The Rise, Fall and Rise of Adventure Games

[blueskirt]

I profoundly disagree that most adventure gamers just want humor. It that were true, Gabriel Knight, The Longest Journey, Syberia, Still Life, Black Mirror, Overclocked, etc... wouldn't have the recognition they have in the adventure gaming community. I'd even venture to put Heavy Rain into that category.

I loved GK and Broken Sword 1, I found TLJ too wordy for my taste, Syberia was completely devoid of verbal feedback with its dozens of empty rooms containing 2 exits and nothing to interact with, as for Still Life, it ruined its chance with its infamous Cookie Recipe puzzle, and the chances of many other recent and serious adventure games which I didn't play because I was still disgusted from playing Still Life.

"Most" was probably not the right word to use, "Many" would have been more accurate. There are several kinds of adventure games fans, some are there for the humor, others are there for a well writen story, others are there for the puzzles, some liked Myst, some didn't, some liked TLJ, some didn't, some are still playing and making interactive fictions, others are damn glad Ron Gilbert came and revolutioned the adventure game formula with Monkey Island...

There is indeed a market for serious adventure games, but you cannot deny the ratio of light-hearted or humorous adventure games versus serious ones used to be 5:1 twenty years ago and five years ago it was 1:10, and if you happened to play adventure games for the humor and all those humorous messages hidden in every interactions with the objects around you, you were starving up until the former LucasArts employees got their shows running with Telltale Games and company.

That said, I think the most important thing to remember here is, humorous or not, verbal feedback is important, it was present in GK, BASS, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island or Leisure Suit Larry, it has been missing in many adventure games recently, and it is something I am glad Telltale put back in the limelight.

 

[ChupathingyX]

However, the Emperor of Mankind and the hardcore Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 player in me take offense that you use the term "Space Marine" too lightly. In the future, please make a distinction between "Space Marines" and the legions of copies of the "Colonial Marines" of the Alien movies.

I agree with that, being a fan of the entire Dawn of War series I hate it when people say things like "thivk brained space marines" with things like Gears of War and Halo in their minds. Warhammer 40K Space Marines are a lot different to armoured power suit sldiers in games like GoW and Halo. Especially considering W40K Space Marines tarted off mostly as all strategy games, so its stupid to call them stupid shooters.

 

[drummond13]

While I normally agree with this guy, he's dead wrong about the death of adventure games. They had evolved past both the random deaths gimmick and the issues of what to type in (with the point and click interface) years before the genre died. Even pixel hunting wasn't an issue towards the end. People just started demanding more visceral games.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"What are we going to do, review one-fifth of a game every month for five months?"
Here in the Netherlands, that is exactly how the best selling game magazine did it.
And they just cranked out more pages to also fit screens of Silly BloodFest VIII: The Murdering

 

[Infinatex]

"The genre is typified by gameplay where you WALK around, LOOK at STUFF, TAKE STUFF, and USE STUFF, which sounds more like a garage sale than an adventure."

Hahaha! You forgot the part about most garage sales being more successful the last few attempts at adventure games!

Great article. I'd almost forgotten this genre existed. Now I'm off to play Day of the Tentacle again.

 

[TheHectorFiles]

Hector : Badge of Carnage has re-invented the point and click genre for the iPhone and iPod Touch. If you are a fan of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle then you should check out the game that has been called the best original adventure game on the App Store.
Go to www.thehectorfiles.tv for more information.

 

[DTWolfwood]

im just going to concede that im a shallow gamer and all i want is mindless fun

though i've been really getting into ARPG (ie, ME, BL, BS, DA, FO)

 

[GoodApprentice]

Was it a King's Quest game where you had to knock a troll off the path in front of you by throwing a bag of peas at it's head? After spending an ungodly amount of time trying and dieing to pass that bottleneck, only to find such an annoyingly nonsensical solution, I quit "adventure" gaming on the spot and have never returned. Adventure gaming, you can go straight to hell!

 

[MomoHime64]

DLC & downloadable games released in series really are under-served in the reviews categories in mags (online and off). I may be showing my newbitude, but I don't think there is a column or feature on the Escapist that regularly reviews these sorts of releases. It's all just one-shot reviews of DLC/series games or analyzing some press release or news story about it. I know I'd like to see a regularly featured column that sort of digests the month's upcoming DLC & WiiWare/PSN/XBL games, and reviews what's recently come out. I'm not suggesting a full on in depth review (except where warranted), but something like a Downloader's Digest, perhaps. I've pulled back on my purchases of these types of games & DLC, mostly because they're impulse buys and don't always seem to be worth the money I drop on it - rather hit-or-miss. I wind up partaking of just the much-talked-about games/DLC (like Limbo), but I miss out on some good stuff because I haven't heard much good or bad about it and so I skip it entirely. (In fact, I almost totally skipped on Limbo until I saw the Sackboy LBP homage to it.)

 

[shiajun]

snip

I loved GK and Broken Sword 1, I found TLJ too wordy for my taste, Syberia was completely devoid of verbal feedback with its dozens of empty rooms containing 2 exits and nothing to interact with, as for Still Life, it ruined its chance with its infamous Cookie Recipe puzzle, and the chances of many other recent and serious adventure games which I didn't play because I was still disgusted from playing Still Life.

