No one plays adventure games anymore?

[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.

2011 adventure game releases
Jan: Carol Reed: Blue Madonna
Feb: Stacking
Mar: Aspectus: Rinascimento Chronicles
Apr: The Next Big Thing
May: Last Half of Darkness: Society of the Serpent Moon
June: A New Beginning
Jul: Back To The Future: Episode 5
Aug: Hector Badge of Carnage: Episode 2
Sep: Relics
Oct: Book of Unwritten Tales
Nov: Jurassic Park: The Game
Dec: Dark Star: The Interactive Movie

Using that definition visual novels that you have dismissed are adventure games. Also Portal 2 could also be classified as an adventure game since it contains few puzzles where you need to use reflexes.
Amnesia The Dark Descent is also an adventure game seeing there is no combat and the whole thing is about solving puzzles and hiding.

I agree!

Now that I have a list of adventure games and a proper definition I am able to voice my hypothesis for the decline in popularity and ammount of games.
The titles you mentioned have not been marketed a whole lot, I have only noticed a few of them before this so they have managed to slip completely under my radar. Same thing happened to the newest Tony Hawk game. No-one heard about it before it was announced to be the worst selling Tony Hawk game ever. Duke Nukem Forever is hardly a good game, yet everyone has at least heard about it.
Adventure games also don't have a lot of replay value since when you have solved the puzzles once and experienced the story once there's little new the game can throw at you.

Edit: there's also the Ace Attorney games and Professor Layton games.

Again, I agree! But we have to look at why they aren't discussed on sites like The Escapist. Look at a game like Hard Reset - an indie FPS which was reviewed by dozens of generalist websites and Zero Punctuation even reviewed it, despite it having zero advertising. The Escapist could easily have drawn some attention to Gray Matter, Black Mirror 3 or Book of Unwritten Tales this year. So is it that The Escapist doesn't mention them because it doesn't think they're popular enough?

 

[NiPah]

As you said 2 decades ago they were what everyone was playing, technology progressed and adventure games were left to die. They may sell well in small limited releases, but the gaming public has no interest in them, just a small crowd of retro fans and apparently Germans.

You're better off looking for interest from websites catering to that genre, the Escapist reflects the general gaming public which has no interest in the genre.

 

[DeltaEdge]

So, by your definition, what is an "adventure game"? You said you could name some.

If we knew what was covered in that genre, maybe we'd talk about it?

Not trying to be a smartarse here, just trying to understand your viewpoint.

I would say having a character-based story, with progress based on success in solving puzzles, and little or no reflex-based actions required from the player.

So Myst, Longest Journey, Syberia, Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Broken Sword, Gabriel Knight, Ceville, Jack Keane, Drawn etc.

I think the reason why adventure games apparently aren't popular anymore is because people like action in their games. I personally don't think what you described sounds very fun(Not saying that it isn't though, just IMO). The only game I remember playing that fit that description was Professor Layton and the curios village. And I didn't enjoy really the game much, except for the story. The story was exceptional, but the gameplay, didn't really much feel like gameplay at all. Also, I found that some of the puzzles were pretty difficult. I enjoyed this game though, and I, by no means, mean to say that this is a bad game, but rather, that it is somewhat lacking in game part of the game. I think that it was more popular back in the day when games were a bit simpler and you couldn't really do much with them, except increase the amount of monsters that fly at you simultaneously, or change the objective away from monsters. But now, games are capable of much more complicated actions, and frankly, I wouldn't really care to play a pure adventure game, when I can play an action-adventure game or an rpg or jrpg. The reason games like COD and Halo and GOW are so popular is because people like intense action, and since pure adventure games don't deliver action without becoming action-adventure, most people have no intent of buying them. I think Professor Layton games are the only pure adventure games, that I will ever bother with. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though, as I feel I didn't communicate my point as clearly as I could have. EDIT: I, and most people on this forum didn't even know what constitutes an adventure game. How can we buy it, if we don't even know what it is?

 

[jan david Obciana]

i do not play adventures anymore, most games invented are Simulations and time management.

 

[scyther250]

The Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright games sound like what you're looking for. People still play such games.

 

[Haz88]

Strangely, just like economy simulations (like Settlers, Anno, The Patrician and such), the genre is rather popular in germany.

There are at least two companies that almost exclusively make their money producing a number of adventure series (Deck 13 Interactive and Daedalic) - sadly, most of those are only available in german.

I have a couple friends who are really into board games, and they talk about "games for germans" or german style where players can't attack each other directly, making the games more about resource management. For some reason that really gels well with german designers. Go find Reiner Knizia for some great examples.

