No one plays adventure games anymore?

[Blood Brain Barrier]

They were bred out of existence when the technology behind games started to allow for the possibility of both good stories and good gameplay at the same time, because while traditional adventure games often had above-average writing, they always had awful, boring gameplay. Now we have games like Psychonauts, Portal, Half-Life, Deus Ex, Shadow of the Colossus, and Bioshock in their place; games with great gameplay hand-in-hand with stories that rival or even surpass anything old adventure games could accomplish. I think our own Yahtzee says it all best in this little bit he did:

I don't agree that they surpass the old adventure games - Portal and Psychonauts are the only ones which I would say rival them, but by making the bulk of the gameplay jumping and hitting things, surely something is lost don't you think? And even if it wasn't, if the potential was there, as I think it probably can be, as Yahtzee says, they still need to take the huge step of not hiring chimps, which seems to be too difficult.

I'd say that the swing towards action-adventure has simply made the stories more engrossing, as action-oriented gameplay simply lends itself to better story-gameplay integration and gives the player a more active role in that narrative. In classic adventure games, the puzzles are generally no more than arbitrary obstacles that wall off the rest of the story until they're solved, where recent action games have actually utilized aspects of their gameplay to deepen the narrative. In every one of the games I mentioned, the gameplay actually plays a key role in the story instead of cutting you off from it. Even one of the few examples of great story-gameplay integration I've come across in an adventure game (a bit in the I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream game where you can electrocute a bunch of caged animals to get a key that doesn't actually unlock anything) simply can't compare to the level of emotional impact in the nuke scene from Call of Duty 4 or the twist in Bioshock where you learn that the phrase "would you kindly?" isn't just Atlus being polite. Nothing is lost with the added emphasis on action beyond the frustration of having to check a walthrough for the twentieth time because the puzzles in adventure games always work on Wonderland logic.

Why is an adventure game puzzle arbitrary while a rope across a chasm in Tomb Raider not arbitrary? I can't see a more obvious example of an arbitrary obstacle than that, or a room full of soldiers that you have to kill. I agree that adventure puzzles can be arbitrary if they are totally unrelated to the story (thought I'd like you to provide an example of this because I think it's more the exception than the rule), but fail to see how action deepens the narrative like you say.

Let's say I need to get a map from a shop by tricking the shopkeeper. An adventure game would require you to examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage. How is that arbitrary? Compare that with a game where I push a button to go into stealth mode and sneak up behind the shopkeeper to get the map. I don't see a whole lot of difference except one way requires more thinking than the other.

 

[octafish]

Anyway, Wadjet Eye make some very good, very interesting adventure games. Check them out if you like adventure games, or don't, I don't have a stake in the company.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

It's funny how you complain about that people don't understand adventure games yet you're unable to provide a definition for it yourself. Give us the list of 1 adventure game released for each month of 2011 since you claim there are so many.

I gave a definition on the last page: A story based game in which you play as a protagonist, with progress based on success in solving puzzles, and with little or no reflex-based actions required from the player.

So you have essentially just been a massive dick for the last two pages wherein multiple people said "point and click" which is what you're on about in your OP stop pretending to be fucking Sheldon, your definition is just a very very long winded description of "point and click". Heck in your OP you don't even mention that you do mean point and click, you just say "adventure" a genre which can encompass almost every game on the planet aside from simulators and rts.

People have even made well natured points and you've just been "OMG IGNORANT ESCAPIST FOOLS!"

Get your head out of your ass and just make your discussion.

Settle down. Maybe instead of ranting you could tell me how my description of a game with:
1) A character based story
2) Puzzles
3) No action
is impossible without using a cursor? If you can't imagine a game with those three elements that can't be played without a moving a cursor around the screen, you don't seem to have much of an imagination.

In conclusion, No, I don't mean only point and click!

 

[Lukeje]

Let's say I need to get a map from a shop by tricking the shopkeeper. An adventure game would require you to examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage. How is that arbitrary? Compare that with a game where I push a button to go into stealth mode and sneak up behind the shopkeeper to get the map. I don't see a whole lot of difference except one way requires more thinking than the other.

You realise that enemies can be puzzles too, right? Like in Zelda games.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Let's say I need to get a map from a shop by tricking the shopkeeper. An adventure game would require you to examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage. How is that arbitrary? Compare that with a game where I push a button to go into stealth mode and sneak up behind the shopkeeper to get the map. I don't see a whole lot of difference except one way requires more thinking than the other.

You realise that enemies can be puzzles too, right? Like in Zelda games.

Of course. What's your point? A soldier pointing a gun at you in Call of Duty is a puzzle too.

 

[Lukeje]

Let's say I need to get a map from a shop by tricking the shopkeeper. An adventure game would require you to examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage. How is that arbitrary? Compare that with a game where I push a button to go into stealth mode and sneak up behind the shopkeeper to get the map. I don't see a whole lot of difference except one way requires more thinking than the other.

You realise that enemies can be puzzles too, right? Like in Zelda games.

Of course. What's your point? A soldier pointing a gun at you in Call of Duty is a puzzle too.

A puzzle with a simple solution. Unlike in Zelda where you often have to

examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage.

 

[Sandernista]

..The reason being the gamers weren't intelligent enough to be bothered solving puzzles. There's a reason you couldn't enjoy Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and it wasn't because of bad puzzle design.

Or it could have been because old school adventure games are boring?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Let's say I need to get a map from a shop by tricking the shopkeeper. An adventure game would require you to examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage. How is that arbitrary? Compare that with a game where I push a button to go into stealth mode and sneak up behind the shopkeeper to get the map. I don't see a whole lot of difference except one way requires more thinking than the other.

You realise that enemies can be puzzles too, right? Like in Zelda games.

Of course. What's your point? A soldier pointing a gun at you in Call of Duty is a puzzle too.

A puzzle with a simple solution. Unlike in Zelda where you often have to

examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage.

I guess that's the "adventure" part in Zelda being an "action-adventure"

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

..The reason being the gamers weren't intelligent enough to be bothered solving puzzles. There's a reason you couldn't enjoy Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and it wasn't because of bad puzzle design.

Or it could have been because old school adventure games are boring?

Anything using the brain is boring.

 

[Lukeje]

Let's say I need to get a map from a shop by tricking the shopkeeper. An adventure game would require you to examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage. How is that arbitrary? Compare that with a game where I push a button to go into stealth mode and sneak up behind the shopkeeper to get the map. I don't see a whole lot of difference except one way requires more thinking than the other.

You realise that enemies can be puzzles too, right? Like in Zelda games.

Of course. What's your point? A soldier pointing a gun at you in Call of Duty is a puzzle too.

A puzzle with a simple solution. Unlike in Zelda where you often have to

examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage.

I guess that's the "adventure" part in Zelda being an "action-adventure"

As a slight non-sequitur, have you ever actually played a Zelda game?

 

[Sandernista]

..The reason being the gamers weren't intelligent enough to be bothered solving puzzles. There's a reason you couldn't enjoy Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and it wasn't because of bad puzzle design.

Or it could have been because old school adventure games are boring?

Anything using the brain is boring.

Rut.

They don't take much brain to play, and they're quite boring.

Gilligan is a hard nut to crack, but reading her is never boring.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Let's say I need to get a map from a shop by tricking the shopkeeper. An adventure game would require you to examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage. How is that arbitrary? Compare that with a game where I push a button to go into stealth mode and sneak up behind the shopkeeper to get the map. I don't see a whole lot of difference except one way requires more thinking than the other.

You realise that enemies can be puzzles too, right? Like in Zelda games.

Of course. What's your point? A soldier pointing a gun at you in Call of Duty is a puzzle too.

A puzzle with a simple solution. Unlike in Zelda where you often have to

examine your surroundings, look at what you can use, and figure out a way to manipulate them to your advantage.

I guess that's the "adventure" part in Zelda being an "action-adventure"

As a slight non-sequitur, have you ever actually played a Zelda game?

I've played the Ocarina one, and one of the 80s ones which I think was on a Nintendo. Why?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

..The reason being the gamers weren't intelligent enough to be bothered solving puzzles. There's a reason you couldn't enjoy Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and it wasn't because of bad puzzle design.

Or it could have been because old school adventure games are boring?

Anything using the brain is boring.

Rut.

They don't take much brain to play, and they're quite boring.

Gilligan is a hard nut to crack, but reading her is never boring.

Oookay... I take it you finished Riven in an hour then, and breezed through all the Rhem games.

 

[Sandernista]

..The reason being the gamers weren't intelligent enough to be bothered solving puzzles. There's a reason you couldn't enjoy Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and it wasn't because of bad puzzle design.

Or it could have been because old school adventure games are boring?

Anything using the brain is boring.

Rut.

They don't take much brain to play, and they're quite boring.

Gilligan is a hard nut to crack, but reading her is never boring.

Oookay... I take it you finished Riven in an hour then, and breezed through all the Rhem games.

No.

Because they are boring.

Edited. That was a little to insulting. I'm sorry.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Have you actually played any adventure games at all? It doesn't sound like you have.

 

[snave]

Well, adventure games are dead. Or they committed suicide at least.

If you can take any solace out of that, at least Old Man Murray's famous article on the death of adventure games was one of the key contributing factors to that particular writer's online fame and ultimately somewhat lead to Portal being written.

Silver linings don't come any more sparkly than that!

I'd love to see them return in a way, but more as an "avdenture game elements" bullet point on the back of a box. At least then that'd refute the temptation for adventure game designers to get lazy and rush the second half of the game into a huge labyrinth scene. I mean, we have gratuitous RPG elements shoehorned in left, right and centre, but adventure game elements for sidequests would be genuinely awesome.

 

[RoyalWelsh]

I guess most people these days don't like adventure games much anymore. It's all about shooters and RPG's.

I really love the point and click type of aventures though, there are still quite alot of them around and still being made.

 

[AD-Stu]

I think I can save everyone a lot of time here:

Very few people talk about or review adventure games these days because very few people are interested in them compared to... well, pretty much every other genre of games in existence.

If OP and a few others like them then great. I certainly remember them fondly, even though I don't play many of them any more. But we're talking about a very small percentage of the games that are released in any given year (seriously, a few games each month is but a spit in the wind, even if you move the flags first) that only a very small percentage of gamers are interested in. Given this, why is it surprising that they don't receive much coverage? I may as well go on a mainstream music site and complain that they haven't reviewed the latest Electric Wizard album...

Here's an idea: why not start a constructive discussion of your own talking about adventure games, instead of just complaining about the lack of content?

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Seriously, I joined this forum 2 weeks ago and haven't seen one mention of an adventure game. Every other genre has been mentioned - FPS, RPG, action, strategy, simulation. But no adventure.

Now, I'm not criticizing anyone for their choice of game (why would I?), but I would like to understand why it's so unpopular, for something that two decades ago was the most popular game genre.

What, you mean like Day of the Tentacle, Space Quest, King's Quest, Quest for Glory, Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Back to the Future? That genre's pretty much a nostalgic dead zone these days broski.

 

[bobfish92]

off the top of my head in recent history: Machinarium (Or however the damn thing is spelt), the penumbra games, amnesia, sam and max and runaway series. They're out there, but they're indie. And the escapist is sooooooooooooooooooo mainstream, maaaan.