"Most" was probably not the right word to use, "Many" would have been more accurate. There are several kinds of adventure games fans, some are there for the humor, others are there for a well writen story, others are there for the puzzles, some liked Myst, some didn't, some liked TLJ, some didn't, some are still playing and making interactive fictions, others are damn glad Ron Gilbert came and revolutioned the adventure game formula with Monkey Island...

There is indeed a market for serious adventure games, but you cannot deny the ratio of light-hearted or humorous adventure games versus serious ones used to be 5:1 twenty years ago and five years ago it was 1:10, and if you happened to play adventure games for the humor and all those humorous messages hidden in every interactions with the objects around you, you were starving up until the former LucasArts employees got their shows running with Telltale Games and company.

That said, I think the most important thing to remember here is, humorous or not, verbal feedback is important, it was present in GK, BASS, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island or Leisure Suit Larry, it has been missing in many adventure games recently, and it is something I am glad Telltale put back in the limelight.

I don't know about the ratio....I was only five 20 years ago I have to agree though, there seemed to be a great deal of effort spent on being fun rather than gritty. This hunger you mention, I guess that's the valve Telltale managed to open again, and started to satiate all those years of abandonement. Humor is probably the hardest thing to do right, and it takes really talented people and good ideas to pull if off, so maybe that's why it took so long to get it right again. I just wish someone would do it for other subgenres, since so-so games with very good ideas and atrocious design implementations seem to be the norm now.

 

[GhostLad]

While Telltale might have had the episodic idea first (in the context of this genre), putting all the credit for revitalizing graphic adventure games (which btw is a more precise title for this genre), is a bit too much, I would say.

At the end of the 90s, a new wave of graphic adventure games started coming out with emphasis on good writing, scenic graphics and a step away from cheap deaths and pixelhunts. The Longest Journey, while not a great seller initially, soon grew a good following shortly after it's release in 1999. Syberia won a few "best Adventure Games" awards when it was released in 2002, and a sequel was out only 2 years later. TLJ also gained a sequel eventually, though to mixed reception. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting. By contrast, Telltale started publishing in 2005.

So while Telltale certainly did some good things, they didn't quite revitalize the genre alone; it was already recovering.

 

[Urthman]

It's astonishing how well they brought the Homestar Runner / Strong Bad characters to video game life. Telltale's Strong Bad series are some of the funniest games I've ever played (I am a big fan of the original Strong Bad emails, so your sense of humor may vary).

The puzzles aren't hard, but they're fun, and are a good excuse to explore the crazy worlds and stories.

 

[lanoger]

So while Telltale certainly did some good things, they didn't quite revitalize the genre alone; it was already recovering.

Yes, this.

And where is the love for all the little indie adventure games? The ones like Machinarium which was witty and beautiful and died a horrible death from a 90% piracy rate.

 

[GothmogII]

I'm sorry, I just don't find the new games funny. The voice actors and writing for Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle, and the Tex Murphy games were just spot on. I think it was the constraints the game developers were under that help spark creativity, because when the graphics were bad, they had to make up for it with the jokes. Good trade-off, I think everyone will agree. These days, graphics are better, but the writing really doesn't seem as funny (at least, not in a laugh out loud way).

Still, the new helper functions in game and actual puzzles are much better. Just, no good jokes! All subjective though, isn't it?

That would make sense, if you know, the Original Sam & Max or Day of the Tentacle actually looked bad. Having just played (for the nth time) Sam & Max Hit the Road recently, I can honestly say that it is without a doubt stylistically perfect. Without asking the team behind it themselves, I can't say how much the technology they had to use shaped how they made the game, but, that I don't think it matters what that tech was, as the same guys could probably create the same experience using the engine the modern S&M games run on.

I find the same problem with games like Crysis, and fail see to why they bother with pumping money into the graphics at all if they aren't going to present anything memorable stylistically or aesthetically.

Was it a King's Quest game where you had to knock a troll off the path in front of you by throwing a bag of peas at it's head? After spending an ungodly amount of time trying and dieing to pass that bottleneck, only to find such an annoyingly nonsensical solution, I quit "adventure" gaming on the spot and have never returned. Adventure gaming, you can go straight to hell!

It was a pie I believe. Yeah...

 

[blueskirt]

And where is the love for all the little indie adventure games? The ones like Machinarium which was witty and beautiful and died a horrible death from a 90% piracy rate.

No. No it did not. Why does everyone believe the 90% piracy rate means they went bankrupt? All you've been told is the piracy rate, you've never been told the number of copies they sold. They sold 17 000 copies in a single week-end and trust me, with all the indie bundles and steam sales it's been in, they certainly sold much more over the entire year it's been released.

Yes, the 90% piracy rate is horrible but stop believing they're starving artists.

 

[nik3daz]

Telltale rocks! Final episode of Sam and Max S3 out in a few days! *squee*

Telltale does display the ability to learn from their past experiences and we can see it in the new features that cut away the minutia of adventure games. After playing S2 where they implemented running (Hooray!), I almost died waiting for Sam to walk through the TV Studio replaying S1.

Also, it should be said that the Sam and Max music is awesome.

 

[asterismW]

Ahh, Monkey Island. I loved you when you first came out. I loved you when LucasArts re-released you in HD. I loved you when TellTale Games made you into a new and exciting adventure. And I will love you again when I download Monkey Island 2 Special Edition [http://www.lucasarts.com/games/monkeyisland2/#/home].

 

[Jerakal]

Great article. Long live the genre.

 

[romxxii]

as someone who has his credit card information with Telltale Games, I approve of this article.