre that all players are familiar with, but that's how "new gameplay" or "unique features" works in basically any other game genre.

I think your definition of "gameplay" is just too narrow. And that you probably need to play more adventure games.

[Farbror]

That may be true, Jake. I can't really answer for that "narrow" part, maybe it's true.

Well, okay, if I put it this way then:

To get good at "ordinary" game, you have to get familiar with the game mechanics, find out good strategys, and practice, practice, practice.

To get good at an adventure game, then you have to familiarize yourself with the world, get to know the characters and enviroments and such. A "strategy" in adventure games would be something like, "Try to combine all inventory objects with each other" or "Empty every dialog tree before moving on". It's just not the same thing.

I think that you can't be "good" at an adventure game. You're not supposed to be good at adventure games. You're not supposed to play it. You're supposed to experience it. Not play it.

I mean, compare Grim Fandango with Civilization. You can't honestly say that you can be good at playing Grim Fandango in the same sense that you're good at playing Civilization.

Edit: Okay, I think I know how to put it in a good way now.

Let's compare Grim and Civ. Quite different, but still games, huh?

Now, let's compare a book and chess . They're very different. That's kinda what I mean.

[Jake]

That's true, but people who played Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island 2 are going to be better at Grim Fandango than someone who sits down at it having never played an adventure game before.

The puzzles are in the game for a reason - to challenge you. Some people are better at this than others, and it often comes down to experience playing games in the genre.

Edit: "A book... and chess?" You're basically saying "a game" and "a movie." Adventure games aren't movies. Yes, "experiencing" them is a huge allure to the genre, a key facet for sure, but to deny that they have any gameplay is a little silly.

BTW I'm not saying I don't partially agree with you -- I've written about this from something closer to your point of view before -- I just think you've taken this a little overboard.

[Farbror]

Mmm, I think that's where we disagree, Jake. I don't think the puzzles are there to challenge you, I think that puzzles are there to give you an excuse to walk around and explore the world and in a way form the story on your own a little. In a way. I think. I kinda don't consider puzzles gameplay, beacuse, well, once you know them, you're not going to get much enjoyment out of them anymore, whereas in Gotham Racing, you will still get enjoyment from playing a particular level, even if you know it perfectly.

And the whole "experience" thing. Well, eh, I guess it's kinda like reading books, and suddenly, you realize how the books are going to end or what's going to happen on the next page, beacuse you have "experience" with that kind of books. I think. Or something.

Well, okay, they got some form of gameplay in a way, but not in the same sense, and what I guess I've been trying to say here is that you don't play Adventure games for the gameplay (puzzles), but you play Civ for the gameplay. I think that's what I've been trying to say.

Edit: Maybe.

[Jake]

We're going to have to agree to disagree clearly.

And as an aside, I think it's funny that in this conversation I've somehow assumed the role of "you play adventures for the puzzles," which is an outlook that I've argued very loudly against over at Adventure Gamers I'm not saying you play them for the puzzles, but I am saying that the puzzles are challenging. If the puzzles are a walk in the park, the game is really not very fun. It's not even a game. A good adventure should have challenging obstacles that take time for the player to solve, but also serve to further the story, and fit the characters. Puzzles as obstacles isn't what I mean.

Oh fuck it Nevermind

[Farbror]

Agreed.

Speaking of the adventure games as a genre, I fear that when large game companies say that they will release a game that doesn't really fit into the established genres of today, then everyone will refer to it as an adventure game. Take a quick look at the Adventure section of Gamespot. Yes, here we find Gabriel Knight and Curse of Monkey Island, but look at the rest. It's sad...

[Simon]

Puzzles are an ideal way to allow the player to discover the world slowly and naturally, not on a level-based system, but as a real continuous story. In that way, they are an excuse to tell a story. But they're also ideal for creating satisfying gameplay.

