Almost inconceivably, Day 2 at E3 was bigger and crazier than Day 1. It was open for more hours, there were more people attending, I got more swag, I saw many more adventure games, and I even represented Adventure Gamers in a human interest piece for Slate Magazine. In every way imaginable, today was all about more.

I started out the day in the South Hall with an early morning meeting (okay, 10am, but it sure felt early) with the folks at White Birds. The developers of such games as Paradise and Sinking Island have a lot of new products on the horizon they think adventure fans will be interested in, including a new franchise for the Nintendo DS called Criminology (or Crime Scene as it’s known in North America), based around forensic investigations. They’ll also be bringing the franchise to Wii, iPhone, and PC, but under the name Scipol (short for “science police”). In fact, White Birds is also dedicated to expanding their other games to different platforms, and for that reason they’re porting their PC game Nikopol to the iPhone. I was able to get a look at an early version, and the graphics are remarkably clear. Their third and final announcement here at E3 is Paris Mystery Files for the DS and Wii. It’s inspired by the Professor Layton series, the biggest difference being that all the puzzles will be related directly to what you’re doing in the story instead of simply assorted brainteasers.

Next I rushed over to the West Hall (no small feat, I assure you) to sit with dtp entertainment, where I was excited to see The Black Mirror 2 and Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island . Black Mirror 2 takes place 12 years after the events of the original title, and gives an all-new protagonist the opportunity to experience the horrors of Black Mirror Castle for himself. The graphics are absolutely amazing, with really impressive amounts of detail creating a consistent sense of atmosphere. Ghost Pirates is the latest from Autumn Moon, and has a unique twist: since you play as a ghost, you can’t talk to anyone, nor interact with many parts of the environment. In fact, you’re invisible to living beings. Because of these restrictions, you have to figure out ways to accomplish things in unusual ways, like moving a few small objects in order to trick a corporeal person into doing what you want.

From dtp it was straight to Wizarbox, who detailed the new version of So Blonde for the Wii and the DS. Unlike a lot of DS and Wii games we’ve been hearing about, this isn’t a port of the PC game, but rather an “alternate” game posing the question: What if Sunny had landed on the other side of the island? All the puzzles after the tutorial are completely new, with many new characters, and almost 100% new locations. Wizarbox only had the DS version available for me to play, but it worked like a charm. The graphics are very impressive considering the system’s limitations, with lots of color and background animations in every scene.

After a break for lunch (bland hot dogs! woo!), I headed to LucasArts and a 45-minute long walkthrough of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Editon , the high-definition remake of the classic game. If you’re not excited about this yet, you should be. I spoke with some of the game’s producers, and these guys are passionate about Monkey Island, even going as far as to say it’s the whole reason they work for LucasArts. All the voice actors (even the Voodoo Lady) from Curse of Monkey Island are back and they sound terrific. You can seamlessly switch back-and-forth between the classic version and the HD version at any time, which makes the HD version look even more impressive. And best of all (at least for me), they gave me the greatest swag in the history of swag: a t-shirt that says “I Found the Treasure of Mêlée Island … and all I got was this Stupid T-Shirt.” That’s right, I now own a replica of the friggin’ treasure of Mêlée Island itself! So cool!

Last but not least, I sat down with Deck13 for a first look at their new adventure game, Haunted . It’s another light-hearted game from the creators of Ankh and Jack Keane. As you’d expect from its title, this game also features ghosts (haven’t you heard? ghosts are the new black), but it has its own unique features to help it stand out. This time you play as a homeless girl in 18th century London who has a coterie of ghost friends that follow her around, each with unique capabilities to help her solve puzzles. It has a similar art style to Deck13’s previous titles, but with a lot more detail in the backgrounds and some more advanced tech driving the graphics. It’s very early on, so it could change a lot before it comes out, but it definitely looks interesting.

