No one plays adventure games anymore?

[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.

 

[T-004]

Im currently playing Back to the Future on the Wii, thats an adventure game so OP is incorrect.

Now wheres my cookie?

 

[theonecookie]

I think its got something to do with the vast majority of them being boring time sinks that take little no brain functions to complete but then again maybe I've just played the bad ones

 

[Bostur]

Why define the method of control at all? How is that important? When we talk about RPGs we don't call them "drag and hold RPGs" or "push and release RPGs" when it requires that action to swing the sword. Do we?

The fact EFMI was called a point&click in most places proves that we don't care what the control is - an adventure is an adventure. I think "point&click" has come to replace the term "adventure" because people have been confusing action games like Zelda and Tomb Raider for adventures.

It matters because the method of control affects the gameplay. Point and click adventures trivialized gameplay somewhat, because it was easier to locate all objects and simply going through all combinations. During that time period Adventure developers had to get a bit more creative to force broader puzzle solving. I think when adventures started to use 3D with Grim Fandango and Escape From Monkey Island, the puzzles had a bit more in common with original text adventures. It's possible to add more clutter to the environment and force players to think more abstract in a 3D game.

Point and click sometimes means graphical adventure, or adventure without text input. Thats probably why the late Lucasarts games was called point and click even though they didn't use a mouse.

I think its a shame 3D engines aren't used for adventures more often. I think Amnesia Dark Descent certainly qualifies as having adventure'ish gameplay. Modern 3D engines could be used to great effect for adventure games.

 

[Bloodstain]

I spent the last three days playing through Bastion. Thrice.
Your argument is invalid.

No, seriously, adventure game are still common, but so comon they're not being talked about as much anymore.

 

[lord.jeff]

The word adventure is weird like the word RPG, almost every game you're playing the role of someone on an adventure, but I do recognize that somehow games with leveling stats are considered RPGs and adventure games are puzzle games with a story, I think I don't really understand the defining point of the adventure genre but if it is puzzles and story that defines it then most games are adventure games. All that being said maybe the reason that no ones talked about "true adventure" games in two weeks is because no "true adventure" games have come out in awhile, I myself play point and click still I just bought the old Monkey Island games from steam, and I'm really hope they release more old Lucasart games soon, and I bought the talltale games pack so I have around two dozen adventure games I've been playing through.

 

[Racecarlock]

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.

Wait. You think no one plays adventure games just because there hasn't been a mention of one on the forums in 2 weeks? That's a weird way to come to a conclusion. If you want to talk adventure games, start an adventure game topic. It's not hard. I don't like how many skyrim threads there are, but I've learned that I just have to start my own topic if I want to talk about stuff. Simple.

 

[jacilon]

Ive been noticing that as well....

Must be that time of season?

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

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.

Ah, now I understand.

I have bought and played through three incarnations of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2, and the last time I did so on iOS, I had already forgotten a big chunk of the puzzles and jokes. Plus, things seemed to be easier and I really enjoyed being able to switch between blocky original and revamped graphics. That was a sweet thing.

I own some of the Lucasarts Archives boxes, but ever since Apple ditched the PowerPC platform and no emulator or virtual drives seem to be able to make sense of the clearly non-standard CDs, I had to get some more old hardware.

I have accumulated almost all Sierra adventure games of old, and the ones with the most replay value would have to be the "So You Want To Be A Hero?" - Hero's Quest titles. I still seem to discover new things every now and then. Oh, and I seem to enjoy the original Sam & Max far more than the new incarnations... not entirely sure why. Maybe I just have issues with "episodic" content.

What has doomed this genre? Not sure. Does anyone remember Maupiti Island? I can remember when the inclusion of audio samples and digitized visuals became more prevalent... it sort of killed the artform, and it just never looked as convincing as proper, handmade graphics. Then came polygonal 3D and everything had to be 3D... think Alone In The Dark, that was horribly ugly to look at.

Even the early console adventury types (Resident Evil?) took large chunks from classic 2D and only had selective 3D bits. I'd like to think that Resident Evil/Biohazard was successful because it basically brought the best of three worlds together, and it did so in a - then - unique manner, and the people who dared to do it just did a brilliant job. 3D polygonal models that worked including scary zombies and pant-staining shock moments, mostly well crafted backdrops/play areas AND that splendid new thing FMV demon that added to the scares, but wasn't all over the place and therefor a feature, not a curse.

Since then... I really couldn't think of any "Adventure" games this side of the WayBack machine. Maybe people don't feel like hand-crafting so much content, maybe distributors don't think there's money to be made. So, there will probably be more Call of Battlefields or anything that sells in proper numbers in the free world, but I really don't see anything short of a miracle to revive the adventure genre.

See, I also miss the simple little games we play even though they involve hooking up unwieldy beige plastic boxes to our million-hertz smart TVs - where are Wizball, Sensible Soccer, Paradroid, Ranarama or Super Sidekicks? Why do sports games have to be so darn complicated and polished?

 

[Axyun]

I'm digging Amnesia. Pretty good adventure game. The story is horror-driven but, at its core, it's adventure by your definition through and through.

And just a hint, OP: you can help the conversation by being a bit less condencending. If you have an issue with The Escapist's coverage of a genre you like (a legitimate complaint) you could have started out your post with the names of a few games you think deserve coverage instead of having posters wring them out of you after you berate them for not guessing your definition of an adventure game.