The downfall of the Adventure Game?
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 1:02pm by Jack
A new article over at the Escapist got me a tad excitable today because it features one my favorite genres: the adventure game. More specifically, it deals with how, over the years since text-based adventures were the norm, the adventure game has become, in a word, cluttered.
The Escapist’s Atul Varma:
Adventure games, at their core, are about solving puzzles. The fun lies in figuring out how the pieces fit together, not going through mind-numbing tedium to figure out where the pieces are. As adventure games ascend to higher resolutions and more complex, realistic environments, players have to spend more time figuring out what their tools are rather than actually using them to play the game.
Of course, all this isn’t to say visuals are bad; it’s rather that today’s adventure game developers don’t usually understand the difference between making an adventure game that’s just pretty and one that’s fun to play.
This is a normal progression. Developers today, I think, are still casting out their wide nets to see what resonates best with gamers. Pretty but short? Cluttered with 3D or cel shaded? There’s no right answer to any of those questions, but there will be something that “just works” in the near future (my two cents anyway).
A good place to start? The DS has several lukewarm titles already out in 2006/2007 that are a solid effort. Zack and Wiki on the Wii is looking promising too: not too cluttered, not too loud, and above all, hands-on experiences seem to indicate it’s, dare I say it, fun to play.
September 25th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Wow….this thing has gone all day without any comments…….kinda says something rather anti-climatic, doesn’t it? The vast majority of the gaming population, though, confuses “adventure” games with “platformers” or “action” genres. True “adventure” games, as per the actual definition of the genre, are slow moving, puzzle-based, story-driven point-and-click games, a la Myst or Grim Fandango, even back to the roots with games like Zork or the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with text-only interfaces. This genre is virtually extinct, save for a few sparse PC releases and some DS titles. However, the platformer genre is also on the “threatened species” list. Thank God for the DS and the VC (I love you, Nintendo!). I miss platformers, and Viewtiful Joe and Paper Mario just aren’t enough. I could write a novel on this subject, rather easily, but I wont at the moment. I do suggest, though that everyone check out the TGS trailer for Oboro Muramasa (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/25486.html), from the makers of Odin Sphere. It’s not a sequel to the PS2 game (despite the wisdom of forum-rats), but a beautiful platformer with gorgeous style and presentation.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Maybe you need to broaden your perception of what an adventure game is. I’ve played a lot of great adventure games lately, I don’t see a downfall at all.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
The article hit upon a very important point. I have been stuck in many adventure games simply because I failed to examine something on the screen, thus missing out on the solution. Designers should really remember that adventure games are about finding a solution and not hunting down a single odd looking pixel on the screen.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
I really enjoy “point and click” adventure games and I think that the Wii would be a perfect platform for this type of game to make a comeback on…
September 25th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I think adventure games are being given new life on the DS with games like Hotel Dusk, the Phoenix Wright series, Trace Memory, Touch Detective and the upcoming Professor Layton and a number of other games. I think a Myst game is being made for DS as well. These types of games that require a lot of thinking, time and exploration are great on DS because they could be played in quick bursts and be carried around.
September 26th, 2007 at 3:42 am
its too bad that people like to ignore nintendo, which started since the ps1 came out.
adventure games arent nearly as lost or cluttered as they think, its just not a genre as represented as it used to be. but its nintendo more then anybody keeping adventure games and 2d gaming alive, and i wish they woudl get some appreciation for it.
that is, not necessarily nintendo as a company directly, but through there products and encouragement, not forgetting old school and their own roots. their products, the DS and Wii, are the best settings today for those types of games and we can see that through games already released and being released soon. unlike the other 2 hardware developers, nintendo does not discourage any type of games from being made, nor force any developers to adhere to certain features to meet some marketing push.
this open cheap environment is how niche games are able to flourish.
September 26th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Kale — how could I forget a Myst mention in my post?! Arg! I’ll always remember playing the first one on my old Power Mac 6100; getting stuck, figuring things out, putting the red and blue pages in those damn books! Etc.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
“Arg!”
Exactly, this is what happened to the adventure gamer. They’re playing ARGS now.
September 29th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
[...] Alexander Sliwinski wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
October 7th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
[...] tips@infendo.com wrote a fantastic post today on “The downfall of the Adventure Game?”Here’s ONLY a quick extractAdventure A new article over at the Escapist got me a tad excitable today because it features one my favorite genres: the adventure game. More specifically, it deals with how, over the years since text-based adventures were the norm, … [...]