See, I think a good game design constantly rewards the player, and adventure games have the perfect system for this in puzzles. When you solve a puzzle, you get to see a flashy animation and/or get a new place to go, person to talk to, etc.

Furthermore, a well-made puzzle will be challenging but logical, so its satisfying when you solve it. There's the double-whammy of the new areas of the game to experience, and the satisfaction of having used your head well to get there. That's gameplay to the max, man. Adventure games are real games, not just stories. I think there are plenty of them that just wouldn't work as books or movies, because the story doesn't hold up as entertainment without the satisfaction of puzzle-solving. The puzzle-solving is certainly tied up in the story, but it is gameplay, I think anyway.

Hope that made sense to someone out there.

[Farbror]

Oh, yes, very few adventure games would work as movies/books...

Guybrush looked around, confused. What should he do? "I think I need some help from my friend the voodo priestess" he said to noone in particular, but when he arrived, he discovered...

No way.

And vice versa, a book cannot work as an adventure game, since the script had to be full of puzzles and such, to make the game work.

But my point is really, well, noone here plays adventure games simply beacuse they like being challenged by odd situations or wild searches for scissors or pieces of string right? I think the reason you play the adventure games is beacuse you want to see what happens after the puzzle has been solved. You don't solve the puzzles beacuse they in themselves are fun, you play them beacuse they, reward after you've solved them, but a puzzle in and of itself isn't very fun.

That's different from Civ, where you play the game for the gameplay itself.

Man, that's bad. Noone's gonna get what I just said. Just like everthing else I write.

[Redwall]

I'm all for a story-centered adventure, but I can still enjoy Myst... the puzzles are fun.

[peb]

I can understand not wanting a game with action elements, but I liken adventure game purists to Christian fundamentalists: not willing to expand their worldview past a strict, hyperliteral interpretation of ancient rules. AG purists are less scary though.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

But my point is really, well, noone here plays adventure games simply beacuse they like being challenged by odd situations or wild searches for scissors or pieces of string right? I think the reason you play the adventure games is beacuse you want to see what happens after the puzzle has been solved. You don't solve the puzzles beacuse they in themselves are fun, you play them beacuse they, reward after you've solved them, but a puzzle in and of itself isn't very fun.

I have to really disagree with you here, Farbror. You have to admit that puzzles are a great chunk of the pleasure of adventure games. You have a point that the story can be a reward for solving them, but that doesn't necessarily mean the whole equation. According to Jake a puzzle that's too easy (find locked door + talk to man + man give key + unlock door, or something like that) dilutes the potential essence of what a game is supposed to be. I say it kills the game but maintains interactivity. The puzzles put the 'game' in the adventure game. Otherwise you'll just be clicking to get the next plot. But as it stands you are expected to work for the next plot. And that's where the great chunk of the fun lies - accomplishment, reward, progress.

This is exactly the basic formula that a game like Myst uses, although the emphasis is clearly on the challenges themselves (puzzles); notably the actual reward isn't so much more story, but more puzzles, with the story itself as simply a bonus reward. Myst is a series of puzzles connected by a story, not a story connected by a series of puzzles. The puzzles in Myst were the stars of the show, with the story being the supporting cast. Syberia, on the other hand, used the story as primary reward for solving its puzzles, a greater emphasis was placed on the immediacy of the narrative - you want to solve the puzzles to see what happens next. But that didn't necessarily weaken the puzzles themselves as sources of enjoyment in and of themselves, merely that the story was imbued with more value as reward for solving them.

[Farbror]

Perhaps I've been a little wrong inthe statement that "puzzles aren't gameplay".

Yes, Myst, there we've got quite a different adventure game, where the rewards aren't kinda the same thing as in other games. There the puzzles are reward enough.

But before I can actually say that adventure games truly have some sort of "playing" part in them, then I want to see more adventures where I can truly "play", that is, finding multiple solutions to a different problem, other characters interacting with me, and perhaps most important, logic puzzles.