OT: It seems you are looking for puzzle games or just non-combat story based games really. I think the reason those aren't popular is because some of the older ones just weren't any fun, single threads of impenetrable designer logic making them just short of impossible to complete.
I liked Stacking well enough, especially that there were more than one solution to all the puzzles making it more fluent to drive the story forward, but making the argument that a game like that should be able to compete with Crysis 2 on a level playing field is a bit unreasonable. I can't talk about how my experience with the Nancy Drew series was unique when discussing with mates, because it wasn't. The solutions always remain the same, which just isn't true with RPGs or shooters, or even racers.
Go check out Gemini Rue for a great but short adventure with a cool story, but really... Single thread logic just isn't fun.

 

[Yopaz]

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.

2011 adventure game releases
Jan: Carol Reed: Blue Madonna
Feb: Stacking
Mar: Aspectus: Rinascimento Chronicles
Apr: The Next Big Thing
May: Last Half of Darkness: Society of the Serpent Moon
June: A New Beginning
Jul: Back To The Future: Episode 5
Aug: Hector Badge of Carnage: Episode 2
Sep: Relics
Oct: Book of Unwritten Tales
Nov: Jurassic Park: The Game
Dec: Dark Star: The Interactive Movie

Using that definition visual novels that you have dismissed are adventure games. Also Portal 2 could also be classified as an adventure game since it contains few puzzles where you need to use reflexes.
Amnesia The Dark Descent is also an adventure game seeing there is no combat and the whole thing is about solving puzzles and hiding.

I agree!

Now that I have a list of adventure games and a proper definition I am able to voice my hypothesis for the decline in popularity and ammount of games.
The titles you mentioned have not been marketed a whole lot, I have only noticed a few of them before this so they have managed to slip completely under my radar. Same thing happened to the newest Tony Hawk game. No-one heard about it before it was announced to be the worst selling Tony Hawk game ever. Duke Nukem Forever is hardly a good game, yet everyone has at least heard about it.
Adventure games also don't have a lot of replay value since when you have solved the puzzles once and experienced the story once there's little new the game can throw at you.

Edit: there's also the Ace Attorney games and Professor Layton games.

Again, I agree! But we have to look at why they aren't discussed on sites like The Escapist. Look at a game like Hard Reset - an indie FPS which was reviewed by dozens of generalist websites and Zero Punctuation even reviewed it, despite it having zero advertising. The Escapist could easily have drawn some attention to Gray Matter, Black Mirror 3 or Book of Unwritten Tales this year. So is it that The Escapist doesn't mention them because it doesn't think they're popular enough?

Actually Hard Reset's release was quite visible for anyone using Steam. It was among the reel of games being advertised for quite a while and it got a news announcement about a week before its release. Back To The Future and Jurassic Park also got the news announcements and thus I have heard about those.

However you might be right when you say that they don't mention them because they don't think they're popular enough.

 

[jan david Obciana]

i do not play adventures anymore, most games invented are Simulations and time management.

 

[Samus Aran but a man]

Do you mean point-and-click adventure? If so, one of my favourites is the incredibly underrated gem for the Wii, Zack and Wiki.

 

[Zeema]

isnt Skyrim a Adventure game with RPG/fantasy elements?

 

[jthwilliams]

I use to play adventure games like you, but then I took a Skyrim to the Monkey Island.

sorry, I had to.

 

[Folji]

So, by your definition, what is an "adventure game"? You said you could name some.

If we knew what was covered in that genre, maybe we'd talk about it?

Not trying to be a smartarse here, just trying to understand your viewpoint.

I would say having a character-based story, with progress based on success in solving puzzles, and little or no reflex-based actions required from the player.

So Myst, Longest Journey, Syberia, Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Broken Sword, Gabriel Knight, Ceville, Jack Keane, Drawn etc.

Waaaaaait. I think you accidentally misquoted me for something the person right above me in the thread wrote. I was honestly surprised to find that quote messsage in my inbox since I could not remember writing anything of the sort.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

I'm playing a few point-and-click adventure games if that counts. Sam and max season 1, 2 and 3. Hector badge of carnage 1 and 2. My personal favorites are that of Yahtzee not because I like zero punctuation but because the stories were really really good; 5 days a stranger, six days a sacrifice, seven days a skeptic (best horror) and Trilby's notes.

 

[Kefo]

Go play Amnesia: the dark descent and the penumbra series. You can get the penumbra pack for under 20 and amnesia for another 20. Both great games that does not involve combat, just solving puzzles and not pissing yourself when a monster wanders near your hiding spot.

 

[kurtzy23]

People do still play adventure games but now adventure is a genre that can classify almost any game.

 

[gideonkain]

Well, I'm playing Jurassic Park the Game right now, it's a tell tale game - it's little more than a CGI movie with quick-time events but it faithfully reproduces the feel of the Jurrassic Park movies...wonder mixed with fear.

 

[SoranMBane]

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.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

I was about to let loose the rash and rather annoying side of JoesShittyOs for a second, but I stopped myself because I'm not quite sure what technically qualifies as an Adventure game.

Can someone define this for me, because I for some reason assumed that every game is an adventure game (cue magic rainbow)

 

[elvor0]

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.