Of course, I did other things today as well, including playing games like The Beatles: Rock Band and Brütal Legend. I talked with a programmer at DoubleFine, slyly suggesting they work on an adventure game next, but she wasn’t going for it. She suggested I take it up “with Tim [Schafer].” Sure, I’ll get right on that. If you have any desire to look at my big face or hear my nasally voice, check out www.slatev.com, the video version of Slate Magazine, and click on “Gaming Through the Recession”. They interviewed a bunch of people at E3 about how the gaming industry has been affected by the economic downturn, and for whatever reason one of those people was me. You’ll see me at 2 min 56 seconds, and then once more before the video ends.

Tomorrow is the last day of E3, and I don’t expect to see many more adventure games, so this may be the final daily round-up at AG. I am taking one final crack at getting in to see Heavy Rain at Sony (after being rebuked today), so keep your fingers crossed and start passing the hat around for bail money. In any case, there’s no rest for the weary-from-lugging-swag, as there are detailed previews still to come, so stick around over the next little while for E3: The Aftermath!

It’s time once again for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, known to its friends and admirers as E3. Just those two little digits can send a video game enthusiast’s heart aflutter. It isn’t quite the spectacle it’s been in years past, but this was my first E3 experience, and as a life-long fan of video games, having the opportunity to actually attend myself on behalf of Adventure Gamers was a dream come true. The first day of the three-day event is the shortest, six hours instead of eight, yet somehow I managed to get some hands-on time with 17 unreleased games (only four adventure games, so don’t get your hopes that high). So does it live up to the hype? Did I get lots of “swag?” Was it as fun and crazy as we’ve all imagined it to be? Yup, yup, and yup again!

As soon as the doors opened to the West Hall (there are two full-sized halls, West and South, and I didn’t even step foot in the South today), everyone swarmed in and started seeking out the biggest and most important games. While most of my journalistic colleagues headed to God of War III or Modern Warfare 2, I stayed true to the cause (at least at first) and went right for Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box for the Nintendo DS. The sequel to one of my favorite all-time puzzle-adventure games has finally been localized for North America, and I couldn’t be happier. The demo only lasted 10 minutes, but that was time enough to remind me that every puzzle indeed has an answer.

Nintendo definitely had the biggest presence of any company in the West Hall. After Professor Layton, I couldn’t resist checking out a bunch of other really cool games, like Wii Sports Resort (my first swag of the day: a Frisbee), and New Super Mario Bros., a side-scroller in the classic Super Mario Bros.-style but designed specifically for four players at a time, which was only announced just a few hours earlier at the Nintendo press conference. If you’re an RPG fan, you’ll want to check out Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story for the DS. The brothers have been miniaturized and are living inside Bowser’s body, so naturally they’re forcing him to finally use his powers for good. Returning a little closer to the genre we all know and love, I next checked out the new Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion for DS, a hidden-object adventure that also features interrogation puzzles and color-matching. No sign of Another Code R for Wii, which is a shame, as it looks like one of the most promising adventures ever to hit the adventure-friendly console, and I’d have loved the chance to put it through its paces.

Some of the other big presences in the West Hall were Sony and Capcom. I couldn’t bring myself to get in long lines for the hottest Sony games, but I did manage to play Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (more shoot ‘em action with Nathan Drake) and Batman: Arkham Asylum, which features my new favorite feature: Detective Vision. All the baddies carrying guns show up in red, which lets you know Batman can’t tackle them head-on, and instead you’re forced to take to the shadows (or the rafters) to sneakily take the thugs out one at a time. On the Capcom side of things, I had a round with Tatsunoku vs. Capcom (various anime characters battle Capcom characters, Street Fighter-style) and Dark Void, which is the lovechild between Gears of War and The Rocketeer. The main reason for being there, however, went sadly unfulfilled, at least for today. Capcom isn’t showing Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth at all, while Sony is showing Heavy Rain behind closed doors only. I’m as disappointed as you are, but there’s still a chance yet to see Quantic Dream’s ambitous new thriller, and you can be sure I’ll do my best to get on the other side of those doors before all is said and done.

In the afternoon, I fared much better on the adventure front when I sat down for a nice hour-long chat with the good folks at City Interactive, the Polish developer behind the Chronicles of Mystery and Art of Murder games. They’ve got new titles in the works for both franchises slated for later this year. In fact, the former is actually getting a dual platform treatment. Chronicles of Mystery: Curse of the Ancient Temple for Nintendo DS is a retelling of the original Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual, but adjusted for a more casual audience (more hidden objects, for example), while Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life is the next full-fledged point-and-click PC adventure, bringing back Sylvie Leroux, who is now in pursuit of, well, the Tree of Life! City also revealed they’re hard at work on Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny , in which FBI agent Nicole Bonnet returns to track a killer who leaves playing cards on the bodies of the victims. Production on Cards of Destiny is so early that they didn’t have anything for me to see first-hand, but they at least want fans to know the series will be back.

We’ll have a more detailed preview of City Interactive’s games in the coming days, as well as longer looks at Professor Layton and Women’s Murder Club, but with two more days of E3 still to come, I’m afraid there’s only time for these teasers for now. So that’s Day 1 in the bag, but tomorrow is going to be even bigger and busier, with two more hours of show, and five times as many appointments with adventure game companies. If games like Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island and Black Mirror 2 mean anything to you, or you’re interested in finding out what’s in store from the likes of White Birds, Deck13, and a little company called LucasArts, stick around for tomorrow’s report! Come to think of it… Yipes! I better bring a few extra pencils, and maybe another notepad while I’m at it. See you then!

A recurring theme in the forums is control systems. Which is your favourite? What do you think of this new game's setup? Isn't point-and-click an antique that should be consigned to history? For me, all of these questions miss two vital aspects of player character control that are both more important than the mere mechanics.

The first is that the control method should be easy to use. This goes some way to explaining the enduring nature of point-and-click. Since it simply makes use of the mouse in a way that users apply in all aspects of computer operation, it is arguably the most intuitive control system available. Adding a variety of icons accessible by clicking the right mouse button, you can even allow for a wide variety of actions to be undertaken with the same left-click. This is not to say that I'm inextricably wedded to the point-and-click interface. Back as far as Grim Fandango I've used a variety of control methods and found myself ultimately comfortable with many of them. My sole requirement is that, after a brief learning curve, I should be able to achieve everything without having to think about it. If I have to break off from a game to check the manual for the talk key then the designers have failed.

Secondly, and far more importantly, I must actually have control. This is an area where adventure games tend to suffer much more than most other genres. A first-person shooter will allow you to run into a patch of open ground in front of a machine gun nest. A strategy game will allow you to march your troops into the enemy base one at a time. Even racing games will allow you to potter along at 10 miles an hour if the fancy takes you. By contrast, adventures are all too often full of situations where the PC will refuse to do something. There's nothing interesting down that street, I don't want to talk to that person, and no earth-shattering emergency is going to make me reach into a muddy puddle to grab a key. I appreciate that the story-driven nature of adventures makes diversions a lot more work than just an extra bit of map. However, every time a player runs up against one of these blocks, they are jarred out of the game world the authors have tried to create. Allowing players to perform actions that are dumb or even outright suicidal reinforces the realism of the game for them. It is my prerogative to open the hold of a sunken submarine, even if I know a hideous creature from beyond, intent on destruction, lurks inside. (Prisoner of Ice allowed me to do just that, and yes, the creature did kill me immediately)

Developers won’t capture my interest in controls alone; I do still demand more from a game than that. But if they get that part right, they’re well on their way to getting me lost within their world.

We've just introduced some new ways for readers to stay up-to-date with Adventure Gamers. Firstly, we are now firmly on the Twitter bandwagon! If you are an existing Twitter user and wish to receive links and responses to the latest adventure game news, you can now follow us. Our Twitter name is, appropriately, @AdventureGamers.

Facebook is another social networking community where we've set up an official presence. By becoming a fan of Adventure Gamers on Facebook, you'll receive regular updates to your Facebook stream.

However, these are two-way streets. More than just update feeds, we set up these channels for additional reader interaction and participation. If you direct tweets or Facebook messages to us, we'll receive them. Sometimes we'll re-tweet links or updates that are of interest to other adventure game fans.

To top it off, Adventure Gamers now has streaming videos. It has been a long time coming but we've finally begun putting trailers on YouTube and embedding them in our news posts. Take a look at the Ace Attorney Investigations, Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper and Another Code R trailers.

For now, videos appear only in our news posts, but we're hoping to eventually integrate them with other pages. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel and automatically see new trailers as they're uploaded by us.

We hope you'll join us at these sites! If there are other places where you think we should be represented, let us know.

Since I finished my three-part “sky is kinda falling” blog series a while back, we’ve mourned a major publisher going bankrupt, witnessed the high-priced Wii and DS launch of Broken Sword Director’s Cut, and seen 432 hidden object games be released… Okay, that last one may be an exaggeration, but casual titles are out in full force these days, so between the three issues raised, I guess I wasn't too far off. Now, for the record, even I wasn’t expecting some of the changes to happen this quickly, and I still contend that the real effects of deep-rooted issues have yet to truly be felt. The games releasing now are all the tail ends of the previous “generation” of production cycles, after all. Those were all greenlit under the assumption of a still-healthy market 12 or 18 months, even two years ago. It’s the new generation I’m more worried about. Will as many games get started at all in the current climate, or be seen through to completion? I’m convinced the answer is “no” (I know of some concerning evidence already, though I’m not really at liberty to discuss details). “How many?” is the question that really remains to be seen.

But that’s the despair just getting rehashed all over again. When I first wrote those articles, it was always my intention to follow it up with a message of hope, which I tried to indicate still existed, though perhaps that particular message was drowned out previously. Unfortunately, it took until now to actually get back to the blog, so the negativity lingered a little longer than I intended. I’d joke that it took me this long just to think of any reasons for hope, but while there’s probably a bit more truth in that than I’d like, really it’s because I was sidetracked with other things. Between an overwhelming number of new previews, interviews, reviews, and of course the inaugural Aggie Awards, my time has been pretty much taken up with current site content. And really, isn’t that a symbol of hope right there? Even while discussing dark times, there’s still a steady stream of new games to deal with, and there are always some good ones to celebrate at each year end. Whatever challenges the genre faces, I expect no different when the 2009 Aggies roll around.

Maybe that’s just blind optimism, though. What legitimate hopes are there really? There are no guarantees, of course, and perhaps the answer falls something short of tangible proof, but I think it qualifies as reasoned confidence. Here’s a bit of rationale for that faith.

Global popularity

While the genre always seems to be teetering on the brink of disinterest in major English language markets, it actually seems to be picking up steam in some parts of the world. Germany and France have long been leaders in this regard, but now that influence seems to be spreading out even farther. The Nintendo DS has made Japan a significant player on the worldwide adventure stage, and new game announcements seem to be coming from everywhere: in recent months alone, a whopping FOUR games from Italy, one from Malaysia, another from Israel, plus plenty more already in development throughout eastern Europe.

Now, these (mainly) independent development teams will face all the same challenges of any fledgling company in a niche business, so it’s unlikely the games will all come to fruition. But the encouraging part is simply the interest itself. If more games are being made worldwide, it simply stands to reason that more of them will succeed. That still leaves the not-so-minor issue of localization if they’re ever to benefit us, but the first goal is to have games to localize, and with enough developers in enough countries trying, some are bound to see their way clear. Our English language markets may be the genre slackers that rely on the efforts of other nations, but hey, so long as someone’s taking the lead, there’s something positive to follow.

UK publishing strength

When discussing the plight of North American publishers early in this series, I mentioned that the strength of the UK publishing market wasn’t strong enough to support the (English language) genre on its own. And while I still contend that’s true in the long run, I’ve been surprised and duly impressed by what I’ve seen out of Britain in recent months. Kalypso Media has really stepped to the plate with Ceville and the upcoming Gobliiins 4, while Ascaron continues its solid contribution with the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Fenimore Fillmore’s Revenge. It’s not a lot, but it’s encouraging nonetheless. By no means is it a good thing that North American publishers are disappearing, but it does force one’s attention to alternatives, and maybe the UK will play a bigger role in a new, more Euro-centric adventure landscape.

Digital distribution

I already touched on this in one of the earlier blogs, so I won’t discuss it in detail again. I’ll just say that its time has apparently come. Not “on the horizon”, not “slowly building momentum”. It’s arrived, with not one, not two, but FIVE games released exclusively through digital distribution since the last blog entry. Gamers may embrace it only reluctantly for a while yet, but if one wants the likes of Emerald City Confidential, The Legend of Crystal Valley, and Ankh 3 today, it’s download or bust… Or perhaps waiting many long months in the hopes of a boxed release – a release, which, if it ever comes at all, will come only on the shoulders of its downloadable success. We’re only at the very beginning of the digital future, but the future is apparently now, whether we like it or not. Not all publishers are on board yet, but the short-sighted holdouts are getting fewer and farther between.

De-saturating the genre

This may sound like a backwards step – and it is – but hear me out. While it’s long since stopped being a mainstream market force with AAA-headliner titles, the adventure genre has nevertheless seen relatively good times in recent years. As AG staff veterans will attest, it was once a struggle even to find ten worthwhile names just to fill up the Hype-o-Meter. For the last several years, it’s been a question of which games to leave off. In other words, though clearly not the genre heyday of old, there have been lots of interesting adventures of late.

So far so good.

More games mean more potential sales, of course. And there’s nothing that piques a publisher's interest like more sales, so more publishers began getting involved. Then more developers saw opportunity, and so more games were announced. Gamers just lapped it all up as good news, and for a while there it was. But, just like all unrealistic expectations of unending growth inevitably collapse, so the genre hit its ceiling somewhere along the way. See, more games didn’t mean more gamERS. Or at least, not nearly as many as would be required to sustain that kind of ongoing expansion. At some point, then, the same niche market became over-saturated with adventures. I’m pulling simple numbers out of a hat for example, but where once only two adventure games were released, a fan could afford to buy both. When three were released, they could still afford two. When five were released, they still bought two, and three went unpurchased. And those three unpurchased meant trouble for their companies. And since gamers made different choices of their two, it meant shared trouble for every company. It’s basic math: when there’s less money to go around than there are products requiring it, some or even all of those products are destined to fail.

I don’t know when exactly we hit that point, but hit it we did. There are no reliable sales figures for games (and even if there were, those would tell only a small part of the story), but enough adventure companies have indicated (to me, unofficially) the financial challenges to know that they weren’t alone in feeling the pinch. Lighthouse is only the most extreme example (so far, but let’s hope it doesn’t spread much beyond that). Sure, the failure of their UK distribution partner (uh oh, there’s that problem back again) and the troubles of their parent company were the final nails in the company coffin, but they weren’t bought out in the first place because they were thriving, but struggling fiscally. Underselling products will do that.

I know, I know, this sounds like the downer stuff all over again, but the point is, it was time to scale back anyway. As much as ideally the thought of more games, more selection is better all around, the reality is that we’re all better off with fewer games better made. And hopefully that’s one of the secondary benefits of the obstacles facing the genre today. Instead of flooding the market with so many games that few can succeed, perhaps fewer games will mean all can succeed. The challenge, of course, is to ensure that it’s the BETTER games that get picked up and endorsed, but for that we’ll just need to hope that current developers continue to hone their craft and publishers show they’re brighter than they act sometimes.

There are other reasons for hope beyond these points, some of which have been mentioned previously. The casual market could yet broaden the adventure game fanbase, while indies will continue to provide a solid contribution that isn’t so dependent on fluctuating market forces. And who knows, the belt-tightening for other publishers might just make lower risk (albeit lower payoff) investments like adventure games worth a closer look in future. Wishful thinking? Sure. Impossible? Definitely not.

I realize that none of these reasons amounts to anything more than a silver lining in a dark cloud, but that’s the reality we face, and isn’t that better than grumbling about the lousy weather?