There's not much difference everytime I play through Curse of monkey Island. Everytime, it plays out the same, I know what's going to happen, I know how to solve the puzzles, I know basicly everything. I think that's what I mean.

Man, this hasn't got anything to do with Homoludens post. Better start again.

I think many adventure games fail to properly make the puzzles rewards themselves. I don't think the puzzles are anything without a story/world/characters, and then they still fall flat on their own. I need a reward for solving the puzzle, advancement in story or something.

Let's say someone created an adventure game consisting only of a series of strange situations that the player had to get out of. Like, in one moment he was trapped in a school library at night, and he had to get out using what he could find there. After that, we suddenly find him having to enter a night club, but he lost his ID somewhere and has to trick the guard or something. Then suddenly, he is wearing a diving suit and is on the bottom of the sea, looking for a way to open the locked treasure chest, since it's too heavy to bring up.

Where's the fun in that? It doesn't make any sense. What we need is a story that can hold together the puzzles, not just a series of puzzles. If I manage to get out of the library here, then I won't think "Yes! I got out of this extremely illogical sitatuation, and now faces another one exactly as strange and nonbelievable as before! I'm so good at puzzlesolving!"

Kinda, I think.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Ummm....yeah .... . I say that puzzles are among the most important parts of the gameplay, but not necessarily constitute all of the gameplay. You could take the puzzles out and replace them with other challenges, like quests or clue hunting. The upcoming game Facade will not have any bona fide puzzles at all (no mechanical enigmas, no inventory problems, no combining things with other things). Instead, the story itself will be the actual puzzle, as you must figure out how not to ruin an otherwise pleasant evening with two good friends.

But I may have some clue as to what you're getting at further. Based on my discussions with other adventure gamers, there seems to be this unwritten consensus that gameplay in an adventure game should only consist of puzzlework. This of course presents potential barriers against possibly experiencing a game and story from an entirely new angle. And this is when it can get tiresome for someone looking for a fresh thing (such as myself), but this is the typical formulaic approach most adventure games take. I have yet to see a new adventure game that breaks this cycle while avoiding the cliche of incorporating the conventional 'new and exciting' features from other genres (like action elements, stealth, and real time 3D). This is where the true innovation may lie for the adventure game, to stake its identity as such and still forge ahead.

[vimes]

People tend to see everyone that play adventure games and enjoy it as fanboys whose main occupation is to put silly puzzles in their everyday life and to communicate with other people using poor vocabulary... Well,the last part might be true but, hell, I do love adventure games but i'm not an integrist.

Why do I love both Monkey Island and, for example, Deus Ex or Planescape Torment... because they both make the same feeling in me. Puzzles, fights or dialogs are just different features that build a universe, a story... and when a game contains all this ingredients and mix them with a good recipe, even if there are less puzzles, even if it is no Point n Click game, it must goddam good.

I must admit that there is nothing that disappoints me more that new adventure games serving the same old soup invented 10 years ago.

I dream of a GTA like with less action and more dialogs [ MI5 should have been like this]. THAT would be a great improvment in the adventure game industry.

[Erwin_Br]

Why do I love both Monkey Island and, for example, Deus Ex or Planescape Torment... because they both make the same feeling in me. Puzzles, fights or dialogs are just different features that build a universe, a story... and when a game contains all this ingredients and mix them with a good recipe, even if there are less puzzles, even if it is no Point n Click game, it must goddam good.

Damn right! For example, I don't care much for 3D space simulators but at the same time Wing Commander is one of my favourite game series!

I also notice that I always finish games with a story. It doesn't even have to be a great story. I finished games like Max Payne, Deus Ex, Half Life, Elite Force, GTA, etc...

I don't think I'll ever finish Doom 3, because eventually I'm bound to get bored.

--Erwin

[Kolzig]

I don't think I'll ever finish Doom 3, because eventually I'm bound to get bored.

DooM3 has a story, a even greater one than